Going underground: The Manchester travel tunnel from Piccadilly to Victoria that never was
For more than ten years, Manchester was preparing an underground network that would reconnect the city in exciting, imaginative new ways. But then, the money stopped.
“We are going to face the difficult decision of whether or not we need to mothball the Metrolink.”
It’s April 2020, and the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham is issuing a warning.
Almost the entire city is indoors, and the only thing travelling through it is COVID-19.
Losing millions of pounds each month, the Metrolink is at real risk of closure. The travel landscape of Manchester could be set to change forever.
Fast-forward four months, and the yellow trams are merrily tooting and weaving through the borough like nothing ever happened. If it wasn’t for all the occupants wearing masks, you wouldn’t know the difference.
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It’d be easy to say all that big panic about the Metrolink shutting in spring was over-the-top.
Only, it wasn’t.
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Transport networks in Manchester have collapsed before.
In spring, Manchester’s light rail system was ultimately been bailed out by Government money, ensuring its survival (at least for the short-term).
But history teaches us that if money does not trickle down from the top, local transport must remain in park.
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A perfect case in point is the Picc-Vic Tunnel project that infamously collapsed during the 1970s.
For more than ten years, the city was preparing an underground network that would reconnect the north and south sides of the city in an imaginative new way.
The subterranean route was all set to run on 2.3 miles of track, with trains running less than three minutes apart, passing below key landmarks and stopping at newly-built stations at Market Street, Cross Street, Whitworth Street and Manchester Central Library.
Albert Square was going to be redesigned, with a concourse below and a travelator link to Oxford Road railway station.
There was also talk of moving walkways and escalators within the system.
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All in all, the project would have cost around £100m (in today’s terms).
But then, the money stopped.
In summer 1973, Transport Minister John Peyton pulled the plug.
There would be no grant, and therefore no way for the scheme to proceed.
Despite years of strategising, and initial Government green light, the Picc-Vic Tunnel was a victim of circumstance – rejected due to political problems and economic issues in the UK.
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It was a big blow. By this point, a small amount of construction had even begun.
UoM academics Martin Dodge and Richard Brook found a gaping hole below the Arndale Centre several years ago; the remains of the underground rail that had to be abandoned.
The pair outline the story of the Picc-Vic scheme in wonderful, vivid detail in an online presentation.
After new attempts for funding were repeatedly refused, all work on the Picc-Vic Tunnel network stopped. But the need for a cross-city centre travel network was still there.
Shuttlebuses were a temporary solution for travel between stations. But in the 1980s, an alternative proposal emerged; a light rail system.
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This would eventually become the Greater Manchester Metrolink – opening in 1992.
“In absence of that [government] support, we are forced into a corner,” said Mayor Burnham when discussing the future of the Metrolink earlier this year.
The people who spent years of their life developing the forgotten Picc-Vic project will testify to that.
Feature
Football fans are debating whether Manchester City made a mistake selling Cole Palmer
Danny Jones
Football clubs are always going to have to roll the dice on players as we all know promising players who went on to become stars: Kevin de Bruyne, Gerard Pique, Mo Salah and so on just to name a few from the Premier League – but is that what Manchester City have done with Cole Palmer?
The 21-year-old from Wythenshawe was sold to Chelsea back in September 2023, having only managed to make a few scattered but impressive appearances for Man City, scoring crucial goals in the Community Shield and the UEFA Super Cup, but was still ultimately deemed surplus to requirements.
Shown the exit through nothing other than the sheer quality of Pep Guardiola‘s starting XI, not to mention plenty of strength in depth and quality off the bench already, the West London club paid what looked to be a handsome £42.5 million for the still relatively unproven youngster at the time.
However, with another hattrick to his name – a perfect one scored all inside half an hour, no less – and a fourth for good measure thanks to a penalty against Everton, he’s quickly become by far and away Chelsea‘s star man.
In the same breath, many are now naturally wondering why he was sold in the first place. It’s no secret that City are spoilt for choice when it comes to talent amongst their ranks and certainly didn’t need the money from his sale; it was simply a case that Palmer wanted more minutes that Pep couldn’t promise.
Shouldering the responsibility for the decision at the time, Guardiola said he completely understood the Manchester-born and bred star’s drive and ambition, admitting that “[With] young players, we always want them to stay but this is normal.
“After one season it is nice, and the second season, but the third season it is, ‘Oh guys, I want to play, I don’t want to sit on the bench’. It’s normal. We understand as a club. We got an offer from an incredible top club like Chelsea and I’m really happy for him. In all clubs these types of things happen.”
However, we dare say that if you were to tell the Catalan coach that same hungry prospect would end up being joint top-scorer with his Erling Haaland the following season and being, we think it’s fair to say he might at least hesitate before green-lighting his departure – and there are plenty more stats to boot.
Now, it’s impossible to know whether or not having the knowledge he has now would have made Pep second-guess his decision and take a chance on integrating Cole Palmer into City’s first team more regularly but put it this way, 25 goals and 13 assists in all competitions is hard to ignore.
That’s all inside what is for all intents and purposes his full debut season as a first-team starter (which isn’t even over yet), let’s not forget, and while they’ve had similar situations play out with the likes of Jadon Sancho in the past, it must be a little frustrating to see him playing this well in the same only league only in a darker shade of blue.
On the other hand, it’s still early days Palmer could also follow that same narrative even further and see that huge momentum trickle out depending on how his sophomore season goes. He’s also a boyhood Man United fan and not that we’re saying we can see him make that move down the line, but we all know how that switch sadly ended up for Sancho.
For many fans, City or otherwise, the logic seems to be that letting him go was the right decision for everyone, as it’s allowed him to get that crucial playing time and shine like he has this season, which may not have happened while waiting to grab his opportunity off the bench at the Etihad.
Moreover, it’s not like the treble-winners aren’t still looking like they could defend all three of their trophies this year – although it would be interesting to see what impact Palmer has when he comes up against his former club in the FA Cup semi-final this weekend.
What do you think, were City right to sell Cole Palmer or should they have held on to him and given him the minutes he was clearly more than ready for?
Remember when the Manchester Marathon used to be too short?
Danny Jones
One of the most popular runs in the UK returns this weekend as the 2024 Adidas Manchester Marathon gets underway on Sunday morning, but did you know the famous race was once too short to count as the full shebang?
Yes, it may very be one of the flattest and most accessible races anywhere in Europe but once upon a time the Manchester Marathon was technically a marathon, as those in charge of measuring the thing up didn’t quite nail it.
One job, guys. You had one job…
Here’s the story of for three whole years, tens of thousands of runners sadly didn’t technically complete the Manchester Marathon.
Manchester Marathon: The ‘ish’ years
As was widely publicised at the time, in 2016 it was found that roughly the three previous years of the race course that runs throughout Manchester city centre, into the likes of Trafford, Chorlton, Altrincham and beyond didn’t actually fulfil the complete distance needed to qualify as a marathon.
While the race route has to stretch for 26.2 miles, or approximately 42.195 kilometres if you prefer metric (always one that splits the crowd) to count as an official marathon, it turned out that in 2013, ’14 and ’15, Manchester’s biggest running event fell just short of that mark.
Due to a measuring error – for which blame was placed on the Association of UK Course Measurers (AUKCM), who said an accredited measurer had ridden the course in 2013 but fell foul to an error in the calibration of the bicycle wheel – those three years ended up being 380m too short.
As a result, roughly 24,000 runners who ran the Manchester Marathon during this three-year period essentially had their races voided, including plenty of elite athletes, as the official UK Athletics governing body simply could not recognise their times. How fuming would you be?
Speaking in an official statement at the time, AUKCM said they regretted the mistake, confessing: “Significant errors in measurement are rare – our procedures are designed to find them at the reporting or checking stages”.
Xtra Mile Events, who were still the organisers of the event at the time, went on to add: “We all understand the anguish and huge disappointment this creates and want to assure our runners that we share the upset and emotion from the AUKCM news regarding the race distance.”
Thankfully, such mistakes haven’t been suffered since and now under the umbrella of sporting giants Adidas, you won’t catch them making the same slips-ups.
Best of luck to all of you racing this Sunday and rest easy in the knowledge that while you might be absolutely dying by those last few miles, at least you can be sure those every one of those final yards is going to count. Now go and smash it!