Oldham’s trams are finally back to normal after months of disruption caused by a cracked rail on a crossing at Victoria.

Workers fixed the rail on Bank Holiday Monday, with no trams running through Victoria while work took place.

Back when Metrolink came to the borough in 2012, passengers were promised trams between Shaw and Manchester every six minutes.

Since 2017, Oldham services have normally run via the network’s "Second City Crossing" – with trams going via Exchange Square rather than Market Street, to improve capacity and reliability on the network.

However, after the cracked rail was discovered between Victoria and Exchange Square in January all trams were re-routed via the old Market Street route.

Then, in late February, Oldham’s tram frequency was slashed. Services which usually travelled from East Didsbury to Shaw were altered to terminate at Exchange Square, restoring service to the stop, but meaning trams between Oldham and Manchester were reduced to every 12 minutes.

The situation led to chaos earlier in March when trams had to be stopped in the city centre after a fire broke out at Piccadilly Gardens, as they were unable to be diverted using the second crossing.

However, trams have finally returned to normal after the completion of works to restore the crossing to normal.

Peter Sommers, TfGM’s interim Metrolink director, said: “Over the weekend, work to restore services between Exchange Square and Victoria was completed successfully.

“The crossing was reinstated, and works were completed throughout Monday and into the early hours of Tuesday morning, when trams resumed operation on normal timetables from the start of service.

“I want to thank our engineering teams for their hard work in completing these complex repairs, and I also want to thank passengers for their patience while this important work was carried out.”

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