Thursday 15 December 2016

A tram ............... a name and a journey

Now this is a tram story.

So turn away all those who prefer the bus, drive each day in a car or have never taken to that mode of transport which travels equally happily on the city’s roads and railway track.

Me, I just love the tram and will go out of my way to use it even when it is more sensible to go by bus.

It is of course partly because trams are quicker and more direct but also because they give you a clear view of where you are passing through.

And when they travel along the old railway network there is a sense of going back in time.

So when the Metro extended to East Didsbury from town I jumped at the opportunity to travel on what had once been the passenger railway line from Central Railway Station out to Stockport and Derbyshire.

Metro did it in two chunks, terminating at first at St Werburghs and then comleting the route to East Didsbury which meant with a bit of imagination you could think yourself back to steam locomotives and a time when Chorlton had a railway station called Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

And it was at East Didsbury that David spotted tram number 3020 “working the Deansgate, East Didsbury service” which just happens also to a have a name.

It is the Lancashire Fusilier and David tells me he thinks it is the only tram currently to have a name, and that pretty much is the end of the story.

Except to say like Alfred Hitchcock, David couldn't resist getting in his own picture.

Location. South Manchester

Pictures; name plate of the Lancashire Fusilier, number 3020 courtesy of David Harrop and another by me ........ an East Didsbury tram passing through St Peter's Square, 2014 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

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