West Midlands Metro rolling stock
vehicles of the passenger light rail line in the West Midlands conurbation in England
The West Midlands Metro is a passenger light rail line in the West Midlands conurbation in England, which opened in 1999. Its rolling stock consists of 21 CAF Urbos 3 trams which came into service in 2014/15, replacing the older T-69 trams which had operated the line since 1999.
Urbos 3 & Urbos 100
A new fleet of 21 CAF Urbos 3 trams began to enter service in September 2014, they replaced the old T-69 fleet in 2015. In February 2012 Centro named CAF the preferred bidder for a contract to supply 19 to 25 Urbos 3 trams. A £40 million firm order for 20 was subsequently signed, with options for five more. The first of the new trams was unveiled at the Wednesbury depot in October 2013, with the first four entering service on 5 September 2014.
The new fleet provided an increased service of 10 trams per hour in each direction, with an increased capacity of 210 passengers per tram, compared with the 156 passengers on the former T69 trams. The Urbos 3 trams are 33 m (108 ft 3 in) long; 9 m (29 ft 6 in) longer than the former T69 stock, and have a maximum operating speed of 70 km/h (43 mph). They are low floor throughout, and consist of five sections with four articulations. Three of the modules are mounted on bogies and the other two modules are suspended.
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This entry incorporates text from “West Midlands Metro rolling stock” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.