Services on Manchester Metrolink will once again serve Victoria from Wednesday 18th February although full services through the area will not resume until Saturday 21st February. Victoria Station has been undergoing a major refurbishment since February 2014 which has seen the Metrolink platforms closed and single line operation in place but these 12 months of disruption are now coming to an end.
During these 12 long months the Metrolink platforms at Victoria have been completely redeveloped to eventually enable more frequent and flexible services to run. Metrolink services have been altered during this period with a special shuttle service in operation between Bury and Crumpsall instead of the usual pattern of running from Bury to Piccadilly and Ashton-under-Lyne.
The February Half Term week will see final preparations made to the area – work will need to completed at Victoria and on Balloon Street during this week – to allow full services to resume and as a result there will be further disruption to services:
Saturday 14th to Tuesday 17th February
No services will operate through Victoria. Trams will run:
Bury to Crumpsall
Rochdale Town Centre to Central Park
Altrincham to Piccadilly
East Didsbury to Piccadilly
Eccles to Ashton-under-Lyne via MediaCityUK
Manchester Airport to Cornbrook
There will be bus services linking Crumpsall and Central Park with the city centre for onward connections
Wednesday 18th February to Friday 20th February
Services will start to stop at Victoria but will still be unable to run from there into the city centre. Trams will run:
Bury to Victoria
Rochdale Town Centre to Victoria
Altrincham to Piccadilly
East Didsbury to Piccadilly
Eccles to Ashton-under-Lyne via MediaCityUK
Manchester Airport to Cornbrook
From Saturday 21st February
Normal services should resume which will result in the restoration of the six minute service from Bury to the city centre and a direct link between Victoria and Piccadilly.
Peter Cushing, TfGM Metrolink Director, said: “We’re looking forward to welcoming our customers back on board at Victoria as the station’s wider redevelopment enters its final stages. We’ve been working closely with Network Rail to ensure this important stop reopens as soon as possible because, although there will still be a lot of construction activity in the station when that happens, it will restore key services and connections for passengers. There will be changes to services in the run up to the reopening – during the traditionally quieter half-term period – and we’ll be publicising these as widely as possible. With such a major programme of improvements across the Metrolink system at the moment, we’re grateful for people’s patience and this is reflected in the decision to freeze Metrolink fares this year.”
With the Metrolink work at Victoria now drawing to a close further redevelopment work is continuing at Deansgate-Castlefield which is currently seeing the outbound platform being refurbished. Work is also underway on the Second City Crossing and once the Deansgate-Castlefield work is finished attention will be turned towards St Peter’s Square.
All Metrolink services suffering severe delays this morning according to their website, due to a road traffic accident on Mosley Street, although it doesn’t say whether a tram was involved in the accident.
The story has now appeared on the Manchester Evening News website. 3022 was involved at the head of a Bury-Altrincham service. Surprise surprise the collision occurred at the junction of Mosley Street and Nicholas Street, and surprise surprise a taxi was involved. The taxi driver says he saw the tram and tried ‘so hard’ to brake but skidded! No injuries according to the news item. The line was blocked from 0955 to 1100.
Exactly the same junction as the R.T.A last Friday involving 3089.So that’s three vehicles off the road at the moment undergoing R.T.A repairs.3022 3087 and 3089.At least it highlights the urgency to get the second city crossing up and running.
Forgot to mention that 3063 was also involved in a R.T.A on the Ashton line yesterday.So that makes four vehicles undergoing collision repairs.3022,3063,3087 and 3089.