Hollinwood-Failsworth was ground to a different rail profile a few years ago. You can hear the change from new to old profile about a third of the way between the two on the inbound. It was hoped that the new profile would improve ride quality but it wasn’t taken forward for whatever reason.
The wheel profile was changed a few years ago, again to try and improve ride quality. This prevented the original low frequency hunt which manifested as the nose swinging from side to side at speed, but introduced a new high frequency hunt where the rail profile isn’t perfect.
The lively ride quality is mostly down to the fact that they have coil spring suspension rather than air. The almost identical K5000s in Köln have similar issues. Some of the newer vehicles have firmer dampers, but this just makes them harder.
Yes I fully agree with you. The biggest complaints when they were introduced were the lack of seats and the ride quality.
The only problem with longer vehicles is that both depots would need reconfiguring to handle them. Something like the single ended flexity vehicles operating in Frankfurt would have been perfect though.
I have always said that the M5000 is proof that an off the shelf design doesn’t work for Metrolink. The system is too varied in its operation.
The lack of seats does help dwell times at stops in the city centre with the relative ease of passenger circulation compared to the T68s.
If the city centre is the main bottleneck, is it worth considering building more platform capacity at Picc and Vic to allow some services to terminate there?
The current capacity of routes via Cornbrook is 40tph - 25 via 1CC and 15 via 2CC (North of St Peters Square being the constraint)
That divides as:
5 Eccles
5 MediaCity
5 Trafford Centre
10 Altrincham
10 East Didsbury
5 Airport
So it's effectively "full". Any more services from the South would require terminating at Deansgate-Castlefield or Cornbrook.