Avanti West Coast trains passing Non-Stop through Manchester Piccadilly | Apr 2023

One of the rarest events I managed to witness and record in British Rail. Route diverted Avanti's Class 390 Pendolinos skipping Manchester Piccadilly.

#trains #thetrainguy #britishrailways

Location : Manchester Piccadilly

Manchester Piccadilly is the principal railway station in Manchester, England. Opened as Store Street in 1842, it was renamed Manchester London Road in 1847 and became Manchester Piccadilly in 1960. Located to the south-east of Manchester city centre, it hosts long-distance intercity and cross-country services to national destinations including London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Reading, Southampton and Bournemouth; regional services to destinations in Northern England including Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and York; and local commuter services around Greater Manchester. It is one of 19 major stations managed by Network Rail. The station has 14 platforms: 12 terminal and two through platforms (numbers 13 and 14). Piccadilly is also a major interchange with the Metrolink light rail system with two tram platforms in its undercroft.

The Manchester station group is a station group (for fares purposes) of four railway stations in Manchester city centre, England; this consists of Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester Victoria and Deansgate.

Piccadilly is the busiest station in the Manchester station group with over 30 million passenger entries and exits between April 2019 and March 2020 (the other major stations in Manchester are Oxford Road and Victoria). As of March 2020, it is the third-busiest station in the United Kingdom outside of London (after Birmingham New Street and Glasgow Central), and is also the fourth-busiest interchange station outside London, with over 2 million passengers changing trains annually.

Between 1988 and 1989, Piccadilly's through platforms 13 and 14 were further lengthened, in conjunction with the opening of the Windsor Link chord in Salford, which allowed trains from places to the north of Manchester, such as Bolton, Preston, Blackpool and Scotland, to run directly into Piccadilly via the through platforms and continue south to destinations such as Stockport, Buxton and (from 1993 onwards) Manchester Airport. 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; it was declared to be fully operational the following year.