Nexus’s Metro Flow project has won the Major Project of the Year Award at the National Rail Awards, which took place on the 14th of September.

The project will see £104 million invested in order to bring improvements in reliability and, once complete, will allow more frequent services with increased capacity to run across the Metro network using its brand-new fleet of trains. To date, the impressive project has already seen punctuality improvements made by taking out three single-track pinch points.

Metro Flow marks the biggest project under the Governments Transforming Cities Fund programme, which aims to invest in sustainable transport across the North East of England and includes projects such as:

• New bus stations at Durham, North Shields and Sunderland Railway Station
• Intelligent Traffic Signals in Cities
• Bus priority measures
• Active travel

The project’s recognition at the awards follows the Great North Run 2023 and

an impressive recovery from flash flooding which saw thousands of runners stranded just a few days prior.

The National Rail Awards also saw Metro’s Customer Service and Operations Teams recognised for their work with staging the Great North Run 2022 alongside a further Highly Commended for Infrastructure Achievement for Metro Flow.

Cllr Martin Gannon, Chair of the North East Joint Transport Committee and leader of Gateshead Council, said:

“To see Metro Flow named the best new rail engineering project in Britain is no less than it deserves. Our £104m project is the key to a better, more frequent and more reliable Metro in the years ahead.”

“It is also fantastic to see Metro’s Customer Service and Operations teams recognised for the amazing job they do every year at the Great North Run, so soon after they overcame the floods at this year’s event to get everybody safely home.”

Cathy Massarella, Interim Managing Director of Nexus, said:

“Metro Flow and the new Metro Fleet between them represent an investment of almost £500m to build a better Metro for our customers.”

“I know people want a more frequent and reliable service and projects like Metro Flow represent just one part of the hard work our whole team is doing to get there.”

Rob Harwood, Construction Director at Kier (previously Buckingham Group Contracting, which was the principal contractor on Metro Flow) shared the award with Nexus, said:

“This project achieved something that had never been done before – the conversion of an existing freight line for use by Metro and freight trains – delivered against demanding timescales to reduce disruption to the customer.”

“The team working on the project is immensely proud of what we delivered for Nexus and its customers, so for Metro Flow to be recognised as Major Project of the Year at the National Rail Awards is the icing on the cake.”