Trams are heading our way this summer

THE trams are coming to Oldham this summer — or at least they will be able to set off in the right direction after a vital junction is built in Manchester.

Although work on the old Oldham loop line has actually started, the connection to the existing Bury line needs to be made so that the first phase — from Victoria to Central Park at Newton Heath — can open next spring and on to Mumps a few months later.

That connection will be made in the first week of August, transport chiefs have decided, when trams will be halted between Crumpsall and Victoria.

The work will be carried out at the Irk Valley Junction, the scene of a famous train crash which killed 10 people in 1953 when a Bury electric train collided with steam train to Bacup and knocked the front carriage from the viaduct into the River Irk 40 feet below.

GMITA’s capital projects committee, chaired by Oldham councillor Richard Knowles, decided on the week-long ”blockade” as a better alternative to eight weekend closures between July and September.

Trams will run between Bury and Crumpsall and a replacement bus service will run on to Victoria. Altrincham and Eccles services will run normally.

Under phase B of the Metrolink expansion scheme, trams are due to be running through Oldham town centre at the beginning of 2014. Three years later, Oldhamers will be able to catch a tram direct to Manchester Airport.

Work on the airport line as far as Chorlton is already under way and the capital projects committee has now authorised £26m of work on the design, utility diversions, site clearance, and other advance works along the route to the airport over the next six months.