Its time for another edition of “Manchester Metrolink Then & Now” and we stay in Manchester City Centre today.
Balloon Street is located between Victoria and Shudehill and is now a very busy thoroughfare for Manchester Metrolink services with 15 trams an hour in each direction travelling this way (in normal service).
The first photo was taken in 1990 and it’s a very different scene to that we see today. The amount of development in central Manchester over the past 30-odd years means this is basically unrecognisable as we look towards where Shudehill Interchange is now located. The tarmac of the road surface is also coming away to reveal cobbles from an even earlier era.
On 30th August 2023 we are looking in the same direction as 3004 is at the rear of a double unit which is working a Bury to Altrincham service. The street is now surrounded by more modern buildings and Shudehill tramstop is just in front of the glass building. (Both Photographs by Keith Chadbourne)