Monument Metro station in Newcastle city centre is to undergo a series of early evening closures starting from this Sunday, 13 January, to install new smart ticket machines and electronic ticket gates.
The closures will take place from 8pm in the evening until the end of Metro services from Sunday to Wednesday, for a three week period. Monument will be open as normal at all other times.
Passengers will still be able to change trains and platforms for connections between the airport and the coast lines, but they won’t be able to enter or leave the station at these times and should use alternative city centre stations instead.
New ticket machines and electronic ticket gates are being installed at Monument as part of the £385m Metro all change modernisation programme. The work cannot be done while the station is open.
Monument Metro station is one of the ten busiest railway stations in the English regions, with more than ten million passengers using it every year.
Director of Rail and Infrastructure, Ken Mackay, said: “I apologise if these early evening closures cause disruption for passengers.
“The station’s entrances will be closed after 8pm from Sunday to Wednesday for the next three weeks and passengers should use one of the other city centre Metro stations.
“You will still be able to change trains at Monument for connections between the coast and airport lines when Monument is closed, but you won’t be able to enter or exit the station at concourse level.
“It is not possible to safely do this modernisation work, which involves digging up sections of floor, without closing the station for short periods.
“We did consider working only when the station is normally closed, between 1am and 5am, but this would have taken months and meant tens of thousands of passengers passing through a partial building site during the day.”
Nexus, which owns, manages and is modernising Metro, is installing electronic ticket gates at 13 key stations. A total of 225 ticket machines are being fitted at all 60 Metro stations on the system.
Nexus has now upgraded 52 Metro stations with smart ticket machines which are capable of accepting credit and debit cards and banks notes, as well as coins.
Nexus aims to have the ticket gates ready for passenger use later this year.
The new automatic ticket gates, similar to the London Underground, are being installed as part of the roll out of a new smartcard ticketing system on Metro – the Pop card.