“Teething problems” to blame for tram power cuts

tram power outage

Tram operators say “teething problems” are behind power cuts which have been forcing passengers off the newly-extended tram network.

Services have been affected three times since Monday after electricity supplies to substations went down.

Operator Nottingham Express Transit (NET) said the outages were “teething problems” which are simple to fix.

“It is worrying, although I do understand the concept of teething troubles”

In some cases passengers got off trams to walk to the next stop.

NET has been putting replacement buses on and says the problem is not long-term.

David Thornhill, of the Nottinghamshire Campaign for better transport, was on one of the services to check how the newly-extended network was doing when it broke down.

“It is worrying, although I do understand the concept of teething troubles,” he said.

“But there was a lot of testing and I do question the level of problems we now seem to be having.”

The network’s extensions to Beeston and Clifton opened six weeks ago.

All services were running normally as of early on Friday evening.

NET head of engineering Lindsay Murphy said: “Usually if we lose power to one of our sub stations, the control circuits mean we can just turn it back on from the control room and there’s almost no loss of service whatsoever.

“However our engineers have had to turn out to the substations themselves to investigate the problem and make sure we get things turned back on safely and get everybody back moving again.”

But some passengers were left angry by the failures, with one saying the frequency of the problem was “disgusting”.

Video: Tram Passengers share their views on the power outages