The Tyne and Wear Metro ’s oldest ever driver has taken a well-earned retirement aged 75, after clocking up more than 40 years of service and carrying millions of passengers on his trains. Richard Neesham has bid an emotional farewell to a job that became a life-long career spanning more than four decades.
Richard, of Fawdon in Newcastle, first started driving Metros in 1981, not long after the network first opened. And he has been there ever since, rain or shine.
Even the 3am, starts haven’t put him off after all these years. Richard’s length of service makes him the oldest person to drive a train on the Metro system.
