We head back to the familiar territory of Manchester Metrolink for the next instalment of our archive photo series Picture in Time as we take a brief look at T68 1023 with photos from 1992.
1023 was delivered to Manchester on 18th March 1992 and was soon commissioned and entered service. Apart from the standard trip away to Manchester for refurbishment at Wolverton Works in 2007 the tram was also absent from Manchester in 2001/2 following a collision with a bus at Princess Street which had resulted in severe damage. The collision took place 10 days before Christmas in 2001 with the damaged half of 1023 leaving for Crewe just four days later before returning to Queens Road in early February 2002. Its other major claim to fames came in September 2013 when it reached East Didsbury terminus along with T68A 2001 to undertake testing of new axle counters and then in December of the same year it became the last T68 to call at Woodlands Road before this stop was closed. 1023 was withdrawn from service on 21st January 2014 and is one of only three T68s to remain on Metrolink metals with it still to be found on the scrap lines at Trafford Depot.
Our first image shows 1023 heading to G-Mex on the first day of cross-city trams – 27th April 1992 – as it approaches the site of the Shudehill Interchange.
Image number two is again on 27th April and shows 1023 passing the site of another tramstop which is there now but wasn’t back then at Market Street.
And finally we find 1023 at Victoria Station passing the old Platform A.
All Photographs by Ralph Oakes-Garnett