Overview:
The Tyne and Wear Metro is a rapid transit and light rail system in North East England which serves Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, South Tyneside, North Tyneside and Sunderland. It opened in 1980 and is roughly around 46 miles in length. It operates two lines, Airport to South Hylton and St James to South Shields. There is a total of 60 stations along the Network.
Rolling Stock:
Since 1980 the rolling stock for metro has remained the same, recently in the past few years the Metrocars have been refurbished however there are still a small number of Metrocars which remain untouched. These Metrocars are usually coupled together whilst in service.
In addition to Metrocars, Metro does have 3 battery-electric locomotives which are used to pull engineering trains around the network.
Train Simulator Benefits:
I believe this route would bring a number of benefits to Train Simulator, we would be able to run Metro services all over the 46 mile network, we would also be able to simulate Northern services from Newcastle to Sunderland (calling Heworth) and we could run Grand Central services from Newcastle to Sunderland.
If the route was to be created then I'm sure someone would extend the route from Sunderland through to Eaglescliffe, therefore creating a perfect route to make use of the Class 180 currently available..