Dear Sir or Madam,
I recently wrote to you following the suspension of West Midlands Metro services, detailing work required to get the service up and running.
I am pleased to confirm that West Midlands Metro services will resume in the week beginning Sunday 5 June, with trams running between Wolverhampton St George’s and Birmingham Bull Street tram stops.
The replacement of tram body panels has been progressing to schedule, allowing the return to service. We are now looking to accelerate repairs to get more trams back out on our network as quickly and as safely as possible to restore a full service.
Our teams at Metro are continuing to work with CAF, as the manufacturer, to recruit more engineers to carry out the specialist repair work, as well as moving trams off-site to a third-party facility – with the first of these having left our Wednesbury depot this week.
With this acceleration we remain very confident that a full service will be in operation in good time ahead of this summer’s Games.
We of course share frustrations that the original timescale provided by CAF to restore a service next week has not been met. Despite assurances that enough trams would be available, we have now been informed that this is now not possible until the following week, due to further snagging work required before the trams meet the quality standards necessary for acceptance into service.
So as not to delay the reinstatement of service any further than absolutely necessary, once this essential snagging work has been carried out, some trams will be running without being fully wrapped in blue vinyl branding around the doors. This will not impact their safety or performance.
Once again, we would like to apologise for the ongoing inconvenience and thank you for your patience and that of our customers during this suspension in services.
All of the latest information will be available on our website and social media. If you would like any further information, please do email customerrelations@tfwm.org.uk.
Yours sincerely
Anne Shaw
Executive Director of Transport for West Midlands
