The Class 599 Metrocars that have shuttled passengers across North East England since 1980 are making their final runs this week. Half a billion kilometres later, an era ends.
This week, if you happen to be in Newcastle, you can do something that will never be possible again: ride one of the original Tyne and Wear Metro trains. The last of the Class 599 Metrocars — the angular, yellow-and-white carriages that have defined North East England's metro system since the very first day it opened — are making their final guaranteed passenger runs from Monday June 22 through Friday June 26, running on the Yellow and Green lines between 9:30 AM and 5:30 PM.
It is, by any measure, a remarkable innings.
Half a billion kilometres
The Class 599 fleet entered service in August 1980. Back then, Margaret Thatcher had been Prime Minister for barely a year, the Moscow Olympics were about to begin, and the idea of a driverless metro train was still science fiction. Ninety carriages were built, and over the next 46 years they racked up numbers that border on the absurd: half a billion kilometres of running and 1.7 billion customer journeys.
To put 500 million kilometres in perspective, that is roughly 1,300 trips to the Moon and back — or enough to circle the Earth 12,500 times. Every one of those kilometres was maintained by teams at the Gosforth depot, who have spent entire careers keeping these trains running long past what anyone in 1980 would have predicted.
Why they lasted so long
The Class 599s were not supposed to be eternal. They were designed for a 30-year lifespan, which should have meant retirement around 2010. But the money for replacement trains proved elusive. A mid-life refurbishment in the 2000s bought more time, but by the 2020s the fleet was deep into borrowed years — mechanical reliability declining, spare parts increasingly difficult to source, and passenger expectations rising.
The procurement of a replacement fleet, ultimately won by Swiss manufacturer Stadler, became the largest and most complex project in the system's history. At a cost of £362 million, all 46 new trains have now been delivered, and the full Stadler fleet is expected to be in service by the end of 2026.
What happens to the old trains
Most of the 90 carriages are heading to a specialist scrapyard in Bishop Auckland to be broken down and recycled. Two have been saved: one has been donated to the Stephenson Steam Railway in North Tyneside, where it will sit alongside locomotives from a very different era of rail travel. The other will be retained by Nexus, the transport authority that operates the system, as a historical artefact.
It is the kind of ending that transit systems rarely get right. Trains are usually retired quietly, swapped out on a Tuesday morning while nobody notices. The Tyne and Wear Metro has chosen to give its originals a proper send-off — a final week of scheduled runs, giving regular commuters and train enthusiasts alike a chance to take one last ride.
A parallel for Bengaluru?
Namma Metro's Purple and Green line trains are relatively young — the oldest have been running since 2011, with a design life of 30 years. The Yellow Line fleet, delivered by CRRC and Titagarh, is brand new. But the Tyne and Wear story is a useful reminder that metro fleets are not permanent. Somewhere around 2040, Bengaluru will face its own version of this moment — deciding whether to refurbish or replace the trains that opened the city's first metro line.
For now, though, the story belongs to the Class 599. Forty-six years, 1.7 billion journeys, and one final week on the tracks.
Sources
- Metro's old train fleet set for its final week in service — Nexus
- South Gosforth depot prepares to bid farewell to iconic Tyne and Wear Metro trains — RailAdvent
- Final Class 599 to be withdrawn from service at the end of June — RailAdvent
- Tyne and Wear Metro confirms dates for old trains' final farewell journey — Northumberland Gazette