The final day at Woodlands Road Metrolink

From this video: Lost Metrolink Ep.1 - Woodlands Road - Metrolink Insights

Woodlands Road tram stop was originally a railway station, opened on 3 March 1913, a few decades after the railway line itself opened in 1877. It was opened by the railway company mainly to compete with electric tramway network growth in the area. These tramways of course could serve the in-between areas which railways couldn’t, so several stations (also including Besses o’ th’ Barn and Bowker Vale) were also opened partially for this purpose at around this time along with Woodlands Road. It wasn’t opened to serve the area (there wasn’t much at all around back in 1913 anyway).

Woodlands Road tram stop opened originally as a halt station, which was a minor station with basic facilities (the definition of a halt station has since faded away, I don’t even know how to get into that, so I’m just going to very quietly move on).

New tram stops named Abraham Moss and Queens Road were to open north and south (respectively) of Woodlands Road, Abraham Moss being just 400m away. When Abraham Moss opened on 18 April 2011, services at Woodlands Road were reduced to just 10am-4pm on weekdays, at all other times, trams would pass by Woodlands Road without stopping. This is the only time that a Metrolink tram stop individually has had a limited service.

Here’s a short list of the final services to depart from Woodlands Road on Friday, 13 December 2013:

15:40 ↑ to Bury (tram 1023) ~7 min late

15:46 ↓ to Altrincham (tram 1017) on time

15:46 ↑ to Bury (tram 3001) ~2 min late

15:52 ↓ to Ashton-under-Lyne (tram 3027) on time?

15:52 ↑ to Bury (tram 3033/3031) on time

15:58 ↓ to Altrincham (tram 3012/3037) on time

15:58 ↑ to Bury (tram 1023) ~4 min late, did not stop

The final tram to stop at Woodlands Road was the 15:58 southbound service to Altrincham, calling at the inbound platform at Woodlands Road, of course. It was tram 3012 leading 3037. There was clearly supposed to be another scheduled service northbound to Bury that was meant to call at the same time, made apparent by looking at the scheduling pattern above, but some sources report that it never stopped at Woodlands Road, maybe due to it running 4 minutes late (as trams were only allowed to stop after 10:00 and before 16:00), but that’s not certain. I don’t believe a tram would skip a station because it was late, but it’s still possible that it could have skipped to save a bit of time for passengers on their way up to Bury. I would be happy to hear any eyewitness accounts!

(I made a minor mistake in my YouTube video denoting 3012/3027 when it should have been 3012/3037, apologies. Obviously the previous southbound tram to Ashton #3027 did not miraculously end up at Woodlands Road a matter of minutes later coupled to another tram!)

It’s interesting that even looking at TfGM’s sources, the closure date for Woodlands Road is Monday, 16 December 2013, even though the last trams clearly stopped on the Friday. Was the station still open to the public over the weekend? If so, for what reason, if for any reason at all? I wonder…