Talk:Tyne and Wear Metro

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Tyne and Wear Metro (reviewed version) has been listed as a good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.

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How exactly does Concert Music, aka Classical Music reduce vadalism. What sort of deadman eqauipment is used on the Thyne and Wear Metro.

I presume it drives chavs away because the sound of good music is offensive to their ears. 157.228.98.125 22:31, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

charvas, not chavs mate hedpeguyuk 25 July 2006, 14:00 (UTC)

Deadman eqauipment? A dead man's handle, from what I remember. --Telsa (talk) 13:33, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 First metric railway in UK? 2 "Oldest Commuter Railway in the World" 3 Graffiti hypocrisy 4 Karlsruhe model 5 Nexus have used this article in their publicity material! 6 Cleanup 7 Good Article Nomination 8 Additional info about the opening of the Metro

[edit] First metric railway in UK?

Listed under notable features is "The Tyne and Wear Metro was the first railway in the UK to use the metric system". I'm not sure about this. I think that was the Snowdon Mountain Railway, opened in 1895 with a gauge of 2 foot 7 and a half, which makes much more sense in metric: 800mm. The explanation is found in the article: "When the railway was planned only the Swiss had a large experience in building rack locomotives, so it was they who won the contract to build the engines for the line." They were using metric then. The Metro might be the first railway in England to use metric, perhaps? --Telsa (talk) 13:33, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Interesting point, though you're talking about track gauge; the Metro is of course standard gauge (1435 mm). The use of the metric system referred to means the sole use of metric use across the system, including speed limits and distances, and the Metro was built to metric specifications. All of these were firsts in the UK. ProhibitOnions 14:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually the Snowdon Mountain Railway is pretty much entirely metric, the entire railway was basically bought in and the main equipment was built by Schweizerische Lokomotiv und Maschinenfabrik in Switzerland so is metric. Perhaps what would be clearer and make sense is to describe the tyne & wear metro as the first railway in the UK to use metric signage for speed and distance, which afaik really is a first. AlanCox 22:39, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, its operations are all conducted in the metric system. I thought this would be clear enough, guess not. I'll rephrase it if you haven't already. ProhibitOnions 22:49, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Oldest Commuter Railway in the World"

The Long Island Rail Road has it beaten by three years. In continuous operation on the same route (and with the same name, no less) since 1836. -- Cecropia 16:51, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

True, but the oldest bit of the Metro is from 1834. I'd say the're roughly contemporaries. Next time I'm in the City I'm going to have to ride on the first section of the LIRR and compare the two... Regards, ProhibitOnions 15:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Graffiti hypocrisy

Something should be said about Nexus' apparently hypocritical attitude towards graffiti, as revealed in the Evening Chronicle on 28/09/2006. Nexus "talks tough" about graffiti and spends huge sums of money on removal, yet perversely it allows "legal graffiti walls" at Chilli Road and permits graffiti imagery in station "art" (such as at Longbenton and now Jesmond stations - the latter even prompted complaints to the police from Metro drivers as they thought it was vandalism!)

As an aside, I personally think the people at Nexus need to consult with the public at large on this issue. They can't have it both ways. If the majority of people like graffiti and want to see it in stations and on bridges, Nexus shouldn't be spending £250,000 a year trying to get rid of the stuff. If most people consider graffiti on the Metro to be a nuisance, however, all graffiti and graffiti-style images (including advertising images) should be completely banned, as is the case on the London Underground - otherwise you send out the message that graffiti is acceptable. 217.34.39.123 09:36, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Karlsruhe model

"With the opening of the Sunderland extension in 2002, the Metro became the first UK system to implement the Karlsruhe model"

I'm not convinced this claim can be substantiated when you compare the mixing of different train types elsewhere.

The Bakerloo line of the London Underground has shared tracks with mainline trains since 1915. A 7-car Bakerloo line train will weigh 164t compared with 199t of a 6 car Silverlink class 508 train (and the more common class 313 will weigh even more).

The Metropolitan line of the London Undergroud also shares tracks with Chiltern Railway mainline services and the District line shares tracks with Silverlink mainline trains. And elsewhere on the tube, trains of differing size/weight share tracks (Piccadilly line trains share with both Metropolitan & District lines).

For reference, a single Metro unit weighs 40t compared to 48t of a Northern Rail class 142 unit.

I don't doubt your facts. However, officially London Underground is heavy rail whereas the Metro is light rail, the definition of which isn't soley based on weight. The distinction is quite fine though, as the Metro is right at the upper end of what can be considered light rail ("Although nominally "light rail" the high platforms and full segregation from roads and pedestrians places [the Metro] at the upper end of the transport genre which includes street trams." - the picture caption on the light rail article). I think the distinction comes from the history of the systems - LU originated with locomotives and the Metropolitan Railway saw itself as a mainline operator; the Metro was (I think I am right in saying) orginally envisaged as a light railway. This could probably be explained better in the article. Thryduulf 10:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nexus have used this article in their publicity material!

Take a look at 10 Key Facts about Metro - its "Did You Know?" section on the last page quotes liberally from the "Notable features" section of the article. Which, in turn, says things Nexus should have been boasting about for years. Note, too, the lack of any reference to Wikipedia.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 22:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

Not trying to sound like a perfectionsit, but this artice needs some cleanpup, I am thinking of nominating this for a good article or featured article status but after reading it and starting the depserate changes, I realised it still needed a lot of work, for example all of the radmomly located external links would be better off into an extenral sections at the bottom and cleaned up so its not the very full URL. As-well as this the article contains much trivial like information about what could happen and which is not verifed, I'm going to start shortly adding references and continuing the cleanup and wikifying and when this is complete which could take long and I am willing to help with this I nominated the article for good article status about two weeks ago I just forgot to post it, any regulars at GA are free to review and choose to pass it or not but unfortunately if you are a regular editor of the article or have involvement in the article you cannot review it so I won't be able to either.Tellyaddict 16:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article Nomination Good afternoon (GMT time); I have reviewed this article on 14:23, Friday March 30, 2007 (UTC) in accordance with the Good Article (GA) criteria. There are seven main criteria that the article must comply with to pass: Well-written: Pass Factually accurate: Pass Broad: Pass Neutrally written: Pass Stable: Pass Well-referenced: Pass Images: Excellent An impressive array of images, which further add to the article's quality. I have concluded that, in my opinion, the article has passed all categories and I therefore award it GA status. Congratulations to the lead editors, and keep up the excellent work! Kindest regards, anthonycfc [talk] 16:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Additional info about the opening of the Metro

Is this article the correct place to include details about the changes that took place in Tyneside when the Metro was opened? An integrated system was introduced, whereby many bus services which came into Newcastle were terminated short at Metro interchanges (Four Lane Ends, Regent's Centre, Gateshead & Heworth). This reduced road traffic into the city centre. A system of "Transfares" was introduced together with a honeycomb style zone system. Transfares were valid for a complete journey, which could include bus, metro or even the Shields ferry. I have many original leaflets from the time in my loft, and could include details in this article - I am new to Wikipedia, so would appreciate reassurance that I'm following the correct path! Andrew-R 01:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)