2000: A Transport Hub in Northwestern England First Goes into Service

July 21, 2000

Operations began for a transport hub in the market town of Eccles in northwestern England’s ceremonial county of Greater Manchester. (That market town, which is four miles [6.4 kilometers] west of the major city and metropolitan borough of Manchester, is best known as the namesake of a popular pie called the Eccles cake.) The transport hub has been designated as Eccles Interchange, and it includes a single-platform light rail station.

This station is part of Manchester Metrolink, a 64-mile (103-kilometer) tram/light rail system in  Greater Manchester. The station marks the western terminus of the system’s four-mile (6.4-kilometer) Eccles Line. The portion of this line extending as far as Broadway tram stop in the Salford Quays area of the City of Salford was officially opened by Prime Minister Tony Blair (born in 1953) on December 6, 1999.

About five-and-a-half months after the start of service for Eccles Interchange, both this transport hub and the segment of the line from the Salford Quays to Eccles were formally inaugurated by Princess Anne (born in 1950), the daughter of Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022) and Prince Philip (1921-2021). A bus station has also been built at Eccles Interchange. The regional bus services operating at this part of the transport hub are Go North West, Arriva North West, and Diamond Bus North West.

(The accompanying photo of the Manchester Metrolink station at Eccles Interchange was taken in 2018.)

Photo Credit: Zack Hallam (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Zackhally) – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

For more information on Eccles Interchange, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccles_Interchange