The impact of the broken rail at Victoria is continuing to be felt by Manchester Metrolink and to try and improve reliability there will be a further change to services operating through the city centre. Whilst trams will still be unable to operate between Exchange Square and Victoria until further notice, some services will now return to operating on 2CC as from Monday 12th February.
The broken rail at Victoria has been causing problems for Metrolink since Tuesday 16th January and ever since then there has been a revised service operating. As from Monday 22nd January all trams which usually operate via 2CC (those between East Didsbury and Shaw & Crompton/Rochdale Town Centre) were diverted via 1CC and this has led to some congestion and affected reliability.
To try and remedy this the intermediate peak time service which usually runs between East Didsbury and Shaw & Crompton will instead run from East Didsbury to Exchange Square – the first service to go onto 2CC since 21st January. This will continue to operate every 12 minutes.
This means that there will only be trams every 12 minutes between East Didsbury and Rochdale Town Centre and with the expectation that this will have capacity issues it is planned to use more double trams on the service.
An update to the broken rail is also given and that confirms that the affected section of rail has been removed and sent away for repairs off-site at the manufacturer’s premises. There is no timeframe for when it will be able to be refitted and full services resume.
Danny Vaughan, TfGM’s Head of Metrolink, said: “I want to give a huge thank you to passengers for their patience while these important repairs are taking place.
“Since the initial discovery of the damaged rail, ensuring a safe and reliable service has been our number one priority. However, we accept that there have been punctuality issues in recent weeks.
“By introducing this new service pattern and reopening Exchange Square, we are hoping to provide a more reliable service on the impacted lines, and more doubles through Oldham and Rochdale for our passengers.”