LIGHT RAIL
A lot of work has been taking place in Manchester to improve services for passengers on Metrolink. Rail Technology Magazine spoke toPhilip Purdy to get an update on the improvement works taking place around the city
M
anchester is known for being one of the most successfully
regenerated cities in Britain and its transport system is no exception. The last couple of years have seen a great deal of work taking place to improve services on the Metrolink network which is once again increasing in size.
As well as the extensions being made to the network, there is a lot of development work taking in and around the city centre.
“Over the last eighteen months we have been upgrading the existing system,” says Philip Purdy, Metrolink director at Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive.
“Part of this work was focused on improving the city centre including upgrading the urban finish on the tracks, along with rolling out new ticket machines across the existing network.
“We have carried out work on the Altrincham line and updated its visual identity, just as we have done on the Eccles line, which now has a new visual identity and improved signage.
“We are planning to upgrade a number of stops on the Bury
Oct/Nov 10
line and this work will take place early next year. Once this work is completed there will be a consistent standard of signage and visual identity right across the network on the existing system.
“We also now have eight new vehicles to supplement our existing rolling stock. We are also using an extra four vehicles running an intermediary service into Media City, which will change when the BBC move into the area sometime around next Easter.”
Because the Manchester Metrolink network has been built up over a number of years, the team have had to marry a number of systems together whilst causing the least amount of disruption to services.
“We are introducing new technology into a live system, which means that we are having to integrate old technology with the new systems. The biggest challenge is to make sure that all of that works because we don’t want to have to close any part of the system down if we don’t have to. It needs to run as seamlessly as possible, especially from the customer’s point of view.
“Therefore, there are
occasionally a few things which don’t work out as we would like, but you have to solve these issues as you go. With any project like this, there will be a few bedding in issues which we need to address.”
The city is, of course, a very busy and vibrant place and is far
“I feel that we have planned this pretty well – obviously safety is our number one concern and it is just too difficult in some cases to bring in equipment to the city during the day, so again we have to do it at night.
“But that is just part of working in a city and on the trams.”
rtm47
more densely populated than it was before. This means that transport systems need to run as smoothly as possible and this can limit the engineering team’s scope for access to the Metrolink’s infrastructure.
“One issue which we face are the times when we can work because we want to be able to run the tram system uninhibited. We also have to consider which work periods will allow us to gain the most value for money without causing too much disruption to the customer and this means working at night a lot of the time.
“Naturally, this raises a number of environmental issues. Manchester is no different to any other city with lots of people now living in and around the centre. Working in the city has become much more of an issue than it ever used to be because the locals residents need to sleep and to have access to their apartments. In the past this was never really an issue.”
Moving large engineering equipment could be a challenge but this is not the case for Philip and his team who have overcome these issues through extensive planning.
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