A while ago I posted about how occasionally you see glimpses of what lies beneath the thin skim of tarmac on most of Britains urban roads. For the last few weeks some workmen have been working in a huge hole beside the Apollo and now they are finished they have skimmed back a huge section of the existing tarmac inorder to replace it.
This is the end of Hyde road and these setts will stretch the entire distance all the way back to Hyde and in most directions beyond. The tram lines however are probably quite rare as the wiki page for Manchester Tramways says nearly 5000 tons of track was ripped up and donated to the war effort.
Just a couple of inches down is the preserved cobble setts and the tram lines. Whilst they were digging the hole you could even see below these cobbles was a huge set of iron girders which helped support the weight of the trams down the centre of the road.
You can see here the lines diverging off in in seperate directions ready for the junction ahead. this morning they were using a huge street cleaning lorry to clean up the loose bits ready to re-tarmac, by tomorrow it will probably be all neatly covered back up. Lots more to read about Manchester Corporation Tramways which ran the 292 miles of track around Manchester.
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