Does Manchester Need an Orbital Tram Route? 

The fact that Stockport isn't covered is crazy, knowing how much money is raised for the projects there ! But also getting to Stepping Hill and Hazel grove is really inconvenient using all methods.

Stockport extension seems like a no brainer - will connect southern Manchester communities to the main train line through there as well.

This video definitely deserves more views.

There needs to be a huge investment in rapid public transport as we can keep building houses etc and piling more traffic on the roads. Surely a new tram line is better to live near than a new road.

As someone who goes from Salford to Bury then to Oldham I’ve always wished for a circular quicker route just as Berlin as it’s S-Bahn ring line. Also wish they had elevated or buried parts of the tram system as having it on the surface competing with traffic slows it down so much .

My favourite video ever! But aside from the funny clips this is brilliant for promoting possibilities to non-planners. It would be amazing for this to happen - and for planners to be able to think beyond a city-centric public transport network.

When SELNEC first took over the corporation buses one of the first new routes was the trans lane express . Stockport to Bolton via Ashton Oldham Bury and Rochdale.The idea is an old one, but still sensible. This was back in the 1970’s, probably before you were born Ollie ,

Orbital is the future it made sense with roads the only trouble is we dont live down south so the money wont be available sadly

GENIUS, Ollie - utterly brilliant - 'cos it's so obvious. J love it. I'd just add that truckloads of money would also be saved by minimising those expensive (mostly superfluous) CONSULTANTS' REPORTS. Please DO keep up the good work, Squire!

I think the best option would be a mix of both the orbital and some new more traditional lines. A new line from the city centre through Salford and out to Wigan is a possibility that I can think of but I haven't put anywhere near as much thought into this as you have Great video as always!!

As a Boltonian living right on the A666 (aka the devils road) I like the idea of keeping the nice walking and cycle routes as they are, and simply replacing the roads into Manchester with tram ways.

The Stockport Extension would be great, however an extension up the Fallowfield Loop would mean realigning St. Werburgh's Road station, and as you mentioned there is already a National Cycle Route using the line. Whilst it would make a lot of sense, it would destroy a lot of natural beauty and a cycle route which many use.

All valid points, but with the exception of Eccles New Road, and Ashton New Road, the Metrolink is on old existing railway lines. £2 buses are good lad ☝🏻

Another excellent video- I shared your last 3 videos to Skyscraper City Manchester forum and liked 👍👍

Your presentations are always very professional, excellent, thanks

The completion of the metrolink to the Trafford Centre is great news. The opening has just landed at an unfortunate time as the service looks empty.

Another great vid Oli - great ideas on the orbital concept and especially recommissioning of the Fallowfield loop, and the extension to Stockport - it's all there and just needs to be put back in place

true but coming from someone who lives and uses croydon tramlink, be grateful u guys have the extension. we've been begging for an extension to crystal palace for ages 😭 it would be barely 2 stops and they've canceled it

Excellent presentation thanks

trams were and are great - and popular when they re-appear; bring 'em om!

Just as some food for thought, a tram route like this would exacerbate the main issue with metrolink other than coverage. Journey times! I think it’s a great idea but journey times would need to be taken into account

The most extension would be into Stockport, as most of the route into what was Tivot dale is still there. Maybe have the terminus finish in Stockport bus station. To be honest i don't think an orbital line will happen because that wasn't the intended idea. The reason all the lines spiderweb out from the city centre was because the concept was to allow quick and easy access to the city centre. Despite the detriment this would cause to local satellite towns. So with that in mine Metrolink has done its job and done it well.

We’re getting there . One step at a time dude.

Also, I feels it’s mental we connect say Wigan and Manchester, which aren’t that far between each other, with the mentality of “jump on the diesel power train”. That sort of journey is not “intercity” level and could so easily be managed by the new trams.

This is a great idea. Investment would pay back ten fold

What a great video! Honestly when I'm back in at TFGM I will try and arrange a depot tour and I would love to do a collaboration with you some time soon

Living just outside Denton, it would be great to get better use of the Stockport to Guide Bridge line. The roads in the area can be extremely busy even outside of rush hour.

Love the comedy..more please

Middleton had a great tram route once, should never have been abandoned.

Tram, tram, tram, tram, Tram, tram, tram, tram, Tramity tram! Wonderful tram!

Great video 👍 Orbital public transport routes are needed

What a brilliant plan hope they go for it

Nice.. I've advocated for similar to reconnect Leigh and Bolton and Bury to the network using similar concepts.. as you say the Atherton route has room for additional tracks and former routes with some judicial tunnels or raised sections could be made to make the system a more complete affair

The Stockport bit I agree. Why can't TfGM extend the line from East Didsbury via Heaton Mersey and terminating at Stockport? The trackbed and alignment is still there, isn't it? Also what I notice about the spider network, the tram tends to merge into one once they get near the city centre, resulting in a congestion in the system in the morning rush hour.

Hi 👋 I love your videos.

I think that it would still take too long to go to Salford (Pendlenton) via Salford quays. A line directly from town would make more sense and would be much quicker.

They need to focus more on dealing with the massive demand they have on their current routes. They should consider running an elevated metro line down deansgate and convert some of the tram lines into proper metro lines so that can run with greater frequency, reliability and capacity.

Aup, would you ever consider doing a video on more of the outlandish ideas for the tram line. Here in Cheshire we have had rumblings of the trams making their way down too knutsford from alty and from eccals too Warrington central.

Fantastic idea the orbital route. As for Wigan it can join onto the orbital route as a spur. As for Middleton it can veer off the Bury line near Bowker Vale and use the street network to Middleton. Another line from Oldham can work its way towards Middleton via Chadderton. Hope you let TfGM know about your ideas.

I think the line from Bolton would make more sense to go from the town centre down towards overhulton, atherton, Tyldesley interchange, and then Leigh as leigh is Wigan boroughs second town and has transport to Manchester and has no train station whereas Wigan has no bus to Manchester therefore the tram through leigh makes sense and connects to the new V1 bus system? Also from Radcliffe it makes more sense to go to little lever then farnworth/Moses gate onto great lever or Burnden then the town centre of Bolton

Across the road at Ashton tram stop is an abandoned rail line Althea way to Oldham!

Interesting video, I support the loop line proposal and it looks viable to me. Just need to find the money :)

Funding for a Bolton line was promised by the floppy haired one at number 10 back in 2019 but has still yet to be received and I thought an extension to Middleton had pretty much been given the go ahead.

Interesting video, all sounds great to me although I don't know the area well enough to know all the practicalities.

I've studied the routes possible for years, and I've come up with various ideas on how Salford could be reached by Metrolink. Promotional artwork for the modernisation of Chapel Street showed intent for running tracks along that route.

Everything on the tram has so far has benifited East Manchester, Bolton, Wigan, and Leigh have missed out, Leigh has the Guided busway, but it only runs less than three miles on the old Leigh, Tyldesley, Ellenbrook railway line, the rest is on the East Lancs Road, so when traffic is congested especially the nearer to Manchester it gets, they had an opportunity to open the whole line into Manchester but Leigh was said not to need it, also the guided bus gets used by passengers just crossing Manchester! sometimes in the evening buses are packed, and the people of Leigh that it was meant for can't get on. their is still time to open the line through to join up with the Eccles tram.

Another really good video and great topic. I can see this as logical, but while your route is as you put it, just the cheapest option. You also rightly point out that we are a wealthy country and a big city. There is no reason we can’t go underground in the town centres if needed. Places like Bolton to avoid that slow bend for example. Pretty much anywhere else in the world builds underground in the city or town centres. Let’s do that here too 👍love your work

In some places, the tram runs in pedestrian areas, and people just move out of the way when the tram comes and then go back along their business. Trams, given that they are lighter than trains, are slightly easier to stop, so building the tram lines might not need to come at the expense of walking areas, so long as people are considerate (and health and safety doesn't go bonkers).

I want this so effing badly! I'd love to be able to pop onto the tram from Ashton, pop to Denton for a pint, then to Stockport, then Denton, then into the City, then back to Ashton where I'd fall into a bus to be taken back home. I'd fucking LOVE to be able to do a tramline pub crawl all the way around the city on one ticket. Imagine!

The trams were going to go ahead to Stockport with the Didsbury line. When they looked at the route (the route that was there previously) but didn't realise the track was missing? Some SMBC worker, allegedly, sold off the line for scrap. This then wasn't in the budget to replace the track as well as open the route. I totally agree with the extension to Stockport, as long as Stagecoach don't have anything to do with it. 👍😎👍MDS

This is good for me as I have to go to swinton-eccles by bus then tram to wherever

Fantastic video 👍🏻 It’s a no brainier to reinstate the old railway lines into a bigger tram network 🤣 Look at most European cities still have expansive tram networks 👍🏻

Being trams to Rossendale that uses the ELR to Castleton, which then connects to the Rochdale railway line and swaps onto the tram line. A short crossover line will be needed somehow…

Hi Ollie....I'd sack that reporter, he looked like he'd been thrown out of an eating house for drinking! Great idea about the orbital route, but like you said, fifty years from now the tram lines might be back up again...who knows? Nice one!

In Cambridge Guided Bus shares with greenway and it is also being proposed for East West Rail to build both North and South proposed routes and have a ring route with through and freight using the south and terminating trains the North. I think the tunnel you referred exit is in a car showroom car park and connects to the main line beside the remains of the Promona viaduct which I was told was Bombed in WW2.

My suggestion is to extend Rose Hill line to High Lane by reopening the line and extending from High Lane which could be P&R station, by a chord to the existing Buxton to Manchester line south of Hazel Grove. That would be either a heavy rail or light rail loop around South Manchester and provide a link from Marple to sStockport.

Why not have a combined Greater Manchester-Merseyside metro system which could go into Warrington Widnes & Macclesfield also Burney Blackburn Accrington area

Same in Sheffield

I think this would be great actually. Though being from the local area, I strongly doubt you'd be able to get trams up Langworthy Road just due to its steepness (and it's general heavy road usage). Serving Salford is just a major, major challenge as it's so dense with housing.

What about the extension to Stockport with tram-trains to be built for the Metrolink extension to Stockport. And the extension to Port Salford.

A lot of talk recently has been about tram-trains that can run on railway lines, which would certainly help. there has also been talk of tunnelling under Manchester city centre, though we have been there many timed (Picc-Vic was just the latest of many proposals). I think the ideal would be a circular underground line linking Piccadilly and Victoria through the Northern Quarter, looping out through central Salford and then via the Old Trafford area (providing extra access to the football and cricket stadia) and then back through Hulme and the University area with a stop at Ardwick Green on the way back to Piccadilly. A second line could run from Salford Central to Spinningfields and then link with the Metrolink at St Peter's Square, then Oxford Road Station (linking the only two rail stations in central Manchester / Salford without tram connections) and carry on down Oxford Road interchanging with the circular line at the University and going at least as far south as Withington, reducing congestion on Curry Mile.

What about Rochdale-Heywood-Bury? Given that's still a railway line...

I do think Leigh(Lancs) should get a tram connection if not train connection

Middleton doesn't even have any train / tram connectivity - the only train service available here is from Mills Hill, heading towards Victoria or Rochdale (on the Kirkby-Blackburn and Clitheroe-Rochdale service)

I live in Swinton supposedly Salford centre and our nearest tram is Eccles. Years ago trams along east lancs was mooted however rumours were that EU blocked funding?

I think the success of Sheffield Tram/Trains could solve a lot, putting the end and cutting the cost of converts railway lines. Be one way to get trams to places like Stockport. The Airport and Didsbury have made me curious. Can we not just build tram tracks in the hard shoulder of the M60?

Just coming back from Manchester, I wondered About those gaps on the map 🤔

Like London it is like spiders Web....we now have Crossrail and Overground and reused some old lines for DLR and Crossrail and new eastcLondon line putting stations in South London

I like the tram network and any extension is great but its becoming quite pricey to travel on.

I’ve said for a while that a circular line somewhere around the M60 sort of area would make perfect sense

I would like a link from Ashton to Oldham, Basically a straight line up Oldham Road from Ashton. Also extend the system to the following. A tram link from Stalybridge to Ashton, to come off the train track in Ashton and join the current tram line from Ashton to Manchester and also from Stalybridge using the current Friday Only "Ghost train " route to Stockport and then from Stockport into Manchester, via Levenshulme, Longsight, etc.(A6) This would do away with lots of high frequency buses clogging the roads such as 409 Ashton to Oldham, shed loads of 192's could be taken off the road (Manchester to Stockport) Also a tram route from Ashton to Stockport following the existing 330 bus route, with Ashton being a hub for lines to Manchester, to and from Oldham, to and from Stockport, via Hyde. Just my thoughts.

I think Wigan is too far away for a tram line that runs into Manchester, plus as you mentioned rail links are more than suitable to take commuters into the city, I do think orbital connections should be built, at least somewhere in greater Manchester

Top idea. Has to be better than 'bus lane' bolton got which is really no more than some white paint.

I have this problem living in Flixton. I wanted to go to Wythenshawe Hospital (our A&E/ICU since Trafford General is a glorified doctors now). Having worked in Roundthorne in the past I know how bad traffic can get so I thought I will use public transport. The problem is there is only one awful bus service connecting the two and it takes ages and gets stuck in traffic. The Met does go to Roundthorn but doesnt come to Flixton/Urmston. However it does come to the M41 postcode at the Trafford Centre. But it comes through the "back" via the industrial estate so Is no good for those living near the Trafford Centre. It exists only to cater for people in the City Centre and no one else matters. Even the busses cater for those travelling into the City and not around it, There are plenty of offerings for Piccadilly. The hub and spoke model is outdated and only fuels gentrification. I work in Leigh, The M60 (especially Shetland Way) is rammed because its the only option for people living in the towns and villages surrounding the City.

Haha I like this quirky style. Maybe you thought people wouldn't be engaged listening to tram information without it? 😅

hope this bit of info makes you all smile I emailed manchester transport and asked them to paint the buzzes yellow/black London has red so manchester needs their own and they sent me a letter saying not only bus's but trams were going yellow/black in the future which I think is great

Jay foreman north?

Uncle Andy might have big plans for the buses, so there'll be no dollar for the tram 😒 Wigan has a glut of railway connections but poor Leigh only got that silly bus lane. Would be great to see Leigh get some love, for a change. No pre-existing railway lines there though are there? Only been to Leigh once to pick up a staircase. Nice joinery, awful chip shop at dinner time. Maybe decent connections will help them 😋

Does Bolton Line will go at Eccles Line?

i would love to see metrolink or any rail alternative come to denton. denton island is a NIGHTMARE at rush hour, and i'm bored of buses

The Wigan Line could actually Terminate near Wigan bus station or make the Market Layby into the terminus

Never use the Rochdale line - painfully slow/long journey. In the city it's complicated as they keep changing the routes. Stockport and Bolton and their 'burbs have excellent train connections.

Need to extend to Wigan via Bolton

Given not many people used the Fallowfield Loop Line when it was open (4 stopping trains in each direction after WWII leading to closure in the 1950s) I don't really see where the demand for reopening it as a tram line is. It's true the line remained open for express trains until 1969 and goods trains until 1988 but that didn't help the locals get into Manchester.

Remember if you want this start pestering your local councillors and MPs and get your neighbours involved too!

Can't they utilise existing track and power as how the Newcastle metro does at Sunderland

Stockport would have been easily attained if the pillocks hadn’t allowed the building companies to put housing estates where heaton Mersey station used to run.

Kind of jealous of other cities having tram systems like this since I live in Plymouth.

How about us that in Sale and Altrincham that need to go to the airport or Trafford Centre? It's way too archaic currently (especially for the airport) and much easier to drive or get a taxi. If the goal is to relive congestion, there needs to be a viable alternative to driving. Also what's with buses causing congestion? A city with good bus service, full bus is 40 cars no longer in front of you because those people are on a bus.

Extending the tram network is a great idea but should remain a separate network to the national rail network. Any spare capacity should be for running freight trains not clogging it up with trams. Cost should not be a basis for putting trams on the national rail network as for Wigan you wouldn’t build a tram line to Warrington from Chester just because they are both in Cheshire.

The orbital lines would be great for manchester

Guided busway ?

From Bury to Rochdale, it won't work. Especially when theirs plans already of the heritage line from "East Lancashire Railway" trying to reach all the way to castleton. (Which the government ATM has made note about this plan).

I don’t see why we can’t go underground at some points. I’ve always thought they could do this with the road system in places too, to bypass places in the city centre. Needs some ambitious thinking?

Unfortunately there is no adequate forward planning in the UK with public transport. A line by line approach over many decades based on drip-feed funding doesn't facilitate a convenient far reaching network.

Livingnin salford the eccles line makes me so mad, why do we need so many stops no one uses !!!

Who the heck wants to get off at the Stockport pyramid? Carry it on to Hollywood Park and give the folk of Edgeley a no change connection to West Didsbury, Withington and Chorlton. Edit: Thinking about this it would probably add another 2 minutes or so to the journey into/out of Stockport making it less competitive with the already quite speedy bus connection through Heaton Mersey. Still prefer my idea though.

Wonderful idea, but the costs are just too great, it will never happen.

I get upset when the London tube system get seemingly endless amounts of money for new, & rejuvenated lines, no problems. Yet if we want an extension / new route, we get hit with the congestion charge, as the only solution/ way forward. After 30 years, surely we should have had a much better system, covering ALL of the MCR satellite's.

stockport not miles out form east didsbury that sould be the next plan