A rare six-minute video film of the Tyne and Wear Metro in its first year of operations, in 1981, has been discovered for sale on eBay.

The video gives an insight into what the Metro looked like in July 1981, when it was less than one year old.

Shot in colour using an 8mm cine camera, the grainy film, taken from the front seat of a Metro train, shows it travelling between Haymarket and Tynemouth, the first section of the Metro to be opened.

According to the opening title, it was filmed on Wednesday, 29 July 1981, which was a bank holiday to celebrate the Royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

Local transport enthusiast Ian Chapman spotted the film for sale on eBay and immediately decided to buy it. Nexus, which operates Metro, has digitised the film and added it to its YouTube channel to preserve it for posterity.

The film starts with the train emerging from a tunnel at Jesmond and heading north, followed by the train stopping at Iford Road Metro station, and passing another train when it approaches South Gosforth Metro station. Between South Gosforth and Long Benton, the train passes a now-demolished British Railways signal box and passes another before arriving at Benton. At Palmersville and Shiremoor, fields are now replaced by housing, before the film shows an advert for Smarties at Whitley Bay.

The original trains are now being replaced by new trains, with the first entering service on Wednesday, 18th December last year, and a new depot at Gosforth to service them.

The cine film provides us with a wonderful snapshot of the Metro during that first year of operations. It’s nice to be able to look back and see what it was like when the system was all brand new. I’m always on the lookout for Metro memorabilia for my collection. I saw that the film was for sale on eBay and I put a bid in for it straight away. The seller was all the way down in Herefordshire. I was able to get the reel for just £11.99. Whoever made the film must have had a decent 8mm cine camera, as the quality is pretty good. We see that it was shot on Wednesday, 29 July 1981, which was a rare midweek bank holiday so that the nation could watch the Royal wedding. That might explain why the Metro stations look so quiet. I was only eleven years old when this reel was made, so I do think it’s a nice historical record of when Metro was totally new, particularly the trains in that wonderful yellow and white PTE livery that they used to have. In that first year, I can recall that Metro was a big deal. It was an innovation for our region.”

Ian Chapman