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West Midlands Metro trams going blue 2019

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Blue trams between Jewellery Quarter and Bull Street.

30 and 34 at Jewellery Quarter, after I rode 30 from Library.



28 at St Paul's.



28 at St Chad's.



32 at St Paul's.



Caught it to Bull Street yesterday afternoon.



32 at Bull Street after getting off. It now has batteries.



Then 17 went past.

 
Yes I think that the new blue livery is very smart but what I miss is the old Birmingham Transport colours od cream lined in black. I thought that it looked very smart and no adverts too.
 
perry commoner said:
Yes I think that the new blue livery is very smart but what I miss is the old Birmingham Transport colours od cream lined in black. I thought that it looked very smart and no adverts too.
Click to expand...

We have to appreciate that these are West Midland trams not Birmingham trams. Therefore we cannot impose Birmingham on the other towns in the area. BCT buses have not run since 1969, 50 years ago and most people working for Transport for the West Midlands will not remember them.
 
At least, David, a good many here on BHF remember the BCT and Midland Red. Maybe present day employees would realise how easy modern vehicles are to operate then those of yesteryear. Anyone who drives an automatic car presently will know the difference from vehicles with gear stick and clutch.
 
The old colours aren't coming back. You only see them on certain buses.

A few trams at Library Tram Stop yesterday.

36 Rudolph



25 OLA with batteries



23 Comet



30

 
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Tram 19 yesterday evening at Grand Central. 1999 - 2019 -20 Years livery. The only tram not fully blue.

 
Boxing Day trams.

But tram 30 was broken down on Corporation Street, so no trams could get to Grand Central and on to Library.



Tram 28 Jasper Carrott at Bull Street also looked broken down or out of service. Was also a car behind.



But tram 22 was in service.

 
Some blue West Midlands Metro photos from my latest visit to Wolverhampton.

First up at Grand Central in Birmingham.





Wolverhampton St George's.



From Ring Road St George's.



More later from the Bilston Road and Priestfield.
 
ellbrown said:
Priestfield Tram Stop

Tram 18 (I missed catching this one).



Tram 30



Tram 32 (I got this one to Bull Street).

Click to expand...
Another superb set of pictures. Three queries
1. Is the red on tram 30 advertising?
2. Why has tram 19 got white around it?
3. How many trams are there and did they follow on in fleet numbers from the original ones?

Off theme for a minute, just finished binging on 28 alerts, trust you all enjoyed your Christmas day, spent mine in the sun, waved to Maurice as we flew over Crete, sorry Ray that I was not there for North Devons rain and wind.
Back on theme, you showed a picture of a broken down tram. Does this back up the rest of the trams? Are there breakdown engineers on call around the system or do they come out on request from the depot? Where is the current terminus in Broad Street and finally how is the Wolverhampton extension going?

Bob
 
Bob
To answer some of your questions. The red is advertising for 'Just Eats' a mobile app to order takeaways. The present terminus in Broad Street is by the former registry office.
The original fleet of 16 trams have now mainly been scrapped although 4 are still in store at Long Marston. The present fleet consists of 21 CAF Urbos 3 trams with a further 21 on order. The numbers run on from the T69 trams
 
Bob Davis said:
Another superb set of pictures. Three queries
1. Is the red on tram 30 advertising?
2. Why has tram 19 got white around it?

Bob
Click to expand...

Tram 30 is fully blue with no adverts.

Tram 18 has the red Just Eat adverts. As David says it for an app.

Tram 19 has the 20th anniversary livery. Assume that will be taken off sometime in 2020, then go fully blue?
 
DavidGrain said:
Bob
To answer some of your questions. The red is advertising for 'Just Eats' a mobile app to order takeaways. The present terminus in Broad Street is by the former registry office.
The original fleet of 16 trams have now mainly been scrapped although 4 are still in store at Long Marston. The present fleet consists of 21 CAF Urbos 3 trams with a further 21 on order. The numbers run on from the T69 trams
Click to expand...
www.railbusinessdaily.com

CAF wins tender to supply additional trams for Birmingham

CAF has been selected to supply 21 catenary-free trams - with an option for a further 29 - for Birmingham by West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), the organisation that manages transport and economic development in
www.railbusinessdaily.com www.railbusinessdaily.com
How times have changed. A city that was well known for building passenger vehicles - Metropolitain-Cammel (Weyman) and BRCW now has Spanish trams. Admittedly CAF seem to have cornered the market due to their expertise, but something was seriously wrong to loose such an industry. As we are still in the season of goodwill I won't point a finger.
 
Radiorails said:
www.railbusinessdaily.com

CAF wins tender to supply additional trams for Birmingham

CAF has been selected to supply 21 catenary-free trams - with an option for a further 29 - for Birmingham by West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), the organisation that manages transport and economic development in
www.railbusinessdaily.com www.railbusinessdaily.com
How times have changed. A city that was well known for building passenger vehicles - Metropolitain-Cammel (Weyman) and BRCW now has Spanish trams. Admittedly CAF seem to have cornered the market due to their expertise, but something was seriously wrong to loose such an industry. As we are still in the season of goodwill I won't point a finger.
Click to expand...
Commercial economics I'm afraid. The shareholders have got to be fed.
If someone offered me as an example £20,000,000 for my house, I wouldn't hesitate to take up the offer.
 
Privatisation of the railways meant that BR stopped buying new trains continuing to run time served rolling stock. The new franchisees needed time to sort out the buying requirements etc. By which time railway manufacturing had disappeared from this country. What manufacturing we still have is foreign owned.
 
DavidGrain said:
Bob
To answer some of your questions. The red is advertising for 'Just Eats' a mobile app to order takeaways. The present terminus in Broad Street is by the former registry office.
The original fleet of 16 trams have now mainly been scrapped although 4 are still in store at Long Marston. The present fleet consists of 21 CAF Urbos 3 trams with a further 21 on order. The numbers run on from the T69 trams
Click to expand...
Thanks very much

Bob
 
DavidGrain said:
Privatisation of the railways meant that BR stopped buying new trains continuing to run time served rolling stock. The new franchisees needed time to sort out the buying requirements etc. By which time railway manufacturing had disappeared from this country. What manufacturing we still have is foreign owned.
Click to expand...
I suppose you could say it was a lack of forward planning; or more to the point no planning at all!
 
Bob,

At 30 plus thousand feet I wouldn't have seen the plane let alone you waving - but thanks! :)

This is what worries me about trams - a high cost infrastructure and when one (or two) break down, a chunk of the system breaks down too.

Maurice :cool:
 
ellbrown said:
Bilston Road, Wolverhampton.

Tram 19



Tram 18



Tram 32

Click to expand...
Good picture.

To the left of the tram as we look at it was a 'Spencer Abbott' fuel depot. Spencer Abbott of Erdington once had a canal boat building business on Tyburn Road, they later moved to the 'Esso' site in Wood lane Erdington.
 
sospiri said:
Bob,

At 30 plus thousand feet I wouldn't have seen the plane let alone you waving - but thanks! :)

This is what worries me about trams - a high cost infrastructure and when one (or two) break down, a chunk of the system breaks down too.

Maurice :cool:
Click to expand...
That, Maurice, was one of the main reasons Birmingham abandoned it tramway system in the mid 20th. century. It had been intended to have happened a little earlier but WW2 gave the system a short reprieve. Of course in those times the streets were narrow and trams impeded other road traffic which was expanding. Now it seems that the once favoured city of big roads, devoted to the motor vehicle, has given way to tramways with no other traffic than emergency vehicles in some places it seems.
 
They have got cross over track near certain tram stops.

When a tram breaks down, the stops beyond the broken down tram can't be reached until they remove it.

Cross over track at Priestfield in Wolverhampton.





If trams can't go beyond Priestfield (i.e to Wolvehampton St George's) the trams turn back towards Birmingham.
 
A question re the new battery trams.

When a tram leaves or rejoins the overhead wire system to run on batteries, does the driver of the tram have to raise and lower the pantograph manually or does it happen automatically?
 
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