UK: Preliminary work on the £103m Metro Flow double-tracking project in South Tyneside has begun.
Buckingham Group Contracting Ltd, which last year won a £55m contract for the construction stage of the scheme, will now begin upgrading and electrifying at 1∙5 kV DC an infrequently used freight line in South Tyneside to enable it to carry Tyne & Wear Metro services to and from South Shields. The work will include lowering the track to provide space for overhead lines under bridges and overpasses.
The upgraded freight line will be used to effectively double the last three single-track sections of the Newcastle – South Shields route between Pelaw and Bede stations, totalling 3 km, in order to eliminate bottlenecks. The work mirrors similar interventions undertaken elsewhere on the network in the past.
The Metro Flow project is seen as key to future expansion of the light rail network. It is expected to boost capacity across the network by an extra 24 000 passengers per day, increase the frequency of Metro trains to every 10 min outside the Newcastle city centre area, and provide enhanced resilience and surge capacity for major events.
The government’s Transforming Cities Fund is contributing £95m towards the total cost of £103m.
In order to meet the extra frequency, Nexus is using some of this funding to buy four extra trains on top of the initial 42 funded by the government as part of a separate £362m investment programme.
According to Nexus, the work will last for approximately 12 months, between February 2022 and February 2023, with the most intensive track works taking place between September and December this year during a 12-week line closure.
‘The key challenge lies in achieving the programme, which has no room to change as everything has to be ready for a blockade that cannot be moved, straight after the Great North Run in September’, said Rob Harwood, Construction Director for Buckingham. ‘We then have three months to undertake the main construction works.’
