Sheffield to Rotherham tram-trains to run reduced service until mid-December

Only two tram-trains per hour will run, rather than the usual three, the operator Stagecoach Supertram has announced.

It said this was due to repairs being carried out to the vehicles, which should be completed on Friday, December 13.

Stagecoach said today: “The manufacturer of the Citylink fleet is carrying out improvement modifications to the trams, including those vehicles used for the Tram Train service.

“This is expected to be completed on Friday, December 13. Until these works are completed, reduced vehicle availability means the Tram Train service will operate only two services per hour.”

The news comes just weeks after Stagecoach and its partners celebrated the service’s first anniversary, announcing that more than one million passenger services had been completed and claiming the first year had ‘exceeded expectations’ after a difficult start.

The UK’s first tram-train service, which travels on tramlines in Sheffield and the rail network in Rotherham, launched in October 2018, three years late and having cost around five times the initial £15 million budget.

But transport bosses last month told how they were pleased at how it had performed since then and said other towns and cities were looking to use the technology.

Proposals have already been announced to extend the tram-train service from Rotherham to Doncaster Sheffield Airport, add new stops at Magna Science Adventure Centre, and potentially introduce new tram-train routes to Chapeltown, High Green and Northern General Hospital in the north of Sheffield and Handsworth, Woodhouse and Beighton in the city’s south east.

For more details and to view the temporary timetable, visit the Stagecoach website.