The Metro: A Rail Life Story follows life on the Tyne and Wear Metro – the first time cameras have been allowed in-depth behind the scenes at the UK's biggest metro system outside London.

The Metro is 48 miles long, with passengers making 37 million journeys a year around Newcastle, Sunderland, Gateshead, North and South Tyneside.

Filmed over the busy Summer of 2019 as the Metro approached its 40th birthday, cameras show some of its 1,100 staff dealing with the biggest events of the year – including the Great North Run and the Spice Girls reunion concert in Sunderland.

With 60 stations the Tyne and Wear Metro serves 100,000 passengers a day and its trains travel 10,000 miles a day. But, as the series reveals, it's a service that is often under fire and stretched to its limits as, ahead of a new fleet being delivered, it currently operates with trains that are as old as the Metro itself.

This series follows the highs and lows of the summer and provides a vivid insight into the daily trials and tribulations for staff.