No sooner had the road resurfacing work in Eccles been completed and Metrolink services were due to resume on the line than a track issue was discovered leading to the suspension of services to…Eccles! It had been planned that after this road resurfacing works tram services would be able to resume from the start of service on Tuesday 6th April but this wasn’t possible after the track issue was found.
No details of what the issue with the track is have been released except to say that it is at Broadway. No timescale has been given either as to when it may be resolved. Trams last ran between MediaCiytyUK and Eccles on Friday 19th March after which they were suspended while the resurfacing took place. This was planned to be finished over the Easter weekend to allow trams to run through to Eccles for the first time in over a fortnight but in the end the track issue meant this was not to be possible.
Initially passengers for all stops between Broadway and Eccles were advised to use local service buses but later on in the day a dedicated replacement bus service serving all these stops was introduced running every 12 minutes (as opposed to the replacement bus service during the resurfacing works which was unable to serve intermediate stops due to the resurfacing).
And if that wasn’t enough disruption for one day later on the same day no trams could run between Altrincham and Timperley due to a signalling fault. Metrolink tickets were accepted on bus service 263 to allow passengers to complete their journeys.
All in all not a great first day after the Easter weekend on Metrolink!