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Built in 1982, as part of the urban area's new swanky metro system. It's underneath a massive bus station which has feeder routes which serve all of the town plus into many rural areas, but the fare system is disjointed, so not many people actually transfer onto the Metro. The demographics of the area do help - very working class with low car ownership, so people use public transport a lot more than elsewhere. Services are 10 per hour to Newcastle city centre, 5 per hour to Sunderland, South Shields, and the coast. Buses vary from 14 per hour (to a major town just to the south, and similar to the busiest shopping centre in Europe) to 1 per hour or less (to some of the most rural suburbs).
I believe usage is just south of 2 million per year, which isn't great in a town of 100,000. We used to have an actual national rail station, but it closed in the 70s, now you have to use Newcastle (though that has trains to basically anywhere you could want to go).
