As the major two month closure of the Manchester Metrolink line between Piccadilly Gardens and Piccadilly Station enters its final couple of weeks we take another look at recent progress on the track replacement with images coming from Steve Hyde and taken on 28th July 2025.
These works are part of the continued investment into maintaining and improving the Manchester Metrolink network. They started from 3rd June 2025 and are due to be completed by the end of Sunday 10th August to allow a normal service to resume from Monday 11th August. Work got underway in Piccadilly Gardens and has since moved on to Aytoun Street (although further works are taking place in Piccadilly Gardens at the time of writing).
Service changes have been necessary during these works. The Ashton line is split from the rest of the network and so a selection of trams (which have been changed over at least twice during the period) are outbased to allow a service to operate Ashton-Piccadilly and Etihad Campus-Piccadilly. Meanwhile trams are running Altrincham-Bury whilst Eccles services are all running via MediaCityUK and diverted to Victoria.
From Saturday 2nd to Sunday 10th August more work will be taking place at Pomona and on the Eccles line which will mean there are no trams to Eccles with those on the Trafford Park line only running The Trafford Centre-Wharfside.
In this first photo we see the facing points where the routes to either St Peters Square or Market Street diverge in Piccadilly Gardens. There has been a renewal of at least one set of switch blades. The track approaching these points was replaced during an earlier stage of the work.
Here we can see the completed renewal of the curves across Portland Street which were replaced during an earlier stage of the work. A section of the track on Aytoun Street was renewed at the same time.
The current stage is concentrated on the curves at Piccadilly Place, here we see work at Auburn Street/Aytoun Street junction.
The curves at the bottom of Piccadilly Place alongside London Road are also being replaced.
In the inbound platform at Piccadilly there are a couple of spare sets visible headed by 3126. Whether these are serviceable is not known but availability has been affected by failures and RTC damage.
Visible from London Road in the Ashton platform approach tunnel is 3143 with damage suffered in an RTC in Droylsden. (All Photographs by Steve Hyde, 28th July 2025)