In the 1970s, Newcastle, like Liverpool, was faced with an increasingly decrepit local rail network, which was not achieving its full potential. Like Liverpool, they solved the problem with a radical upgrade of trains and stations, and a brand new cross-city link tunnel under Newcastle and Gateshead to stitch it all together.
The resulting Tyne & Wear Metro opened in 1980 and was an instant hit. Thirty-odd years later, the network has been expanded and is currently undergoing a modernisation programme.
Shamefully, I have never visited this transport system, and I was determined to put that right. On Friday afternoon, I descended the steps of Central Station… Station, to take a spin on the imaginatively-named Yellow Line out to Whitley Bay.