The Christmas period is an extremely busy time for public transport services across the country.
Many Brits will be travelling all over to visit family and friends throughout the holiday season. However, due to the tumultuous nature of the season, it is highly likely there will be a chain of delays, cancellations, and schedule changes from Christmas through to the New Year.
For Greater Manchester, there will be some notable changes to public transport rotas, affecting buses, trains, and trams. It is important to ensure that you plan your journey well ahead of time and prepare for any unexpected cancellations or schedule changes.
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Railway strikes taking place from Christmas Eve has also had a major impact, with the majority of services throughout the Christmas period either being cancelled or extremely delayed.
Read on to find which public transport services will be running throughout the Christmas period...
Buses
On Christmas Eve, bus services will operate a Saturday service and will stop running from 6pm onwards. On Christmas Day, Stagecoach will run special daytime buses on service 43 with no other buses running.
On Boxing Day, buses will run on a special timetable with many services not being in operation. Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has provided the following list of operational services on Boxing Day:
- Arriva: 245, 247 and 320 (Ashton-in-Makerfield - St Helens only).
- Diamond: 8, 20, 22, 36, 37, 126, 132, 163 and 471.
- First: V1 and V2.
- Go North West : 17, 18, 52, 93, 97, 98, 100 and 135.
- Rosso: 468 and 469 (Tottington Line).
- Stagecoach : 23, 42, 43, 50, 76, 85, 86, 101, 118, 192, 201, 202, 203, 216, 219, 250, 256 and 330.
- The Burnley Bus Company: X43.
The Free Bus will also be operating services 1 and 2 on a Sunday timetable. All Bus stations will also be closed on Boxing Day except for the Trafford Centre which will be open between 7am and 7pm.
You can find your departure information for your specific route throughout the Christmas period here.
Trains
RMT union members will stage a walkout from 6pm on Saturday, December 24 which will see many trains either cancelled or severely delays across the country.
Thousands of members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) employed by Network Rail will walkout from 6pm on Christmas Eve until 6am on December 27 in a bitter dispute over jobs, pay and conditions.
Passengers are being urged to only travel on Christmas Eve “if absolutely necessary”, and to consider making Christmas getaway journeys on an earlier day if possible.
Network Rail warned that the last trains on some routes on Saturday December 24 will depart in the morning, and some routes such as London-Sheffield and London-Nottingham will have no services at all.
The strike means all trains will need to be taken out of service by 6pm on Christmas Eve.
It most locations, that means passenger journeys must be completed by 3pm.
Examples of last train times include 10.45am from Leeds to London, 11am from London to Edinburgh and 12.48pm from London to Manchester.
Transport for Greater Manchester has also advised those making long-distance journey to look for other modes of transport and book well in advance for travel.
Services will also not run on Christmas Day or Boxing Day.
Trams
On Christmas Eve, Metrolink trams will operate on a Saturday timetable, with the last trams leaving the city centre between 8pm and 9pm. Metrolink has also alerted customers that rail strikes will affect services on the Altrincham line and they will end at Timperley after 6pm.
However, a replacement bus service will operate between Timperley and Altrincham at a 12-minute frequency until the end of the service at around 9pm.
On Christmas Day, there will be no trams in operation. Meanwhile, on Boxing Day, trams will operate on a Sunday timetable.
Access to Picadilly Metrolink stop will only be from Fairfield Street.
Metrolink timetables for the Christmas period can be found here .
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