Tyne and Wear Metro
The Tyne and Wear Metro a light rail system in Newcastle, United Kingdom. The system was the first light rail network to be opened in the UK, opening in 1980. The original network ran in a loop around Newcastle, crossing itself once, with a branch to South Shields. The network was extended to Newcastle Airport in 1991 and to South Hylton and Sunderland in 2002. This latest extension includes a stretch of joint running, wherein the metro trains and national rail trains share the same length of track.
The Tyne and Wear Metro gets its power from overhead wires energised at 1,500 volts DC. This is now unique in the UK, formerly the Woodhead Route from Manchester to Sheffield also used this voltage, but that line mostly closed in 1981, the remaining stretch from Glossop to Manchester being re-electrified to the national standard of 25,000V AC in 1984.