Tyne and Wear Metro trains to return to Sunderland station following flood damage

The city centre station has been closed since New Year’s Day due to damage caused by flooding which prevented trains from stopping.

Following the flooding, National Rail said “trains are unable to call at Sunderland until further notice” with national train operator Grand Central later adding they would not be able to operate their train services up to and including Sunday January 8.

However, a post on social media today (Wednesday January 4) from Tyne and Wear Metro confirmed its trains will return to the station from Thursday, January 5, stopping at platform four only, after 8am. The post said: “Network Rail have advised us that after 08:00am tomorrow morning, Metro trains can stop at Sunderland station using platform 4 only, the first train scheduled to stop at Sunderland will be 08:21am. Passengers should be advised however, that in order for Network Rail to be able to carry out work to re-open the station, all scheduled trains before 08:00am tomorrow morning will only run as far as East Boldon. A replacement bus, the 901, is running between South Hylton and St Peter’s all day Thursday.”

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The earlier than expected opening will be a welcome relief for the city’s Metro passengers who’ve faced months of turmoil due to rail strikes, the flooding of an electrical substation in Pallion and partial u-turn over the closure of the city’s main station over Christmas.

The closure of Sunderland Station has also been affecting Metro services with trains temporarily suspended between Sunderland Station and St Peters in addition to the long running suspension between Park Lane and South Hylton.

Rail bosses have also announced further disruption in January and February due to planned network upgrades in the Durham area.

Metro passengers have also been urged to sign up for a Pop card to take advantage of major savings on the Tyne and Wear public transport network.