Road-rail vehicle derails at Queens Road causing major delays for Metrolink

Posted on Friday 21 June 2013 by Gareth Prior

Services on Manchester Metrolink suffered severe delays during the morning rush hour on Friday 21 June after a road-rail vehicle derailed at the entrance to Queens Road depot preventing trams from leaving to form the days service. The incident happened at approximately 0500 and an immediate start was made on rerailing the vehicle. However this took 90 minutes and by 0715 only around 50% of the trams needed for service had managed to leave Queens Road depot. A service was operated on all lines although it was not possible to run at normal frequencies until later in the morning when all the trams had been able to get off the depot.

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23 Responses to Road-rail vehicle derails at Queens Road causing major delays for Metrolink

  1. Ralph Oakes-Garnett says:
    Friday 21 June 2013 at 21:15

    I sincerely hope that measures have been taken to ensure this does not happen again. Unbelieveable!

    • tram man says:
      Friday 21 June 2013 at 22:43

      its a good job it didn’t happen at old Trafford depot.It would have stopped the job completely,as there is only one gate out of three working and that has a single track.Not bad for a depot which was handed over nearly two years ago.

  2. Ken Walker says:
    Friday 21 June 2013 at 22:51

    How did this become such a problem, considering that there are now 2 ways of getting on/off the depot?

    • Danny says:
      Saturday 22 June 2013 at 11:20

      Using the ORL connection is not an option, as it isn’t fully commissioned yet. It would require a large number of staff on the ground to get the trams out that way, and it would have taken so long to get more than a few trams out as to have not been worth it.

      • Ken Walker says:
        Saturday 22 June 2013 at 13:03

        The amount of uncommisioned or partially-commissioned equipment on the Metrolink system is unbelievable. The system is really being run on a shoestring. Are they ever going to sort out the TMS problems?

        • freel07 says:
          Saturday 22 June 2013 at 19:03

          The TMS problems now have solutions but there is a process of catching up to complete now. At the moment they are balancing the available resources between opening the sections that are ready and converting the existing signalling to TMS. It cannot all be done at once.

        • Steve says:
          Saturday 22 June 2013 at 19:25

          Absolutely! The pointwork and crossovers between Old Trafford stop and the new depot has been half complete for about two years now!
          I commute by Metrolink and National Rail every day and over the past 5 years Metrolink has got worse but the latter has improved!

  3. Clifford Stead says:
    Saturday 22 June 2013 at 08:56

    Metrolink really need to get a grip with situations like this! They simply don`t ever have a plan B for these incidents. Queens Road has a direct link to the Oldham Line.

  4. nigel says:
    Saturday 22 June 2013 at 16:23

    What I can never work out is how Metrolinks ppm is so high, as someone said to me on the tram on the way in there is a problem of some description every day. What people do not seem to do is get a compensation/comments forms from oftgm and claim back what ever they can. Are people aware of this do we think ?

  5. tram man says:
    Saturday 22 June 2013 at 18:47

    To be fair to metrolink,i think a de-railment at the entrance to any rail depot would cause chaos.It couldn’t have happenend at a worst time,just coming up to a shift change from nights to the day shift.If it was a road rail vehicle,they can pretty much re-rail themselves.
    A de-railment at queens road is not as rare as you might think.Only a couple of weeks ago a M5000 double de-railed and more or less wrote of one of the bogies.Apart from the new stabling berths which is all new track and points,the rest was second hand when they put it in twenty years ago.

  6. The Eye says:
    Sunday 23 June 2013 at 19:10

    There seems to be an increasing amount of Hornby Fat Controllers on this site!! TfGM and RATP are doing the best they can with what they’ve got! Metrolink is in a transition period. As a daily commenter for the last 21 years, Metrolink is now a far better outfit than it was 10 years ago, even if the service is yet to improve to the level certain people expect! Remember, don’t expect a London style service outside of London!

  7. John Stewart says:
    Monday 24 June 2013 at 20:57

    One doesn’t have to be a qualified fat controller to point out that each depot should have two operational exits.

    • freel07 says:
      Monday 24 June 2013 at 21:17

      Not all depots have more than one exit. Wednesbury on Midland Metro has only one, Wilkinson Street in Nottingham has only one, it is not always possible to provide multiple links. Queens Road will have 2 once the Monsall Junction can be commissioned and Old Trafford will have 3.

  8. Ralph Oakes-Garnett says:
    Tuesday 25 June 2013 at 09:08

    In Manchester we expect better than London our great rival in the best traditions of Manchester. It is high time that more government support is forthcoming in projects in the second metroplis instead of being given the crumbs. It would also be helpful to have the regulation of London to help make things fairer. Our prewar Greater Manchester tram network was almost as big as London at some 2000 trams and in the thirties thanks to Mr Pilcher the buses were way ahead of London. Let us hope that Metrolink managers can be as effective as Mr Pilcher despite being largely on opposite sides of bus/tram divide.

    • Ken Walker says:
      Tuesday 25 June 2013 at 18:36

      I don’t know why we shouldn’t expect a London style transport system, whatever that means. We pay London style taxes!

  9. john woodman says:
    Tuesday 25 June 2013 at 13:52

    I fully agree ralph. the skewed bias of capit al infrastructural spending towards london and its insatiable demands on the exchequer are at the expense of the north of england. the latest wheez hs2 project is a further example of home counties and capital spend bias. Where are funds for light rail in leeds and liverpool ? Not to mention preston and other worthy centres. They can be found embedded in crossrail and other large capital with a capital c projects. The north of england plays fifth fiddle to westminster politicians. Blackpool had some crumbs off the table and is still hoping for a modest second helping to extend the tramway up to blackpool north station and the emergent new business hub being built there.

  10. John stewart says:
    Wednesday 26 June 2013 at 20:37

    I am afraid that “free107” is acting as an apologist for Metrolink’s depot access strategy of “jam tomorrow” which of course leads to “jams today”.

    • The Eye says:
      Sunday 30 June 2013 at 18:37

      Freel07 is without a single doubt, the most informed commenter on this site! I’ve followed this site since its birth, but since the introduction of ‘comments’, the news section has been ruined for me! I may as well read the comments on the Manchester Evening News website as its clear the majority of the commenter on here also post their negative opinions there too!

      • Ken Walker says:
        Sunday 30 June 2013 at 23:21

        I don’t know why the comments section has ruined the news page for you. Have you considered reading the news page and not reading the comments? If reading opinions that dare to differ from your own upsets you then that is what I would recommend!

        • The Eye says:
          Monday 1 July 2013 at 19:37

          It’s the ill informed comments that sully the news. Is this a forum, or a news site? If I want to read ill informed comments about metrolink, I’ll go on Railforums!

        • freel07 says:
          Monday 1 July 2013 at 20:06

          Ken, In my case it isn’t that the comments differ from my views, everyone is entitled to their own view. It is in a few cases the feeling that some believe that our networks are run for the benefit of the enthusiasts rather than them having to survive in the harsh economic real world.

          • Ken Walker says:
            Monday 1 July 2013 at 20:34

            freel07, my comments were not directed at you in any way. I just didn’t think that comments which were purely about other people making comments were relevant or add anything to the discussion. I’ll leave it at that on the subject, except to say that the one thing on which I agree with The Eye is that freel07 appears to be the most informed commenter on the site!

    • freel07 says:
      Sunday 30 June 2013 at 19:53

      I’m not sure I understand your comment. Both Queens Road and Old Trafford have been built (or in the case of Queens Road rebuilt) with multiple exits. Unfortunately for well publicised reasons some of these are not yet in use. To condemn Metrolink out of hand because of an unforeseen technical problem is short sighted. A lot of work and effort is being put into getting the new equipment up and running.

      I have to agree with ‘The Eye’ that the introduction of comments has spoilt the news pages. I’m not so sure about his first comment though!!

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