Across the Tyne and Wear Metro, new signs have appeared.

Previously, the position at which the drivers’ cab of the Metrocars should stop in stations was marked with a diamond-shaped “S” sign. Of course, Metrocars used to differ in length, shorter services operating on Sundays, but the front always stopped in the same position. This practice ended about a decade ago, and the facility to vary the train lengths ended when carriages were permanently coupled together during refurbishment, leaving a redundant drivers’ cab at one end of each.

Recently, the diamonds have been joined by new signs indicating the point in each station where the front of the shiny new trains should stop. These are required as, later this year, the 43-year-old trains will start to be replaced by new Class 555 trains with a fixed length of five carriages. And, I can only assume, slightly longer trains mean slightly different stopping positions.