Metro users urged to travel earlier to Newcastle game due to disruption

Football supporters heading to tonight’s Newcastle United game at St James’ Park are being advised to allow extra time to get into city centre on the Tyne and Wear Metro due to a train availability being impacted by the severe cold weather.

Nexus, the public body which owns and manages Metro, recommends that fans travel in earlier for the 8pm kick off due to the shortage of Metro trains, which have developed faults in the subzero temperatures.

Metro services are running to all destinations but to a reduced frequency after to ten trains were withdrawn so far today, Saturday 2 December.

A Nexus spokesperson said:

“The severe cold has caused a high number of train failures and our message to fans heading to the Newcastle match is to allow plenty of extra time to get there. It is best to travel into the city centre earlier if you are heading in on Metro.

“We’re sorry for the inconvenience caused to customers. Our train fleet is over 40 years old and when the temperatures dips below freezing the old trains tend to develop more faults. This is why we are in the process of introducing a new train fleet which will allow us to overcome this issue.

“The Stadler team at the depot are working as hard as they can to repair the affected trains and get them fixed and ready to go back into service.

“After the game has ended supporters are advised that the city centre stations are going to be busy. Our customer service teams will be managing the queues to get everyone on to a train as quicky as they possibly can, so please bear with us.”

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