Metro Cars

Unusually for the UK, the Tyne and Wear Metro adopted a rolling stock design which was incompatible with national standards. Designed and constructed by Metro-Cammell, Birmingham, each train set is formed of articulated six-axle twin vehicles, each 27.8m long, with seats for 68 to 84 passengers and standing room for a further 188. Ninety twin-car sets are in use and all underwent rebuilding between 1994 and 1997. Power is provided at 1,500V DC through overhead wires. The units were originally designed to be coupled in trains of up to three twin-car sets. Each set is equipped with air brakes and air-operated doors, with electro-magnetic emergency track brakes.

The Metro cars on Round Trees Sidings are Dave Alexander white metal kits powered by re – gauged 25mm wheelbase Tenshodo motor bogies with 10mm wheels. Paints are by Railmatch and transfers by Fox.

The Metro Car components

The Dave Alexander metro kit comes in a very sturdy box with all components carefully labelled and packaged. The instructions are very comprehensive and easy to follow.

The main body for each car comprises two sides, nose and roof. These items were glued with araldite.

The Metro Car bodies

The Tenshodo motor bogies are a simple fix to an aluminium floor that slides onto channels in the body side, simple but very effective. the bogies are wired together to give 8 wheel pickup. The centre unit articulates around the bogie and around the centre body section. This allows the model to traverse sharp radius curves, although this feature is not required on Round Trees Sidings.

RTS 1 was an analogue layout powered by a Hammant and Morgan twin controller. The Tenshodo motor bogies need a slight modification to operate with DCC. The bogie has brass wipers on the back of each wheel that connect directly to the motor commutator. For DCC, the connection between wiper and commutator needs cutting so that a decoder can be fitted.

We have used Lenz gold decoders. The BEMF function of the decoder is switched off and both bogies are powered from the single decoder, the wires to one bogie “reversed” so that both bogies operate together in the same direction. Top speed is not high, but using 128 speed steps we can get some very realistic acceleration and braking.

The first metro kit had flush glazing made from plasticard, each window cut individually with a craft knife and the corners rounded with wet and dry paper. The second and third kits have flush glazing designed in a CAD programme linked to a milling machine that can produce very accurate shapes in 2mm Perspex. Once the three different sized windows had been drawn, 2mm clear Perspex was placed under the drill head and the computer was politely asked to produce the correct number of metro windows. They are so accurate in shape they are a snug fit in the window aperture and require no glue! Subsequent kits will have flush glazing laser cut by York Model Making, using a whitemetal side casting to provide the accurate measurements.

The figures are a “multi pack” of unpainted HO figures from Preiser, batch painted using matt enamel paints.

Completed interior

The careful weathering on the roof was sprayed after an hour standing on a footbridge observing the real thing!