Greater Manchester, a metropolitan county in North West England, has a public rail network of 130 route miles (209 km) and 92 National Rail stations. [1] [a] Transport for Greater Manchester is responsible for specifying fares and service levels of train services operating in the county. [2] The Northern train operating company provides most of these services. [3] The four main railway stations in Manchester city centre are Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Victoria, Manchester Oxford Road and Manchester Deansgate which all form part of the Manchester station group.
Most services run to or through one of Manchester city centre's major stations, Manchester Victoria and Manchester Piccadilly. The network is effectively divided into two operating halves based on these stations, [2] although the opening of a connecting line in 1988 improved operational flexibility by joining the north and south halves. [4] This was further improved by the Ordsall Chord (opened to traffic on 10 December 2017), creating a direct link between Piccadilly and Victoria.
Services radiate northwards from Manchester Victoria, providing stopping services to West Yorkshire and Liverpool as well as local suburban services to Rochdale and Wigan. [2] The south side's services radiate from Manchester Piccadilly and run to Manchester Airport, south Manchester, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Leeds, North East England, London and other major destinations. [2]
The region's rail network started to develop during the Industrial Revolution, when it was at the centre of a textile manufacturing boom. [5] Manchester was at the forefront of the railway building revolution during the Victorian era. The world's first passenger railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened on 15 September 1830. [2] Its original terminus, Liverpool Road railway station, was closed to passengers in 1844, but still exists and is the oldest surviving passenger station in the world. [6] Since the Beeching cuts many of Greater Manchester's stations have closed and many station facilities have been removed. Others, however, have been converted to the Manchester Metrolink, Greater Manchester's light-rail network, or preserved as part of the East Lancashire Railway heritage route. [b] The expansion of the Metrolink is set to continue at least through 2020, with the planned opening of the Trafford Park Line. [7] [8] In October 2009, nine stations on the former Oldham Loop Line closed for conversion, [9] and future plans include the use of tram-trains to allow Metrolink to serve existing National Rail stations. [10]
In preparation for the 2002 Commonwealth Games Manchester Piccadilly, the principal station for the City of Manchester, was extensively redeveloped and as a consequence has been voted as having the highest customer satisfaction rating of all the main stations in the United Kingdom. [11] As of 2013, Manchester Victoria is under renovation with the construction of a new £20 million roof while Oxford Road will see redevelopment as a result of the Northern Hub plan in 2014. The construction of the Ordsall Chord linked Greater Manchester's three busiest stations for the first time in December 2017.
Manchester Piccadilly is the principal railway station in Manchester, England. Opened 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 Manchester 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. Metrolink is owned by the public body Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and operated and maintained under contract by a Keolis/Amey consortium. In 2021/22, 26 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.
Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) is a local government body responsible for co-ordinating transport services throughout Greater Manchester in North West England. It is an executive arm of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), the city region's administrative authority. The strategies and policies of Transport for Greater Manchester are set by the GMCA and its Greater Manchester Transport Committee (GMTC). The committee is made up of 33 councillors appointed from the ten Greater Manchester boroughs, as well as the Mayor of Greater Manchester.
Stockport railway station in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England, is 8 miles south-east of Manchester Piccadilly on the West Coast Main Line to London Euston.
The Oldham Loop Line was a local railway route in Greater Manchester, England, used by trains that ran from Manchester Victoria to Rochdale via Oldham Mumps. Services on the line at the time of its closure were operated by Northern Rail.
free bus is a zero-fare bus system that operates in Greater Manchester. The system was first introduced in Manchester city centre in 2002, with three routes linking the city's major thoroughfares and stations with its main commercial, financial and cultural districts.
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.
Mills Hill railway station is in the Mills Hill area of Middleton in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, England. The station is 5¾ miles (9 km) north of Manchester Victoria on the Caldervale Line. Mills Hill lies on Middleton's common boundary with Chadderton, and thus serves both communities.
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.
Milnrow is a tram stop on the Oldham and Rochdale Line (ORL) of Greater Manchester's light-rail Metrolink system. It opened to passengers on 28 February 2013 and is located in Milnrow, a part of the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, England.
Newhey is a tram stop on the Oldham and Rochdale Line (ORL) of Greater Manchester's light-rail Metrolink system. It opened to passengers on 28 February 2013 and is located in Newhey, a suburban village the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, England.
Picc-Vic was a proposed, and later cancelled, underground railway designed in the early 1970s with the purpose of connecting two major mainline railway termini in Manchester city centre, England. The name Picc-Vic was a contraction of the two station names, Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Victoria. The proposal envisaged the construction of an underground rail tunnel across Manchester city centre. The scheme was abandoned in 1977 during its proposal stages due to excessive costs, and that the scheme still retained two large and expensive-to-maintain terminal stations in Manchester; other similar sized cities had reduced their terminals to one.
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 commuters 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.
The South Manchester Line (SML) is a tram line of the Manchester Metrolink in Greater Manchester running from Manchester city centre to Didsbury. The line was opened as far as St. Werburgh's Road in 2011 and then to East Didsbury in 2013 as part of phase three of the system's expansion, and runs entirely along a former railway trackbed.
This is a list of confirmed or proposed future developments of the Manchester Metrolink light rail system.