Central Park - impressive structure for a little used station on the line from Victoria to Rochdale via Oldham
Staying from 3 to 9 July 2015, I had
enough time to explore the large Metrolink system, the most extensive
of its kind in the U.K., so it deserves a closer look. I used
Manchester also as a base for day trips to Blackpool, Liverpool and
Sheffield, which will be dealt with in separate blog posts.
Unfortunately I could not experience
the Metrolink system in its normal form, as the network has been
split into two parts since 28 June to allow for the reconstruction of
the central St. Peter's Square stop and its connection to the second
city crossing, now finally under construction. This division will
last all summer and after that, service will still be restricted
through St. Peter's Square until 2016.
Deansgate-Castlefield - during the temporary closure of the city centre route probably the busiest station on the network, now enhanced with three tracks
To start with, Metrolink is not bad,
but in many aspects far from perfect, too. For British standards, it
has been expanded so massively and so rapidly that the critical
observer might easily get suspicious. So let's have a closer look.
And the look of the system has also changed drastically within only a
few years: the complete rolling stock has been replaced, all original
Ansaldo trams are out of service, although I saw a few still in the
yard at Old Trafford, and all stops restyled in yellow. The overall
appearance of the system is very good, all pretty clean, no graffiti
at all, no litter or signs of vandalism, maybe the old stations on
the original lines could do with some facelifting regarding platform
surfaces. Electronic next-tram displays worked fine at all times, and
delays were within the normal. Ticket machines also worked whenever I
needed them and are pretty easy to handle. No problem paying with a
German debit card, and they issue proper receipts, good for my tax
office. The tickets they issue, however, don't have a magnetic strip
which is required to go through the gates at railway stations, so
you'll need to show your ticket to an agent there who will open the
gates for you. I'm not sure about the older lines, but the newer
sections are all fully accessible, mostly via ramps, while some stops
have lifts. Boarding the train is completely level, and on the
platform surface there is a mark indicating where people in
wheelchairs or with prams or strollers should get on to find the area
reserved for them. Therefore even single trams always stop at the
very front of the platform, in fact the tram's front is beyond the
platform end, as the platforms are just long enough to accommodate
2-car sets. The new Bombardier Flexity Swift trams are quite nice,
not too clumsy or bulky for street running, and the seats are
certainly much better than those in the Cologne sister cars, where
they have cheap plastic seats. They run as single or double units,
the latter being shown on the next-tram indicators as 'dbl', so
people can prepare themselves to use the whole length of the
platform.
Let's start with the older legs, which
I had visited ten years ago, when I was preparing my book 'Metros in
Britain' (no longer available). At that time I was quite shocked by
the hopping and shaking (hunting) of the Ansaldo trams on the old
railway routes to Bury and Altrincham. Apparently, these lines were
taken over from former British Rail without doing much track
upgrading and remained so for a long time. I would assume that in the
meantime there has been some track replacement, but still, even the
new Bombardier Flexity Swift trams start hunting at some higher
speed, but at least the up-and-down hopping has disappeared, making
for a more comfortable ride. As said before, the stations have all
been restyled in the new yellow corporate design, which is quite
nice, although I didn't really see the necessity for such a drastic
change, the turquoise used before was quite nice too and could have
become typical of Manchester. Interestingly the colour change took
place at the time when RATP Dev took over operation, and RATP has
used a similar turquoise for many decades. Let's hope that the new
livery stays, as this often becomes part of a city's identity. Many
stations on these original lines preserve some old buildings,
unfortunately not always in use, though, like at Trafford Bar, but
mothballed. While most of the newer legs are only served every 12
minutes, the Bury and Altrincham lines normally have a tram every six
minutes. I was quite surprised to find out that the Altrincham line
is not signalled like a railway line despite its alignment and
history, just the short single-track section around Navigation Road,
where the second track is still used by mainline trains has railway
signals, otherwise it's all 'line-of-sight' operation. The Bury line,
however, uses proper signalling north of Queen's Road, where the
second depot is located. Just tramway signals are also used on later
built or converted lines.
The Bury and Altrincham lines were
first linked via a surface route through the city centre, with a
branch going to Piccadilly railway station. This was certainly the
cheaper option and the tram got integrated into the urban
environment, but I still think that Manchester would have deserved
some kind of Liverpool-style underground solution. I do recognise
that the current solution has some advantages, the crawling speed is
compensated by the easy accessibility of the surface stops, but the
enormous and ever increasing amounts of trams passing through
Piccadilly Gardens is quite horrible, if not dangerous. I guess the
second city crossing will only partly alleviate this situation.
Piccadilly Gardens could be quite a nice place, but I find it rather
unpleasant. While the garden part is separated from the transport
part by an ugly concrete wall, buses and trams seem to run over
pedestrians any second, and strange that this does not occur more
often. And this time I only saw the reduced version as normally the
trams come from all sides (trams from Market Street towards
Piccadilly Gardens additionally use a by-pass track, making things
even less clear for pedestrians!). Further down, next to the
Piccadilly 'tunnel' portal there is a huge field marked on the
roadway to remain clear for trams to pass, which is hardly possible
during rush hour traffic, so it is quite amazing that the trams can
make their way through this point without much problem. All in all,
priority at traffic lights works well around the system, although it
could be faster by a few seconds so that the trams don't almost come
to a halt and then have to accelerate again. But I hadn't observed
any annoying waits caused by road traffic turning first or so.
Victoria station - new cityside access with complicated track layout
The Metrolink's Victoria station layout
has been completely rebuilt recently, but the result is one of the
least convincing elements of the whole system. The new track
arrangement includes the junction for the future second city
crossing plus a three track station with two island platforms, so the
middle track can be used in either direction, and all that laid out
in a curve, resulting in a weird approach via numerous points and
winding tracks. I will be curious to see this area in full operation
in 2017.
MediaCityUK - on weekends served by Eccles-bound trams
The next branch to open was the Eccles
line, which offers nice views of the Salford Quays, but technically
speaking, it is Manchester's weakest line, as it virtually crawls
through this former docklands area at minimum speed until you get to
Harbour City where a single-track branch diverges to MediaCityUK. I
was there at the weekend, when this branch is served by trams running
through to Eccles, so they have to reverse here. But this situation
seemed rather confusing, not just for me. Noone seemed to know which
side platform is for which direction, as the next-tram indicator on
the southern platform showed both directions, and that on the
northern didn't show anything. I assume they always use the same
platform for either direction, so it should clearly be signed. During
the week, when the stub is served directly, probably just one
platform is enough anyway. For passengers travelling on towards
Eccles, the detour via MediaCityUK certainly adds several minutes to
their journey. Once the trams reach Broadway, they can continue at
reasonable speed, despite the street-running, but as the stops are
offset from the roadway, traffic lights hold back road traffic so the
trams can proceed without obstacles (may not always be the case
during rush hour traffic, though). At Eccles, some buses unload their
passengers directly at the Metrolink platform, otherwise the bus
station is just a short walk west.
Chorlton - typical station on line to East Didsbury
All the other branches were opened as
part of the big-bang expansion during recent years. The South
Manchester Line that terminates at East Disbury is probably the best
of all. It diverges from the Altrincham line in a grade-separated
junction with quite steep ramps and then runs fairly straight along
an old railway corridor to its final stop, so it offers a good speed,
and despite using a railway corridor, its stations seem to be close
enough to the adjacent housing estates. The latest addition to the
system diverges from the East Didsbury branch, and boasts everything
from light rail-style interurban routes to street-running. Again, the
street-running sections seem to work fine by holding back road
traffic before the trams enter those sections. The branch, however,
has several very tight curves which are negotiated at minimum speed,
not really up to state-of-the-art tramways - interestingly, the
latest edition of "Tramways & Urban Transit" has an
in-depth article about this issue, which seems to be related that too
many tramway engineers come from mainline railways and don't quite
understand the design differences, so this is not just my non-expert
observation. The worst such curve is actually off-street, just south
of the Shadowmoss stop before the final run towards the airport. I think that
actually what is known as the Airport Line would deserve being called
South Manchester Line, and the South Manchester Line could be called
the Didsbury Line instead, as although the airport is its final
destination, it is certainly not the preferred option to go to the
airport, with a ride to the city centre taking some 50 minutes every
12 minutes, while direct trains run every few minutes and just take
some 15 minutes to Piccadilly. On the Airport Line there is certainly
one stop missing along the long street-running section between Martinscroft and Benchill, but obviously they couldn't find a location where
neighbours would give up some parking spaces in front of their
houses.
Airport Line - street-running section near Benchill
The East Manchester Line connects to
the former stub at Piccadilly. It is a mix of grade separated light
rail with two underpasses, and an old-fashioned tramway with
street-running through Droylsden, maybe the most conflictive of this
type as far as interference with road traffic goes, as the trams may
even have to stop for buses stopping along the same road. In fact,
quite weird that a bus line (216) is maintained basically all the
way from Piccadilly to Ashton parallel to the tram line. The outer section is on a separate
right-of-way, but this doesn't really help to get higher speeds as it
crawls through a large roundabout and then to the terminus.
Tram approaching Ashton-under-Lyne terminus in the background
Like the early Bury and Altrincham
lines, the Rochdale Line again is mostly a converted and rebuilt
railway line, but unlike the older lines, the trackbed was completely
renewed. It features Manchester's most outstanding light rail station
at Central Park, a quiet business park, with its cable-stayed roof
structure. The flyover that crosses the Leeds main line is a massive
structure with a think wall in the middle, similar to what you can
see on the Bury Line on its way across the M60 motorway.
Just before getting to Oldham, the
trams leave the old railway alignment in a sharp curve to serve
Oldham town centre, however not what would be the town's main street,
but parallel to eat, so when you get off, you get to see the ugly
back side of a major shopping centre, while the real High Street is a
pedestrianised street on the other side. The street-running Oldham
section terminates as the line rejoins the old railway corridor east
of Oldham Mumps. The trams actually have to negotiate a steep ramp,
as the old railway used to cross that point on a viaduct, now
demolished, though. The ride then is pretty fast north to the point
where the Leeds main line has to be crossed again, this time the
flyover is only single-track as is the adjoining ramp down to
Rochdale railway station. It is not really convincing why the tram
stop is located across the street from the railway station and not
right next to it, I would think that space could have been made
available to allow for a 2-track full-length stop there. This way,
passengers would not need to cross a busy street to change from tram
to train, and many do, as trains from there to Victoria station are
frequent and much faster than the tram.
Change from single-track to double-track near the Rochdale Town Centre terminus
From the railway station, the
trams wind down towards Rochdale town centre, the last section being
single-track for no obvious reason, maybe to avoid a
scissors-crossover in what is a large curve. Anyway, as the traffic
lights seem to work fine, this should not be a bottleneck.
Construction for second city-crossing in full swing between Victoria and Exchange Square
The second city crossing is now under
construction, at least around St. Peter's Square and between Victoria
Station and Exchange Square, which is actually the only stop on this
new link. I would have preferred a second stop close to Albert
Square. Interestingly, St. Peter's Square was initially one of those
stops with only a short high-level platform and the rest as a ramp or
low-level, all to reduce the "visual impact" in this urban
environment. It was later rebuilt to become a proper full-length
high-level, and now it is even expanded and will have two full-length
high-level island platforms and four tracks.
Farewise, Manchester is not too bad,
maybe the range of available tickets is almost too large. You have to
choose between daytickets covering just one type of transport or two
or three, i.e. train, tram and/or bus. The area covered is the
entire Greater Manchester region, all the way to Wigan, for example,
so the prices are not too excessive. But being raised with the
concept of integrated transport, I do not really understand why one
should choose different types of transport, when one "journey"
should normally be able to be done using all different types to get
from A to B. So, the differentiation should rather be done by area
than by mode. In many cases, people will not have the choice whether
to use tram rather than train, or depend on an additional bus, and as
the fares for individual day passes and those for combined modes are
not too different, I think a simple unitarian cover-all-modes pass
would simplify the whole fare structure. Single fares are valid for a
single operator, anyway, Metrolink's fares start from 1.20 for a trip
in the central area to 4.70. for the longest possible journey. There
are frequent inspections on the trams! Those who can't resist can
also get electronic tickets, but after my recent negative experience
in London with the Oystercard, I cannot recommend any of these for
real urban rail explorers!
As the system has grown so much in
recent years, I think it was about time to introduce some line
numbering system. Unlike the Docklands Light Railway, for example,
Metrolink lines are at least shown in different colours on the
network maps, but these colours are not used to actually name the
lines, so they wouldn't say the "Blue Line", instead it is
always something like the "Bury-Altrincham service"! I have
never understood the British reluctance to using line numbers, as this
is nothing that hurts, it just helps! Funnily, on the Croydon
Tramlink, the trams display a route number, but this is not reflected
on their maps! I bet the old first-generation tram systems must have
used line numbers, or didn't they either?
LINKS
Metrolink at TfGM
Metrolink at UrbanRail.Net
