Unclear when trams might return to service
A date for the much-anticipated return of the broken down West Midlands Metro system could be announced in the coming weeks.
The region’s trams were taken off track earlier this month after cracks were discovered in the door frames of vehicles from the Metro’s older fleet.
Passenger services were suspended with Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) bosses unable to give even an estimated date for when they might be resumed.
But senior executives from Spanish manufacturer CAF met with Mayor Andy Street and TfWM on Tuesday for urgent talks on resolving the issues.
Engineers from Spain and other parts of the world experienced in dealing with such problems are currently in Wednesbury helping carry out repairs and training up West Midlands workers on the job.
It is hoped the programme will quicken up as more people are trained on how to carry out the repairs.
Following the meeting, TfWM executive director Anne Shaw said: “We’ve got their full co-operation in terms of trying to make sure we’ve got the trams repaired as fast as possible to get the service back up and running as soon as we can.
“We’re still working through the details but they are becoming a lot clearer now so in a couple of weeks time, I’ll be a lot confident of giving further information about when the services will resume.
Josu Imaz, CEO rolling stock for CAF, said they had their ‘best engineers’ on the job and were looking to get a reliable service resumed as soon as possible.
The work involves stripping the vehicles and replacing the broken frames with new ones which have been strengthened.
Engineers can only replace one frame on either side of a tram at the same time to ensure further damage isn’t caused.
In total, 21 of the Urbos 3 fleet which were delivered in 2014 are affected.
TfWM said it is looking to get 12-15 back in use safely in order to bring back a reasonable service for the public.
