The May Day Bank Holiday weekend has seen the latest trackworks on the South Yorkshire Supertram network as the investment from the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority to improve the system continues. This time they are attending to the track at Gleadless Townend which has affected services on both the Blue and Purple routes. This article includes some photos from the first day of the works courtesy of Stuart Cooke.
During the works the Purple route has been completely suspended whilst the Blue route is just running between Malin Bridge and Sheffield Station. As usual a replacement bus service is being offered with this going from Fitzalan Square (in the city centre giving easier interchange possibilities than the station) to Halfway. Anyone wishing to travel to Herdings/Leighton Road and Herdings Park are being guided towards First bus services numbers 47 and 48 instead.
The work started on Saturday 3rd May and should be completed in time for normal services to resume on Tuesday 6th May.
The work was taking place at Gleadless Townend stop itself and as we can see here is involving the replacement of the rails. In this first view we see good progress is already being made just a few hours into the work.
New track is waiting as work is underway on removing the rails to be removed.
Once again Volker Rail are completed the works on behalf of the SYMCA. This final view at Gleadless Townend shows more of the work with new rails already readied for installation. (All Photographs by Stuart Cooke, 3rd May 2025)