Catching the tram on Corporation Street in 1902 and waiting at the metro stop on Market Street one hundred and eleven years later

Corporation Street, 1902

I have never lost that fascination with trams.

Back at the turn of the last century they were noisy and rattled along but were an essential part of the transport network.

And a hundred years later they are still one of the most effective ways of getting around the city and out to the places beyond.

So from Corporation Street to the metro stop at Market Street which I rather think has become one of the busiest tram stations on the network.

We had had trams for a long time but in 1928 the decision had been taken to replace the 53 route from Stretford to Cheetham Hill with motor buses.

Sitting on the tram to East Didsbury, June 3013

And by the late 1940s the last trams were running on their last journeys.

According to one source the switch to buses on the 53 route was to increase passenger numbers by 11%.

Added to this was the real need to put in substantial capital investment if the trams were to continue to run and so in 1937 the Corporation took the decision to phase out the tram in favour of the bus and trolley bus.

It meant the end of a network of 292 miles of tram track which in 1928 carried passengers on 953 trams across 46 routes. And of course the end of that delicate tracery of cables suspended above the roads which gave power to the trams.

Waiting for a tram on Market Street

But now they are back, crisscrossing the city centr and travelling out south to East Didsbury and Altrincham and east to Oldham, Rochdale and soon Ashton Under Lyne.

All of which will make the metro stop at Market Street an even more busy place.

And with that plenty more opportunities for me to snap away.

Pictures; detail of a tram on Corporation Street in 1902 from the collection of Rita Bishop remaining images from the collection of Andrew Simpson