Tyne and Wear Metro train driver Sean Docherty has described his experiences in training and driving the Metro’s new trains.

53-year-old Sean has been part of Metro train crew since 2018, and is one of more than two hundred drivers who are currently learning about the new trains, which have been manufactured by Stadler.

Sean, who is from Kingston Park in Newcastle, has passed the three-week mandatory training programme to drive the new trains. He and other drivers learned about the new trains both in the classroom and in practical sessions.

The drivers used a Metro driving simulator at the Nexus Learning Centre in South Shields, and then drove the new trains on the Metro system accompanied by an instructor.

The course ends with an assessment, which Metro operator Nexus describes as “like a railway version of a driving test”.

Once they have passed, the drivers are signed off as fully competent on the new trains.

Nexus will train 200 members of train crew on the Stadler fleet, with 162 (more than three-quarters) of them having completed the course already.

The training programme started late last year and will be completed in early 2026.

The new trains are on order from Stadler. The first train entered service in December last year, but the fleet was temporarily withdrawn from service in April after a problem was identified.

Now, just under half of the daily weekday services on Metro are the new trains. Half of the 46 new trains are scheduled to enter service by the end of this year, and all of them by the end of 2026.

Sean worked at Nissan before becoming a Metro driver, and said that he was “elated” to have passed the course.

He described the course as “intense” and “like going back to school”. Sean feels that the public do not get to see the complexities involved in driving trains.

He says that the cabs of the new trains are completely different from the previous stock, with more technology and a “fabulous new working environment”.

The course starts with basic familiarisation, getting to know every button, pedal and lever inside the train, and then covers train layout and general overview, driver’s cab layout including buttons, functions and screens, the Train Control Management System (TCMS), and how to operate the cab radio system.

The course then moves on to preparing the train at the start of a shift, and how to access and exit the train from a platform and from the track.

Further modules teach drivers the operation of the doors, automatic sliding steps, customer information systems, automatic train stop, emergency braking and evacuation procedures, customer intercom, electrical systems, signal sighting, battery operation, fault finding, and how to couple the trains together if required.

Drivers who complete four and a half hours in the simulator and pass the assessment then go to the Gosforth Metro Depot to shunt the new trains. They then drive the trains for six hours under supervision before being eligible to take the final driving assessment.

Sean described it as “daunting at first”, noting that the new trains have many features that the old trains did not. He felt that the simulator was a very useful learning tool.

“It’s great to hear Sean’s reaction to completing his driver training course on the new fleet. It’s a great insight into what it involves in order to become competent on the Stadler trains, which are vastly different to drive than the current fleet.

“Our driver training programme is going really well. We’ve so-far trained 162 members of Traincrew, which includes 144 drivers, nine Operations Managers, four Metro Futures Traincrew Specialists and one Learning and Development Specialist. In total we need to train just over 200 traincrew on the new Metro fleet. That work will continue through to 2026 so that all of them have the correct competency.

“The new trains really are a game changer for Metro drivers. Their working environment has been transformed. We can’t wait to get all 46 new trains in service.”

Nicola Cheetham, Head of Fleet Transition at Nexus