Its another edition of “Old(er) and New” and we’re back in the city of Manchester to take a look at a T68 and a M5000 in the same place.
11th April 2012 is the date of the first photo which features T68 1005 on its way into Piccadilly. The destination display tells us it came via Woodlands Road which helps us nicely to work out it came from Bury. By this time Woodlands Road was just a part-time tramstop and was only served by trams during the main part of the day, it subsequently closed and was replaced by stops either side at Queens Road and Abraham Moss. The tram is on Aytoun Street in this shot (between Piccadilly Gardens and Piccadilly Station) and is about to turn to the right and go through Piccadilly Place. 1005 would be withdrawn just over two months later (22nd June 2012) and like most of its sister would go off for scrap, last departure from Manchester being 25th June 2014.
Its not quite the same angle but on 17th March 2025 we’re back on Aytoun Street as we see 3060+3044 working a service to Ashton-under-Lyne (from Eccles). The scene behind the trams is much changed as where there was once a warehouse there is now a Holiday Inn. The hotel opened in 2016 (some four years after the last photo) and now dominates the road, but the building alongside allows us to get our bearings somewhat. (Both Photographs by Gareth Prior)