Something completely different- The Teesside Metro

There are currently major plans being gone through for a 'Tees Valley Metro', which is odd though interesting.

A lot is said about Newcastle being too small for a metro and it being lucky in having what it does have- this though is forgetting that Tyne and Wear is the 5th biggest urban area in the country with well over 1 million people.
Teeside meanwhile...its even smaller. Middlesbrough and the surrounding region are only in the 300,000s population wise. True there are the significantly sized towns of Hartlpool and Darlington not TOO far away with just under 100,000 people each but these places are pretty darn far from Middlesbrough.

So it is that we have the Teesside metro plans...They're not really for a true metro at all. What they are is plans to upgrade train services in the area.
The current railway system down Middlesbrough way is rather strange with there being lots of tiny towns with their own train stations- in some cases tiny towns even have two- Nunthorpe with only 5000 people has Gypsy Lane and Nunthorpe Central; Eaglescliffe and Marske are also small places with two stations.
Compare this to the situation up towards Newcastle meanwhile where you have large towns such as Consett, Stanley, Blyth and of course Washington, without any rail access at all and you can clearly see something odd down Middlesbrough way....with this their half-metro would seem to be a decent idea. They've already sort of got one set out with their regular rail system.

So. What will the Middlesbrough Metro look like?
This-