| abstract | - For many years there had been plans to connect Manchester's two main railway stations, Piccadilly and Victoria. In the late 1960s and early 1970s there were plans for a "Picc-Vic tunnel" to carry main-line trains under the city centre. The proposal was abandoned because of excessive cost. In the 1980s, light rail was increasingly seen as a more cost-effective solution to expanding rail transport. Inspired by the success of the Tyne and Wear Metro (opened 1980) and the Docklands Light Railway in London (opened 1987), Manchester transport planners looked to light rail as a way of bridging Manchester's transport gap. By the late 1980s the power equipment on the electrified suburban railway line from Victoria to Bury, which operated on the unique voltage of 1200 DC by means of a side-contact third-rail power supply, was in need of replacement, and it was decided to construct a light rail system to connect the Victoria–Bury line via an on-street link with the line from Piccadilly to Altrincham via the city, rather than replace the equipment on a like-for-like basis.
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