Covered: Metros, Newcastle
the illustrative mural featuring different Geordie icons at Monument to the culturally ambitious Latin signage at Wallsend, commissioned from artist Michael Pinsky to commemorate the region’s Roman heritage, the works form part of a project that was included in Newcastle and Gateshead’s unsuccessful bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2008. Unsurprisingly, despite making a considerable profit each year from ticket sales, there is still a significant amount of fare dodgers caught every week, which is punished through a combination of fines (currently standing at £20) and archaic naming and shaming, whereby cheating passenger’s names are displayed on advertisement boards in stations. With no ticket barriers to deter free-riders (though 13 stations are earmarked for them), the only real preventative measure comes in the form of roaming inspectors, which makes the subject of fare dodging a game of odds that in the long term will easily outweigh the house. It’s easy to see why some would rather risk it than pay the fee. With the exception of fare dodging, anti-social behaviour as a whole has been minimal with crime figures on the Metro dropping year on year, perhaps due in part to the innovative approach of playing classical music at select stations. The song of choice is Frederick Delius’ Incidental Music to Hassan – a neutral tune that’s been playing since 1998. So successful has the initiative been that it was picked up by London Transport and a similar scheme has been in force on at Underground stations since 2005. More recently, the Metro was the first underground network to install electrical repeaters on lines to allow passengers continued mobile phone coverage in tunnels. A system that’s now being developed by London Underground. A trailblazer in its conception and an essential and integral part of life in the north-east – the Metro is an asset that, despite repeated grumbles of cost, reliability and aesthetic, has served the area in one format of another for over two hundred years and continues to be a benchmark of urban travel in the UK. Ride on.
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pictures: © sally ann norman, nexus, shutterstock.com
‘The network is the first to enable mobile phone usage in tunnels’