Tyneside Electric

The Tyneside Electrics were the suburban railways on Tyneside that the North Eastern Railway and the London and North Eastern Railway electrified using the third rail system. The North Tyneside loop was electrified from 1904 onwards and formed one of the earliest suburban electric networks; the South Tyneside line to South Shields via Pelaw was electrified in March 1938. British Railways converted these lines to diesel operation in the 1960s: the line to South Shields in January 1963 and the North Tyneside lines in June 1967 when the electrical supply infrastructure (which dated from 1935) and the rolling stock (which dated from 1937) had become life expired. In addition, the system was losing passengers and suffering from costly vandalism. Since the late 1970s, much of the system has been converted to form the Tyne and Wear Metro.

The original lines covered were the North Tyneside Loop from Newcastle Central via Wallsend, North Shields, Whitley Bay and South Gosforth back to Newcastle; the East Coast Main Line (ECML) from Newcastle Central to Benton (providing a short cut to Monkseaton and Whitley Bay), and the Riverside Branch from Byker to Percy Main via Walker.

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