Trams go underground as Metro web widens

Metrolink went underground for the latest chapter of its success story, which will take Manchester City fans to the City of Manchester stadium.

For the biggest engineering job of the £600m next phase of extensions, which includes converting the Oldham loop rail line to bring Metrolink to Rochdale — involves tunnelling under one of the city’s busiest roads to eventually speed trams to Tameside, calling at the home of Manchester City and British cycling’s headquarters at the Velodrome along the route.

Contractors have brought in giant drilling machinery to drive piles into the earth either side of Great Ancoats Street so they can build an underpass and avoid holding up traffic while trams cross.

And Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority chairman Councillor Matt Colledge called in at the site at the road’s junction with Pollard Street to check on progress.

The four-mile line to Droylsden will open with eight stops in the spring of 2012.

It is one of three new lines being built and work has also started on lines to Rochdale and Oldham and Chorlton.

Hopes of a “Big Bang” which would have taken the new extensions on to Oldham and Rochdale town centres, Ashton, and Manchester Airport were dashed when the people of Greater Manchester threw out congestion charge plans last December.