We have become very used to seeing double trams in Manchester with the extra capacity vital on the network for certain services and lines. But its not often that we have seen triple trams, although we change that here as Friday 31st January 2025 saw that very thing happen – although of course they weren’t in service with it being part of a rescue after a failure.
The three trams involved were 3035 plus Starling Bank pair 3091 and 3102. The Starling Bank trams have been running as a pair for a few weeks – two advert trams running as a double together is unusual enough, but for two to have the same advert when running together is more unusual.
After a failure they worked as a trio back to Trafford Depot and were captured on camera with this unusual move.
Cornbrook is the location that this unusual move was seen and here we see the coupling between 3091 (right) and 3102 (left).
And then we see the rear of the consist as 3035 is the third of three trams with all of them off to Trafford Depot. (All Photographs by Reece Hughes, 31st January 2025)
Our trams on the outside are so dirty, need to make them appealing to use instead of adding a triple or even using a double at rush hours so we don’t travel like sardines as at present would be good!
I’m Sure I won’t be alone in not understanding your logic.
Your solution to overcrowding “being like sardines” is to NOT run double units (so LOWER capacity) and instead “make them more appealing” i.e. attract MORE passengers to cram into the space that you want to be reduced!!
Introduce tram trains so places like Bolton can have them
Greater Manchester has done a good job with the trams, but the need to connect Piccadilly with Victoria station is still the outstanding issue.
So the Bury to Piccadilly tram doesn’t exist then?
It might exist but the service frequency is nonsense. It’s quite often a twenty minute interval. Surely this isn’t acceptable as a transfer between rail interchanges in a major city!
In general Metrolink has been a brilliant success but it’s always the cheapest option that gets put into place.instead of a dedicated Victoria – Piccadilly service somebody thinks the present solution is a cheap get around.
Monday to Saturday the Bury to Piccadilly service via Victoria is a 12 minute interval service, on Sundays this runs at 15 minutes intervals. The frequency is sufficient to cater for the traffic. Running a dedicated service between the two stations is not really a practical idea and would no doubt result in further capacity problems at Victoria.