Rail
Main article: List of railway stations in Greater Manchester See also: Manchester station groupManchester holds a pivotal position in railway history as a birthplace of passenger rail travel on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which opened in 1830. Railway links to London were established by 1842. By the turn of the 20th century, the city centre was encircled by large termini stations, which included:
- Manchester London Road (now Manchester Piccadilly)
- Manchester Victoria
- Manchester Central
- Manchester Mayfield
- Manchester Exchange
Cutbacks followed the Beeching Report in the 1960s, with Manchester Central, Manchester Mayfield and Manchester Exchange closing to passengers. All rail services in the city centre were then mainly concentrated on Manchester Victoria and Manchester Piccadilly as well as the smaller Oxford Road and Deansgate railway stations. Manchester Piccadilly was the busiest railway station in England outside London in terms of passengers in 2005–2006.
Greater Manchester still has an extensive citywide railway network with two mainline termini (Victoria and Piccadilly) and four through mainline railway stations in the central area (Deansgate, Salford Central, Salford Crescent and Oxford Road). Rail use by passengers in Greater Manchester has nearly doubled in the ten years from 2001 to 2011 and is predicted it will rise by a further 54% from 2011 to 2020. Its central location means the city acts as a key bypass for rail to cities such as Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh. The TransPennine Express service centres on Manchester as the main hub and other services which operate hourly to and from Manchester include CrossCountry trains, Arriva Trains Wales, East Midlands Trains, Northern Rail and Virgin Trains. Ultimately Manchester sits at a rail bottleneck, and it is hoped investment in the proposed £560 million Northern Hub scheme by Network Rail will alleviate this.
High speed trains to London are run from Manchester Piccadilly by Virgin Trains, journey time typically takes around 2 hr 7 mins. The record journey time is 1 hr 53 mins. There are several smaller stations around the city centre, including Oxford Road and Deansgate (formerly Knott Mill), and Salford Central across the Irwell in the City of Salford.
Piccadilly and Victoria are now linked by the city's Metrolink tram system. The urban and suburban areas are covered by a sizeable network of railway lines, including to Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton, Stockport and Wigan. Full timetables are from National Rail Enquiries. The commuter rail network within Greater Manchester (which numbers 101 stations) is the most extensive outside Greater London and the South East.
Read more about this topic: Transport In Manchester
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