NEXUS, the public body that owns the Tyne and Wear Metro, is building an £8.4million railway skills centre in South Shields.
The Metro Maintenance and Renewals Skills Centre will cover infrastructure and operational training, becoming the main training base for the Metro’s 1,000 employees.
The project is being funded by a £7m Government grant, with the rest coming from Nexus.
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The centre will include a driving simulator, plus a mocked-up Metro station, complete with full-length platform, ticket gates, PA system, CCTV and help points.
It will have a 70m stretch of double-track for training on tracks, points, signalling and overhead lines.
There will also be space to stable a small number of Metro trains and maintain them away from the main depot at South Gosforth.
The centre will be built within the Metro sidings in South Shields, between Mile End Road and Salem Street. It will be on the site of the town’s original railway station, which closed when the Metro line was built in the early 1980s.
Work is expected to start in April for completion in early 2019.
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