The latest phase of Transformation work on Manchester Metrolink has started at St Peter’s Square with services through this location now set to be disrupted for 14 months. No trams at all will be running through St Peter’s Square from Sunday 28th June for eight weeks as the first stage of works is undertaken and then following the completion of this stage another year of disruption will be experienced by passengers as the stop is transformed to have four platform faces for services on both the original cross city line and the Second City Crossing.
During this eight week period of disruption a revised service pattern will run and from Monday 29th June the following services will operate:
Altrincham to Deansgate-Castlefield – every 12 minutes using double trams
Altrincham to Cornbrook – Peak only service every 12 minutes using single trams
Bury to Piccadilly – every 6 minutes (0700 to 2000 Monday-Friday and 0900 to 2000 Saturday) and every 12 minutes at all other times. Some double trams will run during weekday peak.
East Didsbury to Deansgate-Castlefield – every 12 minutes using double trams in the peak
Eccles to Deansgate-Castlefield via MediaCityUK – every 12 minutes using double trams
Manchester Airport to Cornbrook – every 12 minutes using single trams
Rochdale Town Centre to Ashton-under-Lyne – every 12 minutes using single trams
Metrolink shuttle buses will run between Trafford Bar, Cornbrook and Piccadilly throughout this work (between 0600 and 2000 Mondays to Fridays and 0700 and 1900 at the weekend) whilst the Metroshuttle bus service will be altered to provide connections for passengers. For those passengers who wish to walk between stops a step free walking route is due to be clearly signposted.
On Sunday 28th June there will be further disruption to services as there is further improvement work at Deansgate-Castlefield with trams running a revised service (Altrincham-Cornbrook, Bury-Ashton, East Didsbury-Cornbrook, Eccles-Cornbrook via MediaCityUK, Manchester Airport-Firswood, Rochdale Town Centre-Piccadilly).
As mentioned above this first stage of work is due to take place for eight weeks with a single line available for trams through the worksite from the end of August. Another revised service will be introduced at this stage for around 10 months before another 8 week total shutdown ahead of the full return of services through the new look St Peter’s Square and its new two island platforms.
Even before the closure work was well underway at St Peter's Square as seen in these images taken on 25th June. (All Photographs by Keith Chadbourne)
Excellent. Through service from Milnrow to Ian Allan bookshop a.k.a. Piccadilly station!
With a 12 minute service running Deansgate – Eccles via Media City, does anybody know the planned platform usage at Media City? Ie, will it be both platforms in use, or just one, and if so which? Obviously there will be the occasional out of course change, but just the general plan would be useful.
Thanks in advance for any gen.
All lines except Bury and Altrincham ground to a halt at 0830 this morning due to a power failure, with trams stranded all over the system. Moving after about 30 minutes according to the Manchester Evening News.
It appears that contractors cut through an ‘uncharted cable’ near St. Peter’s Square according to a quote from Peter Cushing on the M.E.N. Website. Not a good start. Not Metrolink’s fault as they only run the service and don’t do the upgrade work, but no doubt they will get the blame in the media.
Yes Ken the usual suspects in the media had a field day. Not good.
I hope they have enough concrete
As is usual during British construction projects most of the “workers” in the photographs are standing around doing nothing. If this was Melbourne they would have completed this over a couple of weekends.
Yes, the picture on the Manchester Evening News website showed about a dozen TfGM staff in attendance at 3012 which was stuck across London Road, but there were only 2 actually doing anything, ie helping passengers to get off the tram. Of course the photo is only a snapshot of about 1/200 second of the whole event so might be misleading – not that the media would ever mislead us? Perish the thought!
It would be interesting to know whether the St Peter’s Square closures could have been avoided. Especially considering how Network Rail have improved with partial rather than full section closures. I suspect the ML 2CC contract was weak so the client had no say. Pity.