Chorlton tram stop


Chorlton is a stop on the South Manchester and Airport lines of the Metrolink light-rail system in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, England. It was built as part of Phase 3a of the network's expansion and opened on 7 July 2011, on a section of the former Cheshire Lines Committee railway.

History

Railway station

Chorlton-cum-Hardy railway station opened on 1 January 1880 by the Midland Railway on the Manchester South District Railway. It later formed part of the Cheshire Lines Committee and closed on 2 January 1967, as part of the Beeching Axe, though the line through Fallowfield remained open to freight until 1988. Until the mid-20th century, the station yard supplied coal to the district. Land to the north-east of the track, originally acquired for the purpose of doubling it, was eventually sold off for development.
The station was mentioned in the 1964 song "Slow Train" by Flanders and Swann, which was written to lament the loss of stations resulting from the Beeching cuts:
Chorlton station was subsequently demolished and a Morrisons supermarket and car park built in its place; the track bed remained extant to the side of the supermarket and part of one of the platforms survives next to the supermarket building. The derelict line became overgrown until 2001, when the track bed of the old Fallowfield Loop Line branch running east of Chorlton towards Alexandra Park and was converted to the Fallowfield Loop shared-use path. The route is run by Sustrans and forms part of Routes 6 and 60 of the National Cycle Network. The remaining Cheshire Lines Committee lines, from Chorlton from Manchester Central towards Didsbury, remained disused and overgrown for another ten years.

Manchester Metrolink station

Proposals to link Chorlton to a light rail system had been put forward since the 1980s, but remained unfunded for over 20 years. The extension that was originally proposed would have taken over the disused tracks of the Cheshire Lines Committee as far as East Didsbury.
In 2006, it was announced that the first phase of the Big Bang Metrolink expansion project would go ahead, including the extension to St Werburgh's Road. Following the rejection of the Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund in a public referendum in 2008, extension of the line to East Didsbury was completed with funding from national and local government.
Construction of the line began in April 2009 and it opened in July 2011. The first services towards East Didsbury began in June 2013.

Services

Chorlton is served by the three tram lines:
Each line operates at a frequency of one tram every 12 minutes, providing a combined frequency of approximately one tram every four minutes in both directions. On the Rochdale to East Didsbury line, the last evening north-bound services terminate at Manchester Victoria.
Before the East Didsbury extension was completed in May 2013, south-eastbound services terminated at St Werburgh's Road. An extension from there to Manchester Airport was opened on 3 November 2014. St Werburgh's Road is an interchange station for services between the East Didsbury and Manchester Airport forks of the line. Northbound trams from Manchester Airport terminate at Manchester Victoria.

Connecting bus routes

The station is served by several Stagecoach Manchester bus services outside the stop or in the centre of Chorlton: