Monday 23 June 2014

A little bit of history, on Hardy Lane on June 23rd

Now this is a little bit of history.

It is 2.30 on Monday June 23rd and we are on Hardy Lane as one of the Metro Trams on test heads off towards Sale.

The company have announced  that the line has been completed a year ahead of schedule which means by December it will be possible to travel from town to the Airport.

I have to confess I was a little critical of both the plan and its progress.

I wondered how many people would use the tram to travel to the airport given the fast train service and couldn’t quite understand why it was taking so long to build a short route when a century and a bit before we had pretty much built a national rail network in a couple of decades.

Added to that there was that bit across the meadows which many felt threatened the natural wild life that had grown up over the last thirty years.

But back in the 19th century most of the line routes were through open country or cut through the slums of our inner cities and the engineers of the time did not have to worry over much about what was underneath the tracks.

Today on the other hand they had to strengthen existing sewers and underground communication ducts and steer a course down the middle of busy roads.

Above all I was being rather insular.  From Chorlton we already had a fast tram service and one I prefer over the bus, but as I know from years of travelling to Civic Centre the bus journey to Wythenshawe is long and torturous depending on the service you choose.

All of which now means that Wythenshawe for so long on the edge of the city will be that little bit closer.

And to celebrate the new service Hardy Productions UK have made and posted a short video on youtube.

It is just the sort of history I like.

Travelling at a snail’s pace with a man with in front and flanked by engineers and workmen the test tram slowly works its way from St Werburghs to Sale, and a bit of me wonders whether the first Corporation trams coming into Chorlton at the beginning of the 20th century were accompanied in such away.

Well that is a bit of research I shall now go off and do.

Picture; courtesy of Michael J Thompson, June 2014

*"Tram under Test" on Hardy Lane, in the early hours of this morning. The video can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0QfoBBtHos•


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