Tyne and Wear Metro

Uncommon card · No. 120877

The Tyne and Wear Metro is a light rail rapid transit system serving Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and Sunderland (together forming Tyne and Wear). The owners Nexus have described it as "Britain's first light rapid transit system". The system is owned and operated by Nexus. The Metro was originally conceived during the early 1970s, incorporating much of the infrastructure formerly used by the Tyneside Electrics suburban network, with some elements dating back as far as 1834. Construction work began in 1974, the majority of this activity being centred on the building of new tunnels and bridges that linked with several preexisting railway lines that were converted. In parallel, a purpose-built fleet of Metrocars was procured. The first section of the Tyne and Wear Metro was opened during August 1980, and construction of the original network was completed in March 1984. Early on, Metro operations were integrated with local bus services, although this practice...

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