It seems that the past few days haven’t been the best for overhead line equiment on UK tramways as both Manchester Metrolink and Stagecoach Supertram have seen major disruption as a result of damage requiring significant repairs. Metrolink’s problems were at Whitefield on Wednesday 23rd March with those on Supertram at Valley Centertainment starting late on Thursday 24th March.
Starting off on Manchester Metrolink and the issue at Whitefield was first reported during the morning rush hour with no trams able to run between Crumpsall and Bury for the remainder of the day whilst repairs were undertaken.
With a revised service already running on Metrolink because of rail replacement works in Manchester City Centre a further revision was required with all trams from Altrincham only running as far as Crumpsall. This was at a 6 minute frequency for most of the day with it reducing to every 12 minutes in the evening.
A limited bespoke replacement bus service operated between Crumpsall and Bury and there was also ticket acceptance in place on rail services between Piccadilly and Victoria and the 41, 59, 97, 98, 135 and 524 bus services.
Services didn’t resume back through to Bury until the start of Thursday 24th March.
Then late on Thursday 24th March and it was Supertram’s turn to have some overhead problems. The issue here was at Valley Centertainment on the route to Meadowhall and as well as Yellow route services affected the Tram-Train service. The last few services of the day were curtailed – with trams stranded by the fault overnight – and repairs continued throughout Friday 25th March.
During the disruption all services on the Yellow route only ran between Middlewood and Cricket Inn Road whilst the Tram-Train service was suspended in its entirety. Supertram tickets were valid for use on Stagecoach and First bus services in the area whilst there were no trams.
At the time of writing the repairs to the overhead had yet to be completed.