A nine month project to completely redesign and expand Manchester Victoria Metrolink stop will start on Friday 21st February it has been confirmed. The work will see additional platforms provided to accommodate the new Second City Crossing (2CC) and will mean that the stop is closed completely to all services with passengers advised to use Shudehill instead with there also be changes to services being provided.
From Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd February no trams at all will run through Victoria with services running Bury-Abraham Moss and Rochdale Railway Station-Central Park only – replacement buses will be provided into Manchester city centre. During this period all services from Altrincham and East Didsbury will run into Piccadilly whilst services on the Eccles line will run all the way through to East Didsbury (via MediaCityUK). This three day period will presumably see preparations being made for services operating over the remaining nine months of the project.
From Monday 24th February trams will be able to run through Victoria but they will be doing so on a single line of track which means less services than normal are able to operate in the area. As a result a revised service will be in operation for the nine months of the project (think of it as a pregnancy; there may be times when you wish it wasn’t happening but in the end you will be glad that it did!)
Services will run as follows:
* Bury-Altrincham direct: every service will be a double tram from the start to end of service
* Bury-Abraham Moss: every 12 minutes. Passengers travelling between these stops are asked to use this shuttle service rather than the through service to try and aid capacity in the peaks.
* Ashton-under-Lyne-Eccles: every 12 minutes.
* Rochdale-East Didsbury: every 12 minutes but not calling at Victoria
* Altrincham-Piccadilly: no change
* MediaCityUK-Piccadilly: no change
Peter Cushing, TfGM’s Metrolink Director, said: “The Victoria project is incredibly exciting, it complements the wider transformation of the station but also plays an essential part of Metrolink’s Second City Crossing development and on-going expansion of the network. To ensure this is done in a safe manner, we have to run on a single line of track. Currently, 15 trams an hour call at Victoria in each direction – that’s 30 overall, which simply cannot be sustained when we’re running on just a single line. So we’re temporarily closing the stop and asking people to use the nearby Shudehill stop instead. We’re also making changes to services on the Bury line, which will be supported by running double trams on every service from Bury to Altrincham via the city. We’ve considered these changes very carefully and they will provide customers with the most effective, safest and least disruptive option. They also mirror demand we’ve monitored on the network.”
The only problem I can see,is that there is going to be a mass stampede
for the double unit going through to Altrincham in the peaks.People don’t
want to leave the tram at Abraham Moss and then take another hour by bus into central Manchester.I know there’s not a lot Metrolink can do about the situation,but as we all know you need a hell of a lot of buses to cope with the passenger loading of a tram.
So to ensure that Bury has a direct city centre service all the time the Bury to Alty direct runs all day every day?
Therefore there are twice as many services out to Alty on evenings & Sunday as the Picc-Alty route is described as ‘no change’?
And what happens when City are at home, they presumable cannot run the Victoria – Etihad shuttle so do we get Media City to Etihad instead? I hope so especially when City pay mid-week. Personally I think that Metrolink miserably fail their Salford Quays customers on an evening peak when City are at home when they deliberately only run half the normal capacity. Half service should mean Half price………….
The way I read it is that there will be the same number of services to Altrincham as there are now.
The capacity will increase as the service from Bury will always be 2 trams.
Mick, we are told that the Bury-Alty directs will run ‘until the end of service’. Usually the directs run until early evening only and then Alty is only served by the Picc route as I am sure that you know! Therefore Alty will receive twice as many trams in the evening if both the direct to Bury and the normal Picc route runs? I just wanted clarification of this, which I believe I now have for a Sunday (Bury to Picc & Alty to Picc only as now) but I am still unsure about Monday-Saturday evenings.
On Sunday’s throughout Victoria closure, Bury service will run to Piccadilly (every 12 mins) and Ashton service will run to Eccles/MediaCity again every 12 mins.
Altrincham service will run as normal 12 mins service on Sunday as will Rochdale to East Didsbury service too.
Normally in these situations there are winners and losers.The double units running through from bury-alt are every twelve minutes during the day until the end of service.Normaly the bury-ashton would make it a six minute service into Manchester.This service is being replaced with a bury-Abraham moss single unit.So the people on the bury line are the losers.The winners are the people who would normally have to change at Picc gardens after peak to continue their journey to either bury or Altrincham.
The biggest losers of all will be those who use Metrolink to travel between Victoria and Piccadilly stations, who will lose all their through services for 9 months. Considering that one of the main original purposes of Metrolink was a ‘second best’ substitute for the aborted Picc-Vic rail scheme this is a strange decision, as through services between Victoria and Deansgate are already provided by the Rochdale / East Didsbury service.
Absolutely ridiculous, a 12 minute through service in peak hours is simply not on. Do TfGM in their ivory tower really expect passengers only travelling part way to miss a tram to wait for the Abraham Moss shuttle. Even saying all City trams will be doubles is crazy, even with a 6 minute service in peak times the trams are rammed.
Its not good enough to have single line working through Victoria, we are paying increased prices for soon to be a very third rate service. It is up to TfGM to maintain a full service during the period of the works.
We can all see the pitfalls in T.F.G.M plans.On paper it looks like the Alt-Picc service will run all day,plus the direct service will run all day.In reality I think what they mean is that after peak only the direct twelve minute double service will run and people wanting Picc station will have to change.After peak they might as well just revert back to a Bury-Picc and Alt-Picc service.No doubt a few weeks into the plan they will see its not working and come up with a better solution.As Danman says a double unit every twelve minutes from bury cannot cope,it will be rammed solid at
whitefield.