Meeting the people Metros rolling and

Reporter EACH night, every Metro train’s shift comes to an end and is brought here to be patched up for another day on the tracks.

Snuggled away behind a residential cul de sac in Gosforth, the Nexus depot is where the hard work of keeping a key part of the region’s infrastructure functioning is done.

It’s an uphill battle: the Metro system opened in 1980 and the trains we use every day are the same ones we used then.

Now 37 years old and looking every day of it, they were only supposed to be in use for 35 years.

Discussions are under way with the government to provide over £362m worth of funding to replace them but they won’t arrive until 2021 at the earliest – and Nexus accepts that target is under threat.

Passengers know all too well the increasingly frequent sound of the voice coming over the announcement system at Metro stations: fault, delays, apologies.

Paul Patrick leads the team of more than 90 skilled technicians and mechanics who toil through the night to try and prevent that from occurring. Joining the staff at the depot 22 years ago as a 16-year-old apprentice, Paul admits it’s getting harder to keep the show on the road. He said: “The more we do it, the more experience we have and each train has its own quirks and faults that we know to look out for. But now we’ve started to encounter problems that we’ve never seen before.

“And we’re on our own – this stock is so old that there are no experts out there any more, it’s on us.”

When asked what the biggest issue is, he answers instantly: “Power. These trains run on 40-year-old engines and that’s why we get so many overhead line failures. We have a lot of problems with doors too, but power is the big one.”

He oversees a smooth operation at the depot: every night, the 90 trains are cleaned, inspected and mended and put through a giant car wash-style contraption every other night. Parts for this type of vehicle are no longer available to purchase so the majority of components are crafted on site, making the depot almost selfsufficient, a unique asset.

And the staff have to do it all in a huge brick shed built in the 1920s that isn’t exactly fit for purpose – in fact, the trains stick out the ends when they’re all in, meaning the doors can’t be closed.

Biting winter air pours through the wind tunnel created in the cavity of the long shed, making it an inhospitable working environment for staff (money for a new depot is included in the funding application). Nexus boss Tobyn Hughes is honest about the scale of the problem: they measure the reliability of the system by calculating how many kilometres are travelled per fault which causes a fourminute delay.

The Metro manages about 6,000km – in London, the Tube does up to 10,000km and defines a fault as causing a two-minute delay. Mr Hughes said: “These depot staff are the real heroes of Nexus. Day in and day out, they’re here doing what they can to make sure these trains keep performing. They have to make it work every single day and they’ve come to know these trains like the back of their hands. We have 90 cars and, during the two peak times of the day, we need to have 74 in action in order to meet that Paul Patrick demand.

“Even though that’s generous breathing space it’s still very hard to achieve because of the age and condition of the trains. It’s the staff who work here who make sure we can make it out each day.”

Such is the challenge of keeping 74 carriages fighting fit that four ancient-looking trains which weren’t upgraded and were supposed to be mothballed can still sometimes be seen rattling round the tracks. The rolling stock got a “light touch” upgrade in 2015 but it would cost at least £150m to keep it in use for another 15 years, poor value for money considering they could be entirely replaced and last for decades for £362m.

Mr Hughes concedes that, unless the government give their preferred funding method the green light this side of Christmas, it’s highly unlikely we’ll see new trains by 2021.

He added: “If we don’t replace them by then, we’ll have to make swingeing changes to peak timetables and withdraw services. We take 12 million car journeys off the road each year – if we can’t provide that any more then congestion will grow and that hurts the local economy and people’s health.”

Until then, the night shift at the Metro depot will keep working through the night, doing what they can to keep the trains just about rolling.