Firswood tram stop

Firswood
Metrolink
Firswood tram stop, in August 2012
Firswood Location of Firswood in Greater Manchester
Location
Place	Firswood
Local authority	Trafford
Coordinates	53°27′05″N 2°16′40″W / 53.4515°N 2.2778°W / 53.4515; -2.2778Coordinates: 53°27′05″N 2°16′40″W / 53.4515°N 2.2778°W / 53.4515; -2.2778
Grid reference	SJ816949
Platforms	2
Fare zone information
Metrolink Zone	P
Present status	In operation
Operations
Original operator	Manchester Metrolink
History
Opened	7 July 2011
South Manchester Line to Rochdale and Shaw and Crompton Deansgate-Castlefield Deansgate Bridgewater Canal Cornbrook to Eccles and MediaCityUK Manchester-Liverpool Line Trafford Bar to Altrincham Firswood Chorlton St Werburgh's Road to Manchester Airport Withington Burton Road West Didsbury Didsbury Village Styal Line East Didsbury

South Manchester Line

Firswood is a tram stop on the South Manchester Line (SML) and Airport Line of Greater Manchester's light-rail Metrolink system. Located in the Firswood area of Trafford, it was built as part of Phase 3a of the network's expansion, and opened on 7 July 2011.

Firswood Metrolink station is located on a section of the former Cheshire Lines Committee railway line, in a cutting adjacent to St John Vianney School on Rye Bank Road. The stop provides access to both Firswood and Whalley Range.

The station opened on 7 July 2011. and is the first newly constructed station on the new South Manchester Metrolink line out of Manchester. Firswood is a new station on a re-opened railway line, the Cheshire Lines Committee line, which closed to passenger service in 1967. It was planned to re-open the line as part of the expansion of the Manchester Metrolink tram network. Proposals to re-open the line have been put forward since the 1980s, but remained unfunded until the 2000s. The line extension which was originally proposed would take over the disused tracks of the Cheshire Lines Committee as far as East Didsbury.

In 2006, it was announced that Phase 3A would go ahead, including the extension of the network as far St Werburgh's Road. Following the rejection of the Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund in a public referendum in 2008, extension of the line as East Didsbury (Phase 3B) will now go ahead with funding from national and local government.