The extensive OHLE seen here is electrified at 1500 volts DC for the Tyne and Wear Metro that share the tracks north of here and have exclusive use of the tracks round to the right that lead to its southern terminal station of South Hylton. Mainline trains can continue south of Sunderland station, but only on the route to Middlesborough that is out of shot to the left.
Note also there are two speed restriction signs for the siding the train is entering - the standard circular one that limits mainline trains to 15 miles per hour; and the angular one below that restricts Metro services to 20 kilometres per hour. The Metro was the first fully metric railway in the United Kingdom and as such the speedometres on the trains are calibrated only in km/h.
Photo by Chris McKenna 10/10/2005.
Larger, higher quality copies of most of my pictures are available, please email if you want a copy.
#cmckenna@sucs.org.