I did it for my son who is 7 and a half, he used to like going there when he was younger. We call the level crossing the 'barrier place' There was a points failure yesterday that way between the Radcliffe and Bury stops which was a pain as id just bought a metrolink ticket and they didnt put a replacement bus on so we went in the car instead.
It is a tram yes. 25 years ago there used to be trains on the same line. They converted it in to a metrolink line and it opened as a metrolink tram line in 1992.