Manchester to Altrincham

[johntea]

Does anyone know why the trams didn't seem to be running from Manchester centre to Altrincham over the weekend? (30 - 31 May).

I booked a cheap hotel there which was great in theory and worked well on Saturday evening as I caught the last Northern train service there from Piccadilly about 23:15.

Not so great trying to get back on Sunday when there only seemed to be a RRB to Stockport to then have to go from there to Manchester once every 2 hours, I arrived at the interchange and jumped on a bus which said 'Piccadilly' - 1 and a half hours later I actually ended up at Piccadilly!

 

[martin2345uk]

There was engineering works at one of the city centre tram stops... there was a bus replacement in place, a pretty shambolic one to be fair!

 

[Greybeard33]

The Metrolink engineering work was at the Deansgate-Castlefield stop, so trams from Altrincham were only running as far as Cornbrook. There were replacement buses between Trafford Bar and Piccadilly. There should have been trams every 12 minutes from Altrincham to Trafford Bar on Sunday 31st. About 15 minutes to Trafford Bar, but I do not know how long the bus would have taken.

There is normally a 2-hourly Northern Rail service between Altrincham and Piccadilly on Sundays, with the first train from Altrincham at 10:00. However:

On Sunday 31st May 2015

Because of Engineering Work taking place between Stockport and Ashley, all services between Stockport and Northwich will be replaced by buses.

There will be a rail service between Manchester Piccadilly and Stockport and between Northwich and Chester during these Engineering Works.

Note rail tickets are valid on the Metrolink Altrincham line on Sunday but note Metrolink will only be operating between Altrincham and Cornbrook on that date with a replacement bus service between Trafford Bar and Piccadilly Station.

http://www.midcheshirerail.org.uk/news/may-2015-bus-replacements/
The first RRB from Altrincham to Stockport was not until 11:00.

The Arriva 263 bus service from Altrincham Interchange to Piccadilly Gardens runs every 30 minutes on Sundays and the scheduled journey time is 47 minutes. http://www.tfgm.com/journey_planning/RouteMaps/263.pdf

I drove from Altrincham to Manchester at about 10:30 on the Sunday morning, and there were no traffic hold-ups.

 

[Shrimper]

There was engineering works at one of the city centre tram stops... there was a bus replacement in place, a pretty shambolic one to be fair!

There was resurfacing work taking place on Portland St which cause traffic chaos through the weekend, which caused a lot of bunching on the replacement buses

 

[johntea]

Thanks for that, picked an unlucky weekend to stay over then by the looks of things!

 

[pemma]

A normal bus service from Altrincham to Manchester should take 1 hour if it was the Arriva 263 or 1 hour 10 if it was the Stagecoach X41. The X41 follows a less direct route even if it's limited stop on certain sections. By the sound of things roadworks delayed up all bus services around the Piccadilly area on the day you travelled.
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There is normally a 2-hourly Northern Rail service between Altrincham and Piccadilly on Sundays, with the first train from Altrincham at 10:00. However:

http://www.midcheshirerail.org.uk/news/may-2015-bus-replacements/

Given loadings on a weekend when trains are running would normally be too high to use a single bus I think they should have done 1 all-stops bus every 2 hours and 1 semi-fast bus every 2 hours. A side effect of that would have been Altrincham-Stockport would have had 2 buses every 2 hours and not been within a few minutes of each other.