Rebuilding Gosforth Tyne & Wear Metro Depot

Overview

The Gosforth Depot project is a staged demolition of the existing Victorian-era depot and the construction of a new state-of-the-art facility that will service and maintain new rolling stock over the next 35 years. It is a multi-disciplinary and complex design and build project with multiple stakeholders, including staged demolition of the current facility, rail installation, civil engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, and rail systems engineering.

Across the United Kingdom and Europe, light rail transit systems have increasing passenger numbers, except for Newcastle’s Metro system. Due to the unreliability of the service, the long waiting times between trains, and the physical age and condition of the rolling stock, the Metro system’s demand is reducing. As a result, the Department for Transport has granted funding for a fleet of new trains to be built to replace the 40-year-old rolling stock currently in use and a new maintenance facility to be constructed.

The works detailed in the project are for the staged demolition of the existing stabling and maintenance facilities, construction of a new depot, stabling sidings, and external ancillary buildings. All construction works are phased such that the depot can have the capacity to stable 35 train units within the existing site boundaries throughout the construction phase whilst the new facilities are being built. Furthermore, there must be a through route to enter and exit the depot facility at the east and west ends of the site. Maintaining these through routes and staging the installation such that enough trains can be suitably stabled is critical to the operational depot.