Queens Road Depot loses last T68As

Manchester Metrolink’s Queens Road Depot is now without either T68s or T68As following the movement of 2001 and 2003 late on 27th June for further storage at Trafford Depot. The LRVs worked as a pair, although not working in multiple, leaving Queens Road at approximately 2230 arriving at their new home at 2300.

There had previously been thoughts that the two LRVs could be used as engineering vehicles and indeed 2003 did spend a period at the end of last month working as depot shunter at Queens Road. However with their transfer across Manchester it now appears that this idea has been discarded and the pair join the remaining T68 and T68As on the scrap line at Trafford.

This is very likely to be the very last movement across Manchester City Centre of a T68A with none of the remaining five LRVs expected to be retained for any purpose. 2001 had suffered a compressor fault at Queens Road and this meant that this vehicle had to be towed across by 2003. So the historic event of the last movement of a T68A in Manchester City Centre had its rarity value extended by the fact that they worked across coupled. But rather than working in multiple this was very much a case of 2003 towing a failed 2001.

Although looks to be the last movement of a T68A across Manchester it is not expected to be final movement of a T68 on Manchester Metrolink with one LRV being prepared for movement back to Queens Road for further preparation works ahead of its departure.

Meanwhile the latest delivery of a M5000 got rather delayed on Saturday 28th June when 3085 got stuck at the junction of Great Ancoats Street and Oldham Street on its final approaches to Queens Road Depot.

* Steve Kemp was on hand to record the historic movement of 2003 and 2001 through the city centre and videos can be found on his Flickr account. The first video is available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/d33206hg/14335969880/ and follow the links to the others.