Transport for Greater Manchester have confirmed that the single platform at Mosley Street in Manchester city centre is to close to passengers following services on Friday 17 May. It is now possible to close Mosley Street because new real time access displays have been installed at Shudehill, Market Street, Piccadilly Gardens, Piccadilly Gardens, Piccadilly station, St Peter’s Square and Deansgate-Castlefield stops enabling passengers to see where and when the next three departures are due to go.
It has been a long held ambition to close Mosley Street stop as it is said it will improve journey times, reliability and capacity on the network. Mosley Street is the only remaining stop on the network which still requires double T68s to use their steps to use and its closure may hasten the end for the older trams on the network as there will be nothing to stop double M5000s being used on the Bury-Altrincham direct service. The stop has only ever had a single Altrincham bound platform with no Bury bound platform ever built. It has traditionally been the first stop in the city centre where all Altrincham bound services converge and as a result of this a new information display will be installed in the vicinity to let people know whether the next Altrincham service will be from Piccadilly Gardens (from Piccadilly Station) or Market Street (from Bury). The displays at both these stops will also inform passengers which stop the next service will depart from.
Cllr Andrew Fender, Chair of the Transport for Greater Manchester Committee, commented: “We know that passengers want to be kept informed at all times and providing real-time information on when their next tram will arrive is crucial to that. In order to provide that, we’ve had to change the way the network operates behind the scenes. That’s been a massive challenge, especially on a ‘live’ network, but we are now starting to see the fruits of that labour through these new displays. The new tram management system is being rolled out in phases and once that process is complete, passengers across the network will benefit from this kind of information. In the future, the aim is to provide this at their fingertips too: on smartphones and tablets. I am sure the information these displays provide will be of great benefit as people make their way around the network, but this is just one of the many passenger-focused benefits being provided by the expansion programme. The new tram management system will enable us to run more trams, more frequently and in more effective ways than before, particularly when the network is at its busiest or in response to any disruption. It’s a significant step forward in our journey to providing a truly customer-focused network.”
Peter Cushing, TfGM’s Metrolink Director, added: “Mosley Street only serves trams in one direction, and is the only split-level platform left on the network, which means only the older trams can call there as double trams. As the network has expanded, this has presented a bottleneck in the city centre, and also means we can’t run our new trams as doubles on services to Altrincham, Eccles, Chorlton and, in the near future, East Didsbury. Closing the stop removes both problems and also offers journey time savings, protects the reliability of services and opens up the immediate area to improve pedestrian access to local businesses. It also means, in future, we will be able to run more double trams through the city centre, which will provide more room for passengers. We fully appreciate that removing any stop on the network will have an effect but Mosley Street is very close to Piccadilly Gardens and Market Street and the additional displays will help people get to the right stop to catch the next available Altrincham-bound service.”
* You can view a leaflet on the closure at http://www.tfgm.com/mosleyst/Documents/Mosley-St-Closure.pdf
All well and good oftgm and Metrolink, the problem still is for the first tram in a morning from Bury, which upon arrival at market street is invariably met by a tram, going back to Bury. For the commuters in a morning this will have a big impact as ofyen a short Ussain Bolt type dash from Market Street to Mosley Street would mean the tram coming from Piccadilly gardens could be intercepted.
However now will these services wait at the gardens fro the inbound tram, bet they do not. This service is well patronised, full and standing from Whitefield onwards.
The matter of doubling up the m series I agree will be good but there has been nothing to stop them doing that on Bury Droylsden services sine inception of the route yet they have continually not done so at peak times thus leaving people unable to board and left behind on many occasions at peak time.
I suppose we will have to put the past behind us and see how it goes , but as you said I fear the end now very quickly for the t series.
Just as a matter of interest possibly for fellow readers 1003, the only yellow grey one as I describe it to my friends, has now popped up working on its own on the Eccles service. This vehicle has been working the Bury service in multiple for a long time now and I believe 2005 ? has now been retired so perhaps it is working in replacement for that. For how long I do not know.
Can confirm 1003 now back in multiple on the Bury to Altrincham services, 1003 leads out of Bury
2002 is retired still at QRD, 2004 and 2006 are in storage at OLD.
3055 Replaced 2002.
New ones in service of recent I believe are 3050, 3052, 3055, 3057
Keep your eyes opened to see if you can catch them 🙂
Mosley Street stop could have been standardised by removing the centre traction poles and slewing the outbound track across towards the inbound track to make more platform width and ramp width available.
When they do away with Mosley Street tram stop, will the adjacent businesses “benefit” by losing the crowds of people presently using Mosley Street tram stop?
Not everyone has “smartphones and tablets”, and the all-singing-all-dancing passenger information display will trigger mad undignified dashes to the surviving stops.
That wouldn’t have removed Bruntwood’s determination to have the stop removed would it. As most Mancunians know Bruntwood are the major property owner in Manchester and wield significant power, they were totally opposed to a full length high level platform.
Considering that the Altrincham line is the only service affected I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Going to the ‘wrong’ stop would only result in having to wait an extra 6 minutes, and in the evenings and on Sundays the problem doesn’t arise anyway. As for Bruntwood opposing a full length high platform at Mosley Street, it’s a bit much that their views take precedence over the views of the passengers/shoppers who use the service, considering that without shoppers neither Bruntwood nor anyone else would have a livelihood.
One of tfgm reasons for closing mosley st, is that they say it will get rid of the bottleneck in the city centre.The only bottle neck in the town centre is G-mex ramp.So by closing mosley st,that means trams will join the queue on g-mex ramp even quicker than before.
Or maybe the other reason is that when east didsbury open next week,they will be running double M5000 units from east didsbury to Rochdale.This is due to the already heavy passenger loading during peak on the werburghs line.A one car m5000 on a twelve minute service from east didsbury couldn’t cope.
The Deansgate Castlefield tram jams should become a thing of the past when the section between there and Cornbrook is converted to line of sight operation in the next few weeks. Testing is now in progress along the viaduct.