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Passengers' ordeal as tram leaves track

Clarissa Satchell
12/ 1/2005

A TRAM carrying commuters suddenly veered off the track and into a pylon.

It was travelling from Piccadilly station to the city centre at 6.30am yesterday when it derailed and hit a pole holding up the power lines that connect to the tram.

The force of the crash damaged one of the doors but tram operator Serco Metrolink has ruled out speed as the cause of the accident and insisted that no passengers were injured.

They say a "technical problem" caused the accident, which happened on a bend along London Road near Piccadilly Gardens.

Engineers are examining the tram to try to establish what went wrong. Its side and front doors were damaged and it is not known how long it will now be out of action for repairs.

It will add to the existing shortage of trams that has been causing some delays across the network.

Replacement

All trams were cancelled between Piccadilly Station and Piccadilly Gardens yesterday.

There were delays of around 15 minutes to trains to Bury and Altrincham and 25 minutes on services to Eccles. An emergency timetable was established, which operated replacement services.

A Serco Metrolink spokewoman insisted no one was in danger when the crash happened.

She said: "We would like to apologise to all our customers for the delays that they experienced to their journey.

"As soon as the derailment was advised to our control room, arrangements were made to implement an emergency timetable.

"Engineers worked throughout the day to re-rail the vehicle and clear the site in order to carry out a thorough investigation into the cause of the derailment. When the tram left the track it travelled approximately 30 feet before it came to a halt."


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Most recent 2 of 23 user comments

   I am not surprised that the tram came off the tracks. Serco need to invest in more trams that are more sturdy and reliable like those found in Croydon and Sheffield.

Ticket machines always reject coins and need to be reaplced. Also needs to be an option of pay with debit card or some other option of pament such as a "top up" card.

Trams become full too soon in rush hour and people still try to push themselves on when there clearly isnt any room!!
Andrew, Timperley
14/01/2005 at 14:49

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   yesterday i and many others including a train driver who ended up being late to drive his train where led of a tram at the side of the road outside piccadilly station after enduring a 35 minuite trip from victoria to piccadilly, this can be walked in 15 minuites. we where told that a tram had once again broke down in front of us, the driver of the tram did his best and kept us adviced but this situation is becoming all too common on a system that is only 10 years old. as the previous reader has indicated i also think it is now high time that the council and serco realise that it was a huge mistake to try and replace proper trains and re-instated heavy rail to altrincham and bury, we would then have enough trams to do theire job as they where desighned, within the city center. from conversations on the tram it would appear that this is what most of the travelling public would prefer. but of course as with the get back on track campaighn the council and serco will only publish findings which agree with theire outdated views.
customer, manchester
14/01/2005 at 11:56

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