Manchester Piccadilly is the main railway station of the city of Manchester, in the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester, England. Opened originally as Store Street in 1842, it was renamed Manchester London Road in 1847 and became Manchester Piccadilly in 1960. Located to the south-east of the city centre, it hosts long-distance intercity and cross-country services to national destinations including London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Reading, Southampton and Bournemouth; regional services to destinations in Northern England including Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and York; and local commuter services around Greater Manchester. It is one of 19 major stations managed by Network Rail. The station has 14 platforms: 12 terminal and two through platforms. Piccadilly is also a major interchange with the Metrolink light rail system with two tram platforms in its undercroft.
Manchester Metrolink is a tram/light rail system in Greater Manchester, England. The network has 99 stops along 64 miles (103 km) of standard-gauge route, making it the most extensive light rail system in the United Kingdom. Over the 2022/23 financial year 36 million passenger journeys were made on the system.
Manchester Victoria station in Manchester, England, is a combined mainline railway station and Metrolink tram stop. Situated to the north of the city centre on Hunts Bank, close to Manchester Cathedral, it adjoins Manchester Arena which was constructed on part of the former station site in the 1990s. Opened in 1844 and part of the Manchester station group, Victoria is Manchester's third busiest railway station after Piccadilly and Oxford Road and the second busiest station managed by Northern after Oxford Road.
Manchester City Centre is the central business district of Manchester, England, within the confines of Great Ancoats Street, A6042 Trinity Way, and A57(M) Mancunian Way, which collectively form an inner ring road. The City Centre ward had a population of 17,861 at the 2011 census.
The Firema T-68 was a model of light rail passenger vehicle first operated on the Manchester Metrolink network in Greater Manchester, England in 1992. It was constructed by Firema specifically as a high-floor, articulated bi-directional tram to operate solely on the Manchester Metrolink system.
Rochdale railway station is a multi-modal transport hub in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. It consists of a Northern-operated heavy rail station on the Caldervale Line, and an adjoining light rail stop on Metrolink's Oldham and Rochdale Line. The original heavy-rail element of the station was opened by the Manchester and Leeds Railway in 1839 0.5 miles (0.80 km) to the south of Rochdale town centre. The Metrolink element opened in February 2013. Further changes to the station are planned as part of the Northern Hub rail-enhancement scheme.
St Peter's Square is a tram stop in St Peter's Square in Manchester city centre, England. It opened on 27 April 1992 and is in Zone 1 of Greater Manchester's Metrolink light rail system. The stop's platforms were extended in 2009. Later redevelopment in 2015–16 demolished the original two side platforms and replaced them with a twin-island platform layout which allows for limited cross-platform interchange.
Shaw and Crompton is a tram stop on the Oldham and Rochdale Line (ORL) of Greater Manchester's light-rail Metrolink system. It opened to passengers on 16 December 2012 and is located in Shaw and Crompton, a part of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, England.
Failsworth tram stop is a Manchester Metrolink tram stop on the Oldham and Rochdale Line serving the town of Failsworth, Greater Manchester, England. It was formerly a railway station before its conversion to Metrolink in 2012.
Chorlton is a stop on the South Manchester Line (SML) and Airport Line of the Metrolink light-rail system in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, England. It was built as part of Phase 3a of the network's expansion, and opened on 7 July 2011 on a section of the former Cheshire Lines Committee railway.
Old Trafford is a tram stop on the Altrincham Line of the Metrolink light rail system in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England.
Mosley Street was a tram stop in the City Zone of Greater Manchester's Metrolink light rail system which closed on 18 May 2013. It was located on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre and was the last unidirectional stop on the Metrolink, with a single platform serving southbound passengers travelling towards Altrincham Interchange, Eccles Interchange, MediaCityUK and St Werburgh's Road only.
Market Street is a tram stop in Zone 1 of Greater Manchester's Metrolink light rail system. It is located on Market Street, in Manchester city centre, England. It opened on 27 April 1992 as part of Phase 1 of Metrolink's expansion.
Shudehill Interchange is a transport hub between Manchester Victoria station and the Northern Quarter in Manchester city centre, England, which comprises a Metrolink stop and a bus station.
The transport infrastructure of Greater Manchester is built up of numerous transport modes and forms an integral part of the structure of Greater Manchester and North West England – the most populated region outside of South East England which had approximately 301 million annual passenger journeys using either buses, planes, trains or trams in 2014. Its position as a national city of commerce, education and cultural importance means the city has one of the largest and most thorough transport infrastructures which is heavily relied upon by its 2.8 million inhabitants in the Greater Manchester conurbation and further afield in the North West region. Public transport comes under the jurisdiction of Transport for Greater Manchester.
The history of Manchester Metrolink begins with its conception as Greater Manchester's light rail system in 1982 by the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive, and spans its inauguration in 1992 and the successive phases of expansion.
The Manchester station group is a station group of four railway stations in Manchester city centre, England; this consists of Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester Victoria and Deansgate. The station group is printed on national railway tickets as MANCHESTER STNS. For passengers travelling from one of the 91 National Rail stations in Greater Manchester, the four stations are printed as MANCHESTER CTLZ which additionally permits the use of Metrolink tram services in Zone 1.
This timeline of Manchester Metrolink lists significant events in the history of Greater Manchester's light rail network.
Zone 1 of the Manchester Metrolink light rail network is the heart of the system where all of the other lines converge. Its boundaries are broadly equivalent to those of Manchester city centre, and approximately mirror the city's Inner Ring Road. Within Zone 1, first opened in 1992 as the City Zone, trams largely run along semi-pedestrianised streets rather than on their own separate alignment. The original route between the Altrincham and Bury lines ran to Victoria station via Market Street and High Street, and was soon joined by a branch to Piccadilly station by a three-way delta junction. A second route between the South-West and North-Eastern parts of the network was built to ease congestion on the original line. Opened in 2017, the Second City Crossing (2CC) added one additional stop to the network.
