Poor weather, communication problems, track issues and collisions have all combined over the past week to see delays and disruption to services on various tramways across England.
Blackpool Tramway
Those halcyon days of record-breaking warm and sunny weather have already become a distant memory with the first named storm of 2026/7 hitting the UK and leading to a complete suspension for the Blackpool Tramway.
The first alert of the suspension – which was made for safety reasons – came through just before 1300 on Friday 23rd October and currently remains in place whilst Storm Austen makes its presence felt.
It’s a big selling point of the Blackpool Tramway that it runs along the Promenade but when the wind whips in off the Irish Sea that suddenly becomes a negative. Its not just trams which have been impacted either with all Blackpool Transport bus services also diverted off the Promenade.
London Trams
A track defect at Lebanon Road – between East Croydon and Sandilands tramstops in the centre of Croydon – has led to the Elmers End service being suspended.
The defect was first reported on Wednesday 21st October and the service change has been ongoing since.
Manchester Metrolink
A collision between a car and a tram on Lord Sheldon Way on Saturday 17th October caused problems for Metrolink services. The collision happened at around 1315 and led to the service being suspended from Velopark to Ashton-under-Lyne. The incident was at the entrance to Notcutts Garden Centre close to Ashton Moss tramstop.
A passenger on-board the tram suffered injuries and was treated at the scene with a report of a traffic offence made to Greater Manchester Police.
Nottingham Express Transit
There have been a couple of issues over the past few days on Nottingham Express – one a major communications fault and the other a fallen tree.
There was a widespread communications fault which started on the afternoon of Thursday 22nd October and continued throughout the evening. As per the usual safety procedures in Nottingham this led to the decision to withdraw all tram services until it could be fixed. The problem was fixed overnight and saw trams resume service from the start of Friday 23rd October.
Gareth Race, Engineering Director at NET, said: “Yesterday afternoon (22nd October), we experienced a widescale communications failure which saw us lose all communications with our trams. This persisted over the course of the evening, and as such, we made the difficult decision last night to withdraw all services in line with our safety procedures.
“Our technical team have been working through the night with the support of industry experts to identify the cause of the fault. The fault was identified and rigorously tested overnight, with service resuming this morning (23rd October). However, passengers may still experience some ongoing disruptions and delays throughout today as we continue to test and monitor the situation across the network.
“We apologise to all those who have been affected by yesterday’s events and thank all our customers for their patience and co-operation. We encourage all our customers to check the NETGO! app and our website for the latest service information and any further updates.”
Then on Friday 23rd October the stormy weather led to more disruption with a fallen tree leading to the suspension of services between University Boulevard and Bramcote Lane whilst it was removed and full safety checks completed.