Published in May 2021 by Amberley Publishing and written by Colin Alexander, this softcover book is in the usual Amberley format of around 23.4 cm x 16.5 cm with 96 pages and 140 illustrations.

It has a published price of £15.99 although Amberley Publishing currently has it on offer at £14.39, and at the time of writing it can be purchased from Amazon for £10.38.

The author has been a railway enthusiast for more than thirty years, lives on Tyneside, and has written over 20 books on a wide range of rail subjects. His local knowledge should reflect the content of this book.

The Contents lists eight chapters, each of which has succinct titles prefixed for some reason by “Metro”, such as “Metro Prehistory” and “Metro Conception”. I am in favour of concise titles, but here I feel that more thought could have gone into their choice. The use of “Metro” in every chapter title is surely overkill, whereas the rest of the chapter titles are too brief.

Chapter 1 “Metro Prehistory” is intended to provide a brief history of the trains that operated Tyneside’s services between 1904 and the opening of Metro, but unfortunately the summary is far too brief as it is simply a two-page overview of the trains that previously ran on what would become the Metro network.

Chapter 2 “Metro Conception” is interesting in that it provides an insight into the thinking behind the conversion from a British Railways network into a metro system. The text makes reference to Metro’s version of Harry Beck’s famous London Underground map as being another familiar sight to the commuters of Tyne & Wear. Unfortunately, no image of the map has been included.

Chapter 3 “Metro Testing” would seem to introduce us to what went on in testing Metro to make it ready for public operation. Instead, it is a brief description of the system’s original test centre for the line’s rolling stock.

Chapter 4 “Metro Construction” seems to be far too brief, given the size of the network and the often complexities in converting the network from former British Rail lines.

Chapter 5 “Metro Opening, Operation and Development” has about the right level of content for the size of the book.

Chapter 6 “Metro – A Cautionary Tale” tells the misfortunes suffered by the author when he was a youngster whilst skylarking about near the Metro that resulted in him having to be freed by the fire brigade. However, the pages occupied by this chapter could have been usefully used to expand previous chapters.

Chapter 7 “Metro Journey” is the most interesting part of the book. It is written in the style of a travelogue and describes a journey around the system. However, it makes the book very unbalanced, as the chapter has 48 pages out of a total book size of 96 pages.

Chapter 8 “Metro Future” describes various options for extending the network. However, rather than describing what might happen in the future, it would have been more useful to have extra content in Chapter 4 “Metro Construction”.

There seems to be significant omissions from what is promised in the blurb on the back cover, such as “the successful integration of the Metro with bus and ferry services is considered”. Instead, what we get is a simple statement that “Sadly this innovative integration of bus, Metro and ferry would be short-lived due to the deregulation of buses in 1986.”

The original Test Centre seems to have been quite an elaborate affair, so much so that cars of the Hong Kong Metro made use of it. The photo at the top-right shows an artificial tunnel that was built as part of the centre.

The smartness of the driver and conductor below seem to match the cleanness of the original cream and yellow colour scheme. The former British Railways Tynemouth station at the bottom-left seems rather over-engineered for Metro operations.

Although these photos show a variety of liveries, Metro’s “M” logo is a common theme.

On a journey around the Metro network, passengers may encounter some quite dramatic scenes, such as the Wearmouth bridges seen at the top right.

Revealing their British Rail roots, on parts of the network travellers may encounter mainline trains running next to their Metro trains.

In summary, the book provides a reasonable overview to the development of the current Metro system, but it would have benefitted by providing more detail on what parts of former British Railway lines were used and the construction of the system. It would have been helpful if a copy of the Metro map was included. It has an excellent description of a journey around the Metro network, but lacks detail in other chapters. Recommended for anyone interested in the current Metro network.

The book is available to purchase from Amazon and from Amberley Publishing.

RailAdvent would like to thank Amberley Publishing for providing RailAdvent with a copy of the book for review.