Engineers from MPT have wasted no time in starting the major rail replacement works on Manchester Metrolink’s Eccles line. The line started a three month closure on Saturday 16th July with no trams due to run any further than MediaCityUK for the duration of the works and work has already commenced to replace the almost life expired tracks.
The first stage of works is on Eccles New Road between Langworthy and Weaste and this will be followed by two further stages on South Langworthy Road and then on to Eccles. Much of this track is the original rails which were laid for the opening of the line in 1999 and its understood that a different method will be used to embed the rails to that used when the original construction took place.
Looking west along Eccles New Road just west of Langworthy stop it can be seen that the contractor has removed the old rails on the inbound line by cutting wide slots in the road surface and one of the new rails is loosely laid in place.
Here we see a section of new rail lowered into the wide slot cut into the road above the original concrete slab foundation. The blue moulding around the rail houses a polymer block joining two sections of the polymer boot insulation around the rail. The second rail is seen on blocks in the background.
Further west towards Weaste stop progress is somewhat more advanced and the rails are surrounded by newly poured embedding material.
A closer view of the embedded rail in the slot cut into the road.
Closer to Weaste stop at team are using machines to drill a series of small holes in the newly poured concrete possibly to allow reinforcement to be inserted.
A return to a sight seen a lot over the past 12 years or so. MPT the consortium responsible for the construction of the Phase 3 extensions are involved once more.
Finally just in case anyone was in any doubt as to why the renewals are needed this photograph shows how badly corrugated some sections had become. (All Photographs by Steve Hyde, 21st July 2022)
Surely these rails are not time expired. They haven’t had that much traffic over them, or did I fall asleep for twenty odd years?
If you’d been on Eccles New Road recently you would seen and heard the evidence of just how worn and corrugated the rails were. Their replacement is desperately needed. Interestingly the track on Bilston Road in Wolverhampton was in exactly the same condition at around the same age before it was relaid a few years ago. The construction was undertaken by the same joint venture as the Metrolink Eccles Line. This could of course be a pure coincidence. The formation of corrugations in the rail can be a symptom of a number of things such as the slight wheel slip experienced on sharper curves or vibration within the rail rather caused by an interaction between the rail and its foundation.