Newton Heath - Transport

Transport

Railways arrived in Newton Heath during the 1840s and the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway (L&YR) laid two main lines across the district. Steam locomotive repair sheds were opened in 1877 at the Newton Heath Motive Power Depot (now Traction Maintenance Depot), coded 26A by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. These grew to become a major local employer which, by the 1860s, had been expanded to a 40 acre (16 hectare) site with over 2,000 workers.

Both Newton Heath (closed on 3 January 1966) and Park railway stations (closed on 27 May 1995) were deemed by British Rail to be surplus to requirements following the decline of the local engineering industry.

Today, Newton Heath was formally served by Dean Lane railway station, on the Manchester to Rochdale via Oldham line when it closed in October 2009. The station was adjacent to the Newton Heath depot, which maintains diesel unit trains for Northern Rail. The line is now under construction from conversion from heavy rail to light rail operation as part of the Metrolink expansion project. It is forecasted that Metrolink trams will serve the area from 2012 using the existing the Manchester bound platform of the previously used Dean Lane railway station. A £35.6 million Metrolink station was built in 2005 at Central Park south of Newton Heath in anticipation of the network extension, but the project was cancelled by the Government due to funding problems until confirmation of the Metrolink conversion in 2007.