Manchester’s Unconventional Tram System

this video is sponsored by nebula the educational streaming service created by me and my Creator Friends check out the link in the description or stay tuned to learn more sometimes people act like the UK is all London and I will admit that even my non-london UK content has been lacking but today that changes because we're going to be talking about a very cool and underappreciated Manchester metr link system known as The Met by locals and the city it calls home Manchester and this might surprise you is not the second biggest city in the UK that would be Birmingham what Manchester is is the center of the second largest urban region in the UK with around 22 million residents Manchester is located along the river irwell as it meanders from the Northwest to the Southwest grazing the city center which is encircled by a Ring Road along the river are various docks and canals that signal the city's industrial past and present and these days are becoming home to New Amsterdam Masque which is a word I've just created development the city is also home to some major landmarks of the sporting variety including Old Trafford Home of Manchester United to the west of the center and Eddie had Stadium Home of Manchester City to the east along with lots of sports venues like the national Cycling Center and the much larger Eddie had campus not far from Old Trafford alongside the docks to the north of the irwell is Media city UK a massive Transit oriented development with a mall and Studios belonging to a number of major broadcasters who relocated significant operations from London of course you probably also want to know about the major transportation hubs in Manchester the rather boringly named Manchester Airport is the third busiest in the UK after Heathrow and Gatwick the airport serves the whole region and is located 13 km south of the city center the city has two major inter city Rail stations Manchester padil and Manchester Victoria which is directly connected to the Manchester Arena now while this video is mostly about the Metro Link I couldn't help myself talking about the mainline train R just a little bit as it turns out though they both have terminating platforms both Manchester Victoria and Manchester Picadilly also have through platforms with Picadilly having two tracks boarding off of a Viaduct to the west and Victoria having four through tracks the stations are actually connected via a curve of tracks known as the oraw cord in the west of the city center that was activated in the late 2010s allowing trains to pass through one station on the way to the other the connection has had mixed results in practice though if you are curious about electrified suburban and Regional services like IA there are many including those serving a stubend connection to Manchester Airport which gets service to various destinations on a frequent basis alongside metr link with Mainline rail out of the way let's take a look at metr link which like so many metros in the English-speaking world is decidedly not a Metro instead the metr link system is a classic City train that uses the same type of Bendy High floor tram cars seen in cities from Frankfurt to rdam and Calgary Metrolink is actually a really young system being spun up up in the 1990s and yet it already has 99 stops and over 100 km of track which is not too shabby I also must say I really like the yellow stop indicator sign and System logo now while we know that the trains on metr link are really city trains locals tend to call them trams the trams run on standard gauge track with a very standard for a tram 750 volt DC overhead wire for power and a top speed of 80 kmph the original trans the system used were from Infamous defunct manufacturer on sold Al braa and only lasted 20 years a pitiful number when you consider that some of the city trains in Canada have been running since the 1970s fortunately though the newer m5000 trains seem to be a lot better although they are also from a defunct manufacturer in this case Bombardier the m5000 trains like all city trains have three bogis per unit and are around 30 m long and 2.65 M wide trains can be coupled together into double sets for more capacity with the trains out of the way let's look at the Network starting in the core and working our way out to the various likes the city center portion of the Metro Link unlike some of its German cousins is essentially all on the surface and even in mixed traffic in some cases the tracks are shaped like a giant triangle with trains from the West all surfacing St Peter square a complex fourt track two platform Junction Station on the west side of the city center from here some Services run east and turn South to service Manchester Picadilly and the intermediate Picadilly Garden stop While others turn north to run to Manchester Victoria Via two inter immediate stops both on basically entirely dedicated tram R of Weights the other services from St Peter Square also go to Manchester Victoria but via a new mixed traffic Northern route via cross street that has a gap between exchange squar stop just south of Victoria and St Peters square of over 700 M now you're probably wondering given construction only started in the 1990s how is it that the metr link network is so big and the truth is that a lot of smart planning decisions were made to get a lot of bang per buck some routes were funded by private development and to but the most notable source of roots was from rail line conversions and reactivations the first roots to be opened were repurposed Suburban lines running to the north and west of the city and the network grew significantly in the 2000s and even more in the 2010s when several new branches were added what's so fascinating is how distinctive the different corridor's character often feels with the modern tram style Roots being short and Meandering with lots of Street Crossings and the Old Railway alignments often being much longer and featuring sub potential grade separation looking out on the entire network to the east of Manchester Victoria there are two long former heavy Rail lines that travel roughly 15 km north of the city to bur and Rochdale the Rochdale line which Cuts East and then North was formed by combining some disused Railway right of way some new tracks and some converted ones the line is quite new and has a ton of stops on it as well as a few Charming single track sections in some ways it feels a lot like a tram train such as where it gets off the old rail alignment to run on city streets through old hold them before getting back onto the FastTrack meanwhile the bur line is a relatively conventional converted Suburban Railway that mostly heads straight North traveling south and then East from Manchester Victoria is the line to Ashton which is a new build tram line that serves Edie hat stadium and the various sports venues before running on Street most of the way to Ashton when people say high floor trams don't blend in well with an urban environment this line is kind of the epitome of that with High Island Platforms in the middle of a wide Street finally looking West of St Peter Square we have five more lines which fan out and this High number of services is a big part of why St Peter square and its neighbored to the West deansgate castlefield are rather more involved than most of the rest of the stops on the network splitting off One Stop west of deansgate castlefield with a flying Junction are the two Western lines which are both newb build trams with a mix of on street and Street adjacent alignment that parallel the Manchester ship canal to the North and the South the route start off with a short elevated segment before the one to the North crosses the ship canal and runs a winding path through the various dock side developments that reminds me of a surface level DLR before diverting away from the docks and traveling along a wide Street to echles this line also features a short Branch off of it Midway along to Media city UK which is served by trams pulling in and reversing out to continue along the line via a y during most times the southern line is the newest in the network opening in March 2020 which means that its opening was largely overshadowed by some more high-profile news this line runs out to the traford center mall and while doesn't have the same development of the line to the north quite yet it does have the closest Stop to Old Trafford Warf side which is less than 300 M away heading back to the junction we can take a look at the last three lies which travel to the South the first of these is split off in another flying Junction is the lion Southwest to Ultram which is a mostly conventional Suburban rail conversion but with a very interesting section towards Ultram where it and a Mainline Railway both narrow to single track to share a double track Corridor before widening back to two tracks each at altringham while the the line to Ultram does have the Old Trafford stop it's the better part of a kilometer walk to Manchester United's dig the next Southern Line is the new build tram line straight South to Manchester Airport which while useful is extremely Meandering in its mixed on and off Street Route which splits off our final Corridor to the Didsbury line a reactivated Suburban Railway which heads Southeast from its Junction from the other lines now I imagine you're curious about the service provided on the network trains from Ashton run to Eckles and interestingly services on the line to the Trafford Center only run as far as deansgate castlefield before turning around forcing most passengers to transfer plans were for services to eventually extend further east onto the furry line where some infrastructure for a short-term service has been installed but the status of the service is unclear postco services from Manchester Airport run to Manchester Victoria Via the old southern city center tracks while services from both bu and altringham both use the southern city center to pickadilly to terminate finally services from Didsbury run to R and they're the only ones to use the northern city center tracks in regular service each route runs a basic service of one train every 12 minutes with bonus service operated on core parts of the network every day of the week except for Sundays which doubles the servers level two Ashton bur Didsbury altringham Media city UK and Sean Crompton on the rodale line most of the Metro Link actually runs north south and lines travel off in various directions and various distances from the city center I think Manchester might benefit from a bit more of a tube match in various directions and to various distances from the city center with the metr link growing so fast over the last few decades you're probably curious what else it has in store and there's good news and bad news the good news is that there are lots of ideas from new lines to capacity expansion schemes and the bad news is that not a ton of them are moving very quickly some of those plans include extending the East Didsbury line to Stockport and the Trafford Park Line West to Port Salford one very interesting idea is that of a tram train which could provide service east west between bre and Rochdale providing some much needed circumferential service that would also get Haywood onto the network if this is successful there's probably a lot of potential for more services like this so I'd watch the space another plan which is currently on Ice was an extension of the Metro Link to connect to the new hs2 station at Manchester Airport however as hs2 to Manchester in general is up in the air so is this project sadly an extension someday from the airport however is still possible if the old white and Shaw Loop plan rears its head again looping line back to the area's hospital and providing a more direct trip to the airport the big news in Manchester these days and probably the biggest Improvement that could happen anyway is the new B Network that's B like the bug not like the letter this is a new tfl like Regional Network spinning up in Manchester Services actually started in September and this is going to mean a lot of improvements not just to metr link but to public transport in general as part of the B Network buses have been brought under local government control and services will all be unified under the B Network brand the same will happen for trains in the future and the whole scheme should lead to a much better Transit riding experience with better service integration and accountability probably the biggest element is that fairs will be integrated across all modes just as in London given how great tfl is and how much room for quick Improvement Manchester has I think the B network is going to be extremely exciting and I'm really excited to visit Manchester since the Network's open but what you might wonder is what would ree suggest to expand the metr link Network into well an actual Metro in this case I've got just the video for you I made a video all about how I think Manchester could expand the metr link Network and you can watch it right now along with other exclusive videos of mine over on nebula nebula is the streaming platform owned by me and my Creator friends featuring over 14,000 titles that you can watch ad free including exclusive and Early Access videos from urbanist educational creators like myself notcho spikes City nerd and City beautiful such as this nebula plus video from City beautiful on the history of European tra streets and of course you can check out episodes of jet like the game a week early so you won't ever miss out on any of the shenanigans this is one of the best ways you can support my channel and my content as a whole and right now you can get an awesome deal on yearly memberships for only $25 a month so go check out the link on screen or in the description right now to see the exclusive [Music] video [Music]

Channel: RMTransit

Views: 155,754

Keywords: transit, transportation, rail, railway, railfan, public transit, public transport, public transportation, train, subway, metro, underground, rail transport, urban planning, manchester, manchester metrolink, metrolink

Id: Gda5wMcyeb0

Length: 12min 40sec (760 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 14 2023