Hot new hardware for city streets

So Confidential waited for the tram at Trafford Bar today. And instead of a two decade old dated grubby white charabanc of a conveyance he got a bright, new yellow love machine. A fine looking tram – one of forty new babes – being put through its paces.

The new trams are called Flexity Swift and manufactured by Bombardier Transportation. It's nice to have trams with a porn-star name, but it's sad that Manchester, one of the pioneering train manufacturing centres back in the day, should have its new vehicles built in foreign lands, namely Germany.

The tram was beautiful on the outside in its warm yellow livery. It was utterly overcrowded on the inside. 'The more things change the more things stay the same,' as the poet says. Although to be fair there was a limited service due to the ice and so people were cramming on the trams.

On a transport website the spec given for the new vehicles is: 'Each tram is 28.4m long, and has 52 standard seats with a further 8 'perch' seats. At a standard 4 persons per square metre, there will be space for 146 standing passengers, giving each tram a total peak capacity of 206.'

Metrolink say: 'The introduction of the new trams meanspassengers will experience quieter,smoother journeys, less crowding atpeak times and a more reliable service. They bring a hostof other new features such as: a lighter, brighter and roomier interior, extra legroom for seated passengers, better handrails for standing passengers, wider doorways, two multi-purpose areas for wheelchairs and prams and clearer information displays'.

The new trams are called Flexity Swift and manufactured by Bombardier Transportation. It's nice to have trams with a porn-star name, but it's sad that Manchester, one of the pioneering train manufacturing centres back in the day, should have its new vehicles built in foreign lands, namely Germany and Austria.

The new trams are part of the £600 million upgrade of the network also featuring station improvements and new ticketing machines plus the doubling in size of the system with almost 20 miles of new track and 27 new stops.

New lines will begin running to:

• MediaCityUK in summer 2010
• Chorlton in spring 2011
• Central Park in spring 2011
• Oldham Mumps in autumn 2011
• Rochdale in spring 2012
• Droylsden in spring 2012.

As an afterword it was a shame in a way that malfunctioning doors broke Flexity down at Cornbrook Station for five minutes. But hey let's be nice, let's put it down to teething problems. Certainly Ms Swift will look prettier gliding through our streets than those old snub-nosed has-beens.

We've even got a video of the tram at Manchester Central below. If there's one criticism though, we're not sure that the frog being strangled horn works.