Manchester Piccadilly station

Origins junction diagram showing railways in Manchester In June 1840, the Manchester and Birmingham Railway (M&BR) opened a temporary terminus on its line to Stockport on Travis Street. A large site, long by wide, was cleared of terraced houses and industrial premises to make way for the permanent station Store Street which was built on top of a viaduct, above ground level. The station was opened adjacent to London Road on 8 May 1842. It had two platforms, offices and passenger amenities and by then the line had been extended to Crewe. Store Street was designed by M&BR's chief engineer, George W. Buck, who designed many of the line's structures including the Stockport Viaduct. Within ten years, the station was again over-crowded as traffic continued to increase and expansion was again required. Between 1880 and 1883, the LNWR widened its side of the station and built more platforms, which were covered by two more wide arched spans to the trainshed. At the same time, the MSJ&AR platform was taken out and rebuilt as an island platform on a girder bridge over Fairfield Street and linked to the main station by a footbridge. In May 1882, the improvements were opened. In October 2013 the station's roof/canopies were demolished due to safety concerns. Following the 1923 railway grouping, the LNWR amalgamated with several other railway companies to create the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), and the GCR amalgamated with other railways to create the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). The division of the station was maintained and it continued to be operated as two separate stations even after the nationalisation of the railways in 1948: One side was used by the London Midland Region of British Railways and the other by Eastern Region. This scheme proposed creating a direct rail link between Piccadilly and Manchester Victoria, by building a tunnel and several underground stations under Manchester city centre. The project was cancelled in the late 1970s, because of the high cost, and transport planners turned instead towards light rail as a lower-cost option. This resulted eventually in the Manchester Metrolink system which opened in the early 1990s linking the two stations by a street-level tramway and linking two converted rail lines to Altrincham and Bury. The tram stop in the station's undercroft opened in 1992. in conjunction with the opening of the Windsor Link chord in Salford, which allowed trains from places to the north of Manchester, such as , , Blackpool and Scotland, to run directly into Piccadilly via the through platforms and continue south to destinations such as , and (from 1993 onwards) . Once completed, it allowed for many services from the north to be diverted from Manchester Victoria, which was reduced in size; this enhanced Piccadilly's status as Manchester's main station. The link was opened in 1988 and was declared to be fully operational the following year. 2002 redevelopment Between 1998 and 2002, in preparation for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, the station underwent a £100million redevelopment. The glass roof of the trainshed, which is a Grade II listed structure, was reglazed and repainted. A new main entrance and enlarged concourse with a mezzanine level, designed by BDP, replaced the 1960s structure, which had become insufficient for the number of passengers regularly using the station. A moving walkway was installed to take passengers from the concourse to platforms 13 and 14 on the far south side of the station, which had previously necessitated a long walk. Another entrance was also created on Fairfield Street, which provides access to a new taxi rank along with a drop-off point for private cars. Electrification The station is unusual in having seen two different systems of overhead railway electrification: • 1,500 V DC overhead: The first electrified line into London Road was the MSJA&R line to , a busy commuter route; it was energised in 1931. London Road was the terminus of the electrification scheme which ran through to the through platforms. The second line to be electrified using 1,500 V DC was the LNER's Woodhead Route from Manchester to . Work on the scheme commenced in the late 1930s, but was stopped due to the Second World War, before being restarted in the early 1950s. Electrification was completed in September 1954. The two electric 1,500 V DC lines ran into different parts of the station. • 25 kV AC overhead: This was adopted as the national standard by British Railways and was brought to London Road/Piccadilly in the West Coast Main Line electrification scheme starting in the late-1950s. The main line was electrified to by 1960 and London by 1966. At the same time, the 1,500 V electrification on the Altrincham line was cut back to Oxford Road to where the new system was extended from the south. The Altrincham line was converted to 25 kV in 1971. The two systems co-existed for a number of years. The Woodhead Route was closed as a through line in 1981, but local services to Glossop and Hadfield continued to be operated by 1,500 V trains until the line was converted to 25 kV during 1984. During the 2010s, the Northern Hub scheme saw electrification extended from Manchester to Liverpool in 2015, and Manchester to Preston and through to Blackpool in 2019. ==Architecture==