West Midlands Metro services will resume in June
Bosses are confident there will be a full service before the start of the Commonwealth Games
They've announced the news this afternoon.
Read their statement below:
UPDATE FROM MIDLAND METRO LIMITED – OPERATOR OF WEST MIDLANDS METRO
We can confirm that West Midlands Metro services will resume in the week beginning Sunday June 5, with trams running between Wolverhampton St George’s and Birmingham Bull Street.
This return to service has been enabled by the replacement of tram body panels progressing to schedule. We are now looking to accelerate repairs to get more trams back out on our network as quickly and safely as possible to restore a full service.
We are working with CAF as the manufacturer to recruit more engineers to carry out the specialist repair work as well as moving trams off-site to a third-party facility – with the first of these having left the Wednesbury depot this week.
With this acceleration we remain very confident that a full service will be in operation in good time ahead of this summer’s Commonwealth Games.
We of course share passengers’ frustrations that the original timescale provided by CAF to restore a service next week has not been met. Despite assurances that enough trams would be available, they have now informed us that this is now not possible until the following week due to further snagging work required before the trams meet the quality standards required for acceptance into service.
So as not to delay the reinstatement of service any further than absolutely necessary, once this essential snagging work has been carried out some trams will be running without being fully wrapped in blue vinyl branding around the doors. This will not impact their safety or performance.
We would once again like to sincerely apologise for the inconvenience the suspension of service has caused. Further updates will be issued in due course.