Nexus hosts conference for global light rail operators

Photo of all the COMET Western Conference delegates at the Nexus HQ at The Spark building in Newcastle on Thursday 4 June 2026
7 June 2026

Metro operators from across the world have visited North East England to share knowledge and best practice.

We hosted the Community of Metros (COMET) annual Western Conference at our new headquarters at The Spark in Newcastle. 

A total of 42 delegates from 17 world cities were in attendance

The three-day conference included roundtable discussions, member updates, and keynote speeches from senior leaders at Nexus. There were also fact finding visits to Gosforth Metro Depot to see the new Stadler Metro trains, and the Nexus Learning Centre in South Shields.  

COMET host conferences in different member cities each year, and this year it is our turn to host. 

Cathy Massarella, Managing Director of Nexus, said: “We’re honoured to have hosted this COMET conference right here in our region. 

“It brought together Metro operators from around the world so that we could benchmark our services and share knowledge, ideas and innovations from across the global light rail industry. 

“We welcomed delegates to North East England from North America, Europe, South America, and Asia. It’s great to see how other operators are doing and what we can learn from each other. 

“Nexus is proud members of the COMET group as the operator of the Tyne and Wear Metro, which cements our place in that unique club of world cities to run an urban light rail mass transit system.”

Attendees came from all four corners of the globe, including the USA, Portugal, Spain, Canada, Norway, France, Brazil, Japan, India, Argentina and Taiwan. 

The Cities with metro systems who sent delegates were: Buenos Aires, Washington DC, New Delhi, London, Lisbon, Madrid, Montreal, New York, Oslo, Ottawa, Paris, Rio, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Taipei and Vancouver. 
 

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