Demolition of the 100-year-old buildings at Tyne and Wear Metro’s Gosforth depot is now complete as the site is cleared to make way for sidings for alongside the new depot that has been built by VolkerFitzpatrick.
Gosforth depot was first opened in 1923 by the London and North Eastern Railway. It was a replacement for a fire-damaged railway depot at Walkergate, and it has been home to rolling stock ever since.
The Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive, now Nexus, took it over from British Rail in 1980. The depot’s location allowed for Metro trains to access lines to the west near Regent Centre and to the east towards Long Benton.
The building was the former home to Tyneside’s iconic, and often forgotten, electric trains. The last electric train ran south of the river in 1963, and north of the river in June 1967.
Now, the ageing facilities have been razed to rubble to make space for the new £70 million Metro depot and new trains. A total of 17 new sidings for train stabling will be created to serve the new depot and provide room for the new trains to be parked up as more start to arrive from the Stadler factory in Switzerland.
The new Gosforth depot has been designed to ensure maximum availability and reliability of the Metro fleet. The building will provide an attractive environment for employees. It will make best use of natural light, and all workspaces will have windows.
It will become home to a wide range of activities, including preventative and corrective maintenance, overhauls and train presentation. There will be storage for spare parts and material supplies as well as office space for training and support functions.
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