First trams run on Wednesbury-Dudley tramline - but only for a few hundred yards

The first trams have run on long-awaited West Midlands Metro line to Dudley - albeit only for a few hundred yards.

As our pictures show, a fleet of new trams is at the operator’s Wednesbury depot awaiting deployment on the the four-mile line, due to open on August 28.

But the service cannot open to the public until transport inspectors are satisfied that it passes a series of rigorous tests.

‘Track-finishing’ work was taking place in Castle Hill, Dudley, last week, leading to overnight road closures and the disruption of bus services.

A source at Transport for West Midlands said that the first trams had run along the junction which links the new line to the existing route from Wolverhampton to Birmingham.

“Trams have run on the junction, to check that everything is working correctly,” the source said.

“Elsewhere, the testing so far has been done with small trucks that they pull along, to check the lines are all correct.”

The new tramway largely follows the route of the former railway line, which closed to freight traffic in 1993.

It is the biggest extension to the West Midland tram network since the original Wolverhampton-Birmingham line opened in May 1999.

It will link up with the original tram line the new Wednesbury junction, passing through Dudley Port railway station and Tipton before terminating just past Flood Street.

It will eventually continue to the Merry Hill shopping centre when a second phase is complete.

The last trams into Dudley - including a service from Wednesbury - ran on March 1, 1930 before they were replaced with Midland Red bus routes.

Work started on the line, which was originally to have run to Brierley Hill town centre, in February 2020, with the scheme due to have been completed in its entirety by the end of 2023.

Delays caused by the coronavirus lockdown saw the completion date rescheduled for summer 2024. But in July that year, the Express & Star revealed that costs had ballooned to £550 million, prompting leaders of the West Midlands Combined Authority to mothball the Dudley-Brierley Hill stretch of the line until further funding could be found.

In June 2023 it was announced the total cost of the scheme had risen to £649 million - taking it 45 per cent over budget, although the decision to scrap the northern leg of HS2 released funding to eventually extend the line as far as the Merry Hill shopping centre.

In July 2024 it was announced that the opening of the Wednesbury-Dudley line opening of the Wednesbury-Dudley line would be put back to autumn 2025.

At the start of October, a frustrated Patrick Harley, leader of Dudley Council, told the Express & Star he did not expect the tram to be open to the public until after Christmas, and at the start of this year an opening date of August 28 was confirmed.