West Midlands Metro: Total Tram Chaos, Wolverhampton & Wednesbury Parkway-Friday 8th September 2023

Описание: WELL, where do we start?
We set off to Priestfield and Wolverhampton to film the trams on driver training to Wolverhampton Railway Station. We captured a few movements but it was clear that there were issues from the outset with a complete power failure between Wednesbury Great Western Street and Priestfield so we watched the first couple of trams setting back at The Royal before CAF Urbos 100, 39 arrived and the cones were removed and it carried on to Wolverhampton Railway Station and back. The next few followed and then it stopped due to an issue with a broken down tram on the corner of Bull Street and Corporation Street towards Wolverhampton. This involved trams 45AD, 34, 37, 53.
Unfortunately, many trams had passed the broken down tram and had become trapped between Bull Street and Edgbaston Village leaving very few trams to operate between Bull Street and The Royal causing massive gaps in traffic including a huge wait between Urbos 100, 56 showing "Bull Street" departing and Urbos 3, 24 arriving.
Tram 24 had all its windows closed and these older cars that are known as "sweat boxes" lived up to their name, the interior temperature being 31C!!
We left it at Wednesbury Parkway and awaited a huge queue of trams that arrived from Birmingham performing all sorts of weird and wonderful manoeuvres as follows:
37 arrived from Birmingham showing "THE ROYAL" but entered Platform 3 and then reversed into Wednesbury depot.
25 arrived from Birmingham showing "THE ROYAL" but entered Platform 3 and then reversed into Wednesbury depot. 39 was immediately behind it and continued to The Royal.
45AD arrived from Birmingham showing "The Royal" but pulled up on Platform 2 and emptied all of its customers before continuing to the crossover on the Wolverhampton side of the stop whereupon it crossed over onto the Birmingham line and came back to Edgbaston Village.
34 then arrived showing "THE ROYAL" and continued towards Wolverhampton.
51 arrived from Birmingham into Platform 3 whereupon it reversed into depot.
48 arrived from Birmingham showing "The Royal" and entered Platform3 disgorging all of its customers. It then ran into depot.
47 arrived from Birmingham showing "The Royal" and entered Platform 2 and carried on towards Wolverhampton.
57 arrived from Birmingham showing "The Royal" and entered Platform 2. It then reversed and ran "bang line" towards Edgbaston Village in service crossing onto the Birmingham line.
39 then arrived from Wolverhampton showing "Edgbaston Village" but crossed onto Platform 3 disgorging all of its customers to wait for the next tram to Birmingham some 10 minutes later. It ran into depot.
53 then arrived from Birmingham showing "The Royal" and continued towards Wolverhampton.
34 then arrived from Wolverhampton and swallowed up the massive queue caused by 39 offloading its customers earlier.
56 arrived from Birmingham showing "The Royal" and continued towards Wolverhampton.
43 arrived from Birmingham showing "The Royal" and continued towards Wolverhampton.
47 arrived from Wolverhampton and continued towards Edgbaston Village.
53 arrived from Wolverhampton and continued towards Edgbaston Village.
24 arrived from Birmingham showing "THE ROYAL" and continued towards Wolverhampton.
46 arrived from Birmingham showing "Edgbaston Village" but continued towards Wolverhampton.
41 arrived from Birmingham showing "The Royal" as 56 arrived from Wolverhampton showing "Edgbaston Village" and continued towards Birmingham.
43 arrived from Wolverhampton showing "The Royal" but continued towards Birmingham.
We travelled on 43 to Black Lake and finished filming with a quick shot of Urbos 3, 30, in the depot yard at Wednesbury.
On top of all the movements, the "at stop" announcements were still informing customers that trams were running to Wolverhampton St.George's despite the fact that, since 29th August 2023, trams are terminating at The Royal and are not likely to run to St.George's for some time as the service will run to Wolverhampton Railway Station whilst the short line to St.George's is upgraded.
The screens were also stating that tram tickets were acceptable on buses from "The Royals" rather than The Royal.
So not a good day for West Midlands Metro thought it was obvious that staff were doing their best to restore service as quickly as possible.
None of the trams that ran in were replaced.

So, a complete run down of trams used between 08:30 and 14:30 is:
CAF Urbos 3: 24 25 34 37
CAF Urbos 100: 39 41 43 45AD 46 47 48 51 53 56 57

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a Podbaba Transport presentation.
8th September 2023