{"id":12247,"date":"2015-08-23T11:40:21","date_gmt":"2015-08-23T10:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=12247"},"modified":"2015-08-23T11:40:22","modified_gmt":"2015-08-23T10:40:22","slug":"picture-in-time-manchester-metrolink-1011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=12247","title":{"rendered":"Picture in Time: Manchester Metrolink 1011"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are back in Manchester for today\u2019s Picture in Time image as we reach 1011<\/strong> in our trawl through the original T68 trams built for Metrolink in the early 1990s. In this photo we find the tram before the system opened in February 1992.<\/p>\n

As we always do with these Metrolink Picture in Time features we will take a look at the brief history of the tram \u2013 don\u2019t forget if you want to know more about the trams you can do so in the excellent \u201cSuperb: A Tribute to the Manchester Metrolink T68 & T68A Light Rail Vehicles\u201d by Andrew Coward and John E Henderson. 1011<\/strong> was delivered to Manchester on 20th December 1991 and after commissioning and test running it entered service on 6th April 1992, the first day of operations. To be honest this trams history during its operational life was a little dull \u2013 when in comparison to some of its sisters \u2013 but it was involved in a RTC in November 2002 (only minor damage sustained) and derailed at Victoria in March 2006 (although again only minor damage was found and it was back in service pretty soon afterwards). As with all the trams it went to Wolverton Works for refurbishment works, between January and March 2004, but apart from these milestones it just went about its daily business without too much fuss.<\/p>\n

Probably its major milestones come at the very end of its career as it has a number of \u201cfirsts\u201d, although it probably won\u2019t be too proud of them! On 18th April 2012 it was the very first second generation on street light rail vehicle to be withdrawn from service in the UK at a time when it was thought that not all of the T68s would be taken out of use. It remained stored on Metrolink property for over a year before it was treated to a relivery into the new Yellow and Silver livery. But rather than being prepared for a return to service this was so that the vehicle could be used during the Red Bull Trials \u2013 a stunt bike event which saw the participants jumping over the tram! This took place on 21st September and it was the same evening that 1011<\/strong> \u2013 which had been split into two sections for the event \u2013 was loaded for its final journey to Booths of Rotherham. The tram did not last longer and by the end of September it had been reduced to scrap metal becoming the first on street second generation light rail vehicle to be scrapped.<\/p>\n

Our photo today shows 1011<\/strong> at Victoria on 11th February 1992 in the original livery which was changed in later years to include aquamarine doors and an extra stripe at roof level.<\/p>\n

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Photograph by Ralph Oakes-Garnett<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are back in Manchester for today\u2019s Picture in Time image as we reach 1011 in our trawl through the original T68 trams built for Metrolink in the early 1990s. In this photo we find the tram before the system … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12247"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12247"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12251,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12247\/revisions\/12251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}