Always make a record ……. Shudehill before a tram or the bus

How easy it is to forget the more recent changes to our city.

The tram stop, 2023

I don’t mean that time before the rise of the giant towers which now dominate the skyline in almost every direction and are very striking scene as you travel in by tram from Cornbrook into Deansgate Castlefield.

Or for that matter the journey in to the city centre along the Oxford Road corridor or Rochdale Road from the north.

I am thinking instead of the bits in between like the entrance to Victoria Station, and the tall development at Nicholas Croft.

Into the bus station, 2023

All of which is an introduction to the Shudehill Interchange, which happened while I wasn’t looking.

My Wikipedia tells me that is a “is a transport hub between Manchester Victoria station and the Northern Quarter in Manchester city centre, which comprises a Metrolink stop and a bus station.

The tracks through the site were opened in 1992; however, the tram stop did not open until 31 March 2003. 

The bus part of the interchange opened on 29 January 2006.

Construction had initially started on the bus station in 1998 and it was planned to have been completed and fully operational by 2000, but several disputes over the ownership of the site along with two public inquiries over the course of five years resulted in the construction work on the station being halted until 2003”.*

The lonely wait, 2023

Now given the date 1992 there will be those that matter I must have had “my eyes closed for a long time”.

Which is of course possible but in reality had more to do with the simple fact that during the 1990s I rarely went to Victoria Railway Station or Shudehill.

When two trams meet, 2023

But perhaps I just wasn’t that observant to the point that when our Ben talked about getting a bus from Shudehill bus station I was a tad puzzled.

All of which has now been rectified, and as an alternative to the Second City Crossing, I will take the tram from St Peter’s Square via Market Street through Shudehill and onto Victoria.

Earlier in the week Shudehill was my go to destination, which I used as the staring point for a wander up to the Rochdale Road across to Swan Street, Eagle Street and round to High Street into the heart of the Northern Quarter.

So that is it, leaving me just to post some of the “interchange" pictures and one courtesy of John Casey when the tram tracks were in the making on their way to Victoria.

That said I have to confess that there were buses on Shudehill before the Interchange and even a horse drawn mail coach service to Ashton Under Lyne at the start of the 19th century from the Hare and Hounds.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Location; Shudehill

Tram rails in the making, 1990s

Pictures; Shudehill Interchange, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and tram rails in the making, 1990s courtesy of John Casey

*Shudehill Interchange, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shudehill_Interchange