Looking south from the southern end of Sunderland station as Northern Rail Class 156 DMU 156463 heads towards the siding after terminating at platform 1 in order to give way to a northbound Tyne and Wear Metro service before heading back north towards Newcastle and Carlisle.

The lines entering the tunnel left of the picture are unelectrified mainline services only towards Middlesborough. The Metro tracks to South Hylton curve round to the right from the left and centre arches. The middle track leads only to two sidings, one electrified and one not.

The electrification at Sunderland station is all 1500 volts DC for the Tyne and Wear Metro EMUs. This means that mainline electic locos and multiple units, which require 25,000 volts AC, are banned from the area. Additionally the reconstruction of the station to allow the Metro services to call here now means that Mk4 coaches now cannot call at the station, even when being dragged by a diesel loco, as they are out-of-gague.

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.