2020: England Gets a New Light Rail Line

March 22, 2020

The Trafford Park Line in northwestern England’s ceremonial county of Greater Manchester first went into service. This light rail line operates in the metropolitan borough of Trafford as part of the Manchester Metrolink, an extensive transit system in that region of England. The line owes its name to a particular section of the metropolitan borough; Trafford Park has the distinction of being the world’s first planned industrial estate.

The Trafford Park Line made its debut eight months earlier than originally planned. Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, proclaimed several days prior to the grand opening that this line was “a much-needed addition to the Metrolink network” and would “encourage more people to use public transport to journey around our city-region, and in doing so reduce congestion on our roads and improve the quality of our air.”

This line measures 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) in length and encompasses a total of nine stations. The passenger vehicles serving the Trafford Park Line are Bombardier M5000 trams.

Photo Credit: David Dixon (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en)

For more information on the Trafford Park Line, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafford_Park_Line

A video featuring this line is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5xBLZVRfZY