(Oshein) Stridelink

Truro Metropolitan Railway opened on November 3rd 1908 between Truro Exchange (later Truro Central) and Port Erth. The line used a range of small steam locomotives hauling small carriages, although was built to standard gauge. Intermediate stations opened three days after the initial line opening on November 6th, those being at Newtown, Brocks Green and Greston. In 1909, A new station at Grove Road in Truro opened.

In 1912, a branch was completed between Truro (Grove Road) and Stromness Harbour Dockyard with no intermediate stops. This branch served mainly as a goods line for incoming and outgoing cargo from Stromness Docks, although a small passenger halt was constructed next to the freight yard at Stromness Harbour for limited passenger trains.

## Expansion and Electrification

In 1919, Truro Metropolitan Railway begun work on an extension from Brocks Green to Port Moraigh, which was originally intended as a mostly goods line, although a station was later built at Moraigh to handle passenger traffic. Work also started on a line towards Falmouth along the coast of the mainland branching off at Greston. The Moraigh line was completed and opened to the public in late 1920, although it was clear that the Falmouth line still had many years until completion resulting from a few complications.

In 1927, Slow progress had been made on the Greston to Falmouth line, and it had only reached as far as Aird. As progress had been placed on hold the year before, Truro Metropolitan Railway began work on a plan to electrify the existing sections of the Falmouth line as a trial for the rest of the network. The line opened as a single Electric unit shuttle between Aird and Greston in 1929, using a life-expired "B Stock" (built 1904) unit from the London Underground District Line.

After 1 year of succesful passenger operations as a trial on the Falmouth line, It was decided to place all funds into electrifying the entire existing passenger railway network on the mainland. Work begun in 1930, although this meant that the 'Falmouth' line's full route would be shelved, only committing the line as far as Aird with intermediate stations at Enor and Hardwick. The line never reached Falmouth.

By 1934, the conduit (later known as Third rail) electrification had reached the entire passenger network including the branches to Stromness and Moraigh. More District Line B Stock units were introduced on all passenger services, whilst goods trains were still restricted to steam traffic. The B stock units were only originally planned as a temporary measure, although ended up being in service on the island until 1975.

The final steam locomotives were withdrawn and replaced by custom-built small electric freight locomotives in the late 50s, with the last goods train running under steam power on March 12th 1959.

## Grouping Era

Truro Metropolitan Railway continued operation at a similar pace with very little station upgrades and no expansions until 1962, when an improvement programme was proposed by the Prime Minister of Oshein. The programme would see Truro Metropolitan Railway come under partial governance of parliament, with a 'modern' overhaul to passenger stations and a fleet of trains to replace the B stock within a decade. The programme rolled forward throughout the mid 60s, with stations being brought up to internationally modern standards.

In 1975, Truro Metropolitan Railway introduced 14 ex-London Underground 1935 stock units to replace the B Stock, which were 70 years old by that point. The trains entered service on the same service diagrams that the B Stock ran.

## Downfall of Truro Metropolitan Railway

Despite the 60s/70s efforts to improve the railway as a whole, The network was in a poor state by the late 80s and early 90s. Stations and trains began to fall into disrepair due to lowered funding after a steep decrease in ridership throughout the early 1980s. Platforms and tracks began to become overgrown with station signs and lamps having their paint slowly peel off.

By 1992 the Greston to Aird single-track branch had fallen into so much of a poor state that it would require immediate construction work in order to keep it open. Due to extremely low usage figures, the final train ran along the line on August 6th 1992. The stations and most of the track were quickly dismantled to make way for a large new road project to improve the narrow lane that ran alongside the rail alignment. This road ended up completely covering up the old line, and very few traces remain today.

In early 1997 it was clear that a drastic and expensive project would need to be carried out in order to keep the railway operating in its current format. The government proposed to close the entire network for three years for conversion into a cost-efficient yet modern light rail tram-train system. This plan was approved in April, and the last train ran on the mainland on May 12th 1997 as a railtour from Truro Central to Port Erth via the Moraigh line.

## Original Tramway

Work began in September 1997 to convert the existing rail network into a light rail tram-train system, starting with track renewal and a new section of track allowing services to go direct from Truro Central to Stromness. A full stop was added at Parliament Hill in Truro, as previously there had just been a small Halt there which hadn't seen service since 1960. A brand new stop was constructed at Wormwood, and a new station was built at Stromness Ferry Terminal in the place of the old freight yard that had been dismantled in the mid 80s after a downfall in freight traffic.

A new depot was constructed next to Grove Road station, although the heavy construction work caused disruption to the nearby rock face, subsequently resulting in the collapse of the Grove Road Rail Tunnel Entrance. Upon this happening, a meeting was immediately called to discuss the future of the route to Port Erth and Moraigh, as the costs to repair the tunnel outweighed the demand at the time. It was decided that the tunnel and therefore lines 2 and 3 would not open.

The route between Truro Central and Stromness opened to the public as Stride Link on January 4th 2000 using two AnsaldoBreda T70 tram-trains, similar to the ones used on the Midland Metro in England although modified for the longer distances. Service operated at an interval of every 10 minutes back and forth. The Truro Metropolitan Railway company had been purchased by Motor Bus operator StrideValley in 1991 anyway for a very low cost, so the operation of the tramway fell on StrideValley's shoulders, with overall ownership being 90% held by the government and 10% held by StrideValley.

Starting from 2001, the old tracks and stations on the Moraigh and Port Erth lines were completely demolished in phases, as if Lines 2 and 3 were to go ahead in the future, the current station and rail infrastructure would be far too past its best to re-use. The alignments of the routes were safeguarded for future expansions.

In 2008, a structural survey was undertaken on Stromness Pier to gauge whether or not it could handle light rail traffic. In July it was found to be stable, so construction began on extending the line from Stromness stop along the pier to a new station at Stromness Pier Head. The expansion was completed in early 2009 and opened to the public shortly afterwards.

## Current Network

During a press conference in February 2012, it was announced that due to a large increase in demand over the last 5 years, Lines 2 and 3 would begin construction and were expected to open in 2015. A rework, rebrand and overhaul of the existing network would also be undertaken. During March 2012, StrideValley purchased an extra 20% stake in the Stride Link business.

Construction began on July 9th 2012 with the first piece of work being the structural rebuild of the Grove Road Tunnel, extending it all the way to a junction near Brocks Green and leaving a space for an underground station at Newtown Bridge. Track was layed and a platform was constructed for Newtown Bridge, although the station wasn't furnished until later on in the project.

Track laying continued throughout 2013 and 2014, with it reaching Port Moraigh by August 2014. Track work on the line to Port Erth began during summer 2014 although was considerably behind schedule. Because of the spread workload, the project was expected to open in summer 2016. Stations were constructed along the route during mid 2015. Six Alstom Citadis Dualis tram-trains were ordered for the network although two were cancelled.

The overhauled network was rebranded to a newer variant of 'Stridelink' using a two-tone red and orange colourscheme.

The Moraigh line (To be named Line 2) was completed and signed off during June 2016 and was set to open to the public during late August. Line 1 between Truro Central and Stromness Pier Head was closed from June in order to add final upgrades to the stations and test the new rolling stock. The upgraded Line 1 and the new Line 2 were opened to the public on August 26th 2016 to a great fanfare. Line 3a (Truro - Port Erth) was completed in November and opened to the public on December 18th. The two T70 units were sold to a small city government in Germany for use on a tramway there.

Line 3b, the connector line between Moraigh and Port Erth did not open until September 2017 due to various complications with the junction. Service frequencies between 2016 and 2022 were fairly low compared to the usage of the system due to the restriction of only having four units. Line 3b regularly saw short-notice service cancellations and other issues. The four Alstom units suffered a plethora of issues during their time in service. Nothing was wrong with the build quality of the vehicles themselves, although they were established as unfit for the island and its steep gradients, so 10 new custom-specified Bombardier TS-220 tram-trains were ordered in 2019 to replace them and increase the frequency. These units were chronically delayed until Summer 2022, when they entered service alongside a brand newly constructed maintenance depot near Brocks Green.

During 2022 it was decided that the section of track between Truro Central and Parliament would be closed, as it restricted city centre vehicle movements and expansions. Despite the network being very busy (particularly compared to its origins), a lot of passengers begun their journeys from Parliament as opposed to Truro Central. Closing Truro Central would also help in the expansion of the area for the new Truro Anchor Bus Station. The station closed in early September and all services now terminate at Parliament, which was renamed Truro Parliament to better reflect its purpouse. A station upgrade programme was also completed during September 2022 with new signage and ticket machines spread across the network, as well as the expansion to double track for Truro Parliament.

The four Alstom Citadis Dualis units were handed back to Alstom before being transferred to SNCF (RATP) for use in Paris/Ile de France.

## Cancelled Projects

As a part of the 2012 plans, a new 50 vehicle park-and-ride facility was proposed for Wormwood Station allowing drivers to park their cars further out of the city centre and either take the tram into Central Truro or to other destinations across the network. This facility would take a large amount of strain off the existing Highlands Park and Ride Bus Site.

The project was cancelled late-stage in 2016, although signage had already been printed for signs along the A1 Expressway that was under construction. The logo for Stridelink P&R can still be seen on certain signs along the A1, as little effort has been made to cover them up. The signs feature the abandoned 'interim' logo that was proposed as the final branding during 2014, although this was later changed to a different logo for launch.