(12 Jul 2026, 3:19 pm)Adrian wrote Errr... no they weren't!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-66210398
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgl6pp8gg85o
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-64962083
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/nor...k-27324521
No one can doubt that they've been a workhorse for the region for decades, but people will only judge them by their last experiences in them. For the best part of the last 10 years, they've been problematic and super unreliable, with Metro themselves admitting it's a battle to keep them on the rails. We even lost the peak extras due to Metro not being able to supply enough stock.
On the modern units, my only real issue with them is the lack of overhead grab rails. That's a real design flaw when the units are crowded. Everything else about them is a notable improvement on what we had, including the air conditioning, which I found really effective even during a heatwave. It actually works better than I thought it would do, because unlike say a car on an Azuma, the air conditioning in the 555 cars isn't operating in a sealed environment. Every time those doors open at a station, warm air is coming back in.
You may think 'teething issues' is people sucking up to Metro, but anyone who has worked within any kind of systems, development or infrastructure role knows that it's often part and parcel to getting the service right.
people are comparing a train made in the 1970s to a train made in the 2020s... back then much more money was put into things like this and it was treated millions of times more important. the quality of our new metros are great when compared to other recent trains. its a very different time now politically, honestly were lucky with what we got because metros certainly aren't putting money in the pockets of oil companies.