Footage has been released showing the Tyne and Wear Metro’s long-awaited new trains moving for the first time.
The £362m fleet is due to start arriving in the North East by the end of this year and the first of the carriages to roll off the production line are now being put through their paces on a test track in Switzerland. A video released by Metro operator Nexus shows a completed train running through manufacturer Stadler’s testing facility in Erlen, before it is sent to a bigger track in the Czech Republic where some Metro drivers will get the chance to drive it for the first time.
The trains will then have to be tested on the Tyne and Wear Metro network itself after they start arriving this December and will be put into passenger service for the first time in 2023. The latest progress on the fleet comes after the most detailed pictures yet of the modern carriages were released in August.
