Metrolink services on the Bury and Rochdale lines were disrupted from late on Thursday 5th May until mid-morning on Friday 6th May because of an overhead line problems at Irk Valley. No trams ran on the Bury line whilst services from Rochdale were terminating at Monsall. There were also issues for Manchester Airport and East Didsbury services.
Emergency repairs were required to the overhead with Pod-Trak engineers able to assist with these overnight although it wasn’t possible to complete the repairs in time for services to resume as normal from the start of service on Friday 6th May. This meant that the following services ran:
- Rochdale Town Centre to Monsall
- East Didsbury to Exchange Square
- Manchester Airport to Exchange Square (diverted via 2CC instead of its usual 1CC rouye)
All trams from Altrincham ran into Piccadilly whilst there was no service at all on the Bury line.
Danny Vaughan, TfGM Head of Metrolink, said: “I’d like to apologise to customers whose journey is affected by today’s disruption. Engineers have been working throughout the night trying to fix the damage and Metrolink staff are also out across the network to help passengers.”
The repairs were completed mid-morning allowing all services to resume in full from 1100.
it makes you think about the reliability of the overhead systems of current day tram networks. The weather is not extreme, neither is the customer base or the vast majority of the operating conditions the trams are subject to. Has vehicle technology surpassed overhead design or what kind of behind the scenes failures are causing the networks to stop.
The UK systems and others world wide are relatively slow compared to high speed rail, which seems to be coping much better despite considerably higher current flows, speeds and weights. Whilst there will be failures down to many causes world wide, is technology preferable to a reliability.
Railways use speed of many multiples, excepting that the tram networks have undulation and bends, junctions etc to negotiate in much tighter confines. Why with a multi million pound rail and overhead network with computer tech design are we getting the same problems as 1900 technology and a simple wheel contact boom. Which I am sure was repaired and up and running as soon as the horse could drag the tower wagon to the incident.
I am genuinely concerned that the UK has in its tram operation not proved that the diesel bus is dead and at least if not a RTA can quickly become substituted.
Some of our members must have records of tram reliability from history, big operators such as Glasgow Im sure heads would have rolled.