{"id":6522,"date":"2014-02-14T21:20:26","date_gmt":"2014-02-14T21:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=6522"},"modified":"2014-02-14T21:20:33","modified_gmt":"2014-02-14T21:20:33","slug":"farewell-to-the-manchester-metrolink-t68s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=6522","title":{"rendered":"Farewell to the Manchester Metrolink T68s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday 3rd February 2014. A date which will go into the record books as a major landmark in the history of second generation tramways as that is the last occasion that the original on street light rail vehicles in the UK ran in passenger service with 1007<\/strong> and 1022<\/strong> running as a pair on the Bury-Altrincham direct service until they failed at lunchtime at Bury bringing an end to almost 22 years of service to Manchester.<\/p>\n

At the end of January three T68s remained available for service but they were not destined to see much of February as within three days they had all run their last journeys. First to go was 1016<\/strong> which last operated on Saturday 1st February (running as a pair with 1022) before just two days later on Monday 3rd February 1022<\/strong> and 1007<\/strong> made history by running those very last journeys. As if to prolong the agony a final decision on their futures was not to be made straight away and it wasn\u2019t until Monday 10th February that Manchester Metrolink decided that all three vehicles were to be officially withdrawn. No fanfare, no advertised farewell journey and no thanks for their over 20 years of sterling service on Manchester Metrolink just a simple decision to end their careers.<\/p>\n

Although this is the end of the T68s in passenger service one does remain serviceable with 1023<\/strong> remaining in use as the ice-breaker T68 and this is expected to keep this role for the remainder of this winter period but any use this vehicle does see is likely to be overnight so very few people will see it in action again.<\/p>\n

The two remaining T68As \u2013 2001<\/strong> and 2003<\/strong> \u2013 will continue to solider on for the next few months (it is expected they will remain in service for most of 2014) with most of their use limited to the Bury-Abraham Moss shuttle service due to be operate during the shutdown of Victoria.<\/p>\n

1007<\/strong>, 1016<\/strong> and 1022<\/strong> remain at Queens Road Depot for now but will eventually make the trip across to the scrap line at Trafford Depot, a journey which 1012<\/strong>, 1017<\/strong> and 1021<\/strong> are all expected to make tonight. Details of when and where the vehicles will be scrapped have yet to be revealed but it is likely the first scrappings (first if you ignore the fact that 1011<\/strong> has already met its maker) will not be too far off.<\/p>\n

Farewell to the T68s! Thanks for the memories! 1992-2014<\/p>\n

* If you like the T68s you should like our main site update this weekend as we are planning on adding a Photo Gallery featuring the class of trams in action. If you have any photos of the T68s we would love to hear from you and we can add them to the selection we already have ready and waiting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

1022 is seen here on 17th November 2013 whilst operating on the Eccles line into Piccadilly. (Photo: Steve Kemp)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday 3rd February 2014. A date which will go into the record books as a major landmark in the history of second generation tramways as that is the last occasion that the original on street light rail vehicles in the … 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],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6522"}],"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=6522"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6525,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6522\/revisions\/6525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}