Metrolink "New lines" to Oldham and Rochdale

[aidanorourke]

Quotation from the GMPTE website:

The Department for Transport has given the final seal of approval to a £575 million funding package to expand the Metrolink network. This will see new lines to Oldham and Rochdale, Droylsden in Tameside, and Chorlton in South Manchester, nearly doubling the size of the network and opening up new links to work and leisure for thousands more people across Greater Manchester.

"New lines"? The lines to Oldham and Rochdale will be an upgrade of existing railway lines, which will be taken out of the railway network.



The line to Chorlton will be a re-use of a line closed nearly 40 years ago, and only a partial re-use, as the Metrolink line was supposed to continue much further.

The line to Eccles was a new line.

Only the line to Droylsden will be a newly constructed line.

I do wish that government departments would tell the whole truth when giving information about public transport developments.

[Sparkly]

I think this is the 'little bang' 3a plan/funding? not really double the exisiting network I'd have thought.

[Ashtonian]

Did you know Lord Sheldon way was constructed WITH room down the middle for the track to Ashton, and now it stops at Droyslden ? Sometimes, I'm glad I came to Hollywood. Daft as America may seem to most people in Britain the reality is that common sense does prevail here and that we control our destiny not some beauricrats in Whitehall.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

Don't forget, this isn't the end of the line, just the end of the current funding phase. No doubt Ashton will be connected - eventually - though at the pace the sytem has developed since opening it will be the 22nd century before the system is complete as envisaged in the 1980s!

[Mostonian]

I live right near one of the forthcoming new lines and won't be making use of them. The prices are ridiculous, and the bus is only ten minutes into town anyway. Hopefully it'll free up space on the buses though.
I'm not a fan of the trams. There's a perfectly good train line there already that is hardly used by the people of Moston and Newton Heath as the trains are overcrowded. Increase the number of trains, or include services that don't run all the way to Rochdale/Oldham.
The same can be said for the buses on Oldham Road. You can be stood there with bus after bus flying past full of people from outlying towns.