A tram leaves Bury for Manchester every 7 or 8 minutes and reaches Victoria in about 28. The £4.60 single, the £9.50 daily cap and the route on to London.
Start with the thing that catches people out when they move here. There is no National Rail station in Bury borough. Not in Bury, not in Radcliffe, not in Prestwich, Whitefield, Tottington or Ramsbottom. The old Bury to Manchester railway was converted to light rail and reopened as Metrolink in 1992, and Bury Bolton Street, the handsome station beside the town centre, is the headquarters of the East Lancashire Railway, a heritage line that does not connect to the national network.
What Bury has instead is better than most commuter towns get: two tram lines, each running every 15 minutes, giving a departure into Manchester roughly every seven or eight minutes from early morning to after midnight.
How long it takes
Both lines start at Bury Interchange. The green line runs to Altrincham via Victoria, Market Street and St Peter’s Square. The yellow line runs to Piccadilly via Victoria and Market Street. They share the whole stretch of track between Bury and the city centre, so for anyone heading into Manchester the practical answer is to take whichever comes first.
The gaps between stops are short and the run is fast for a tram, because most of it is on the alignment of the old railway rather than street track. The slow part is the last mile into the city centre, where the tram joins the street network at Queens Road and shares junctions with traffic.
Departures from Bury run at :52, :59, :07, :14, :22, :29, :37 and :44 past each hour through the day, alternating between the two lines. On the published timetable the first trams leave Bury just before 06:00 and the last leave just after midnight.
What it costs
Bury and Radcliffe are in the outermost fare zone, so a journey to the city centre crosses all four zones. Whitefield, Prestwich and the stops closer in cross three. These are the current adult tram fares, taken from the Bee Network contactless fares page.
| Ticket | Tram only | Bus and tram |
|---|---|---|
| Single | £4.60 | |
| Day, off-peak | £4.90 | £7.80 |
| Day, anytime | £7.10 | £9.50 |
| Week, Monday to Sunday | £31.00 | £41.00 |
From Whitefield and inwards, where the journey crosses three zones rather than four, the equivalents are £3.80 single, £4.30 off-peak day, £6.10 anytime day and £25.40 a week.
Two things are worth knowing about how this actually works day to day.
You do not need to buy a ticket. Tap a contactless card or phone on the yellow reader when you board and again when you get off, using the same card every time, and the system charges you the cheapest option and applies the daily and weekly caps automatically. The off-peak day rate applies if your first tap of the day is after 9.30am on a weekday.
Forgetting to tap out is expensive. An incomplete journey is charged at the maximum single fare of £4.60, and it does not count towards your cap. Not tapping in at all exposes you to a penalty fare of up to £120, or £60 if you settle with the inspector on the spot.
If you use the bus as well as the tram, the combined cap is £9.50 a day and £41 a week for unlimited travel across every zone. Bus-only travel is £2 a trip with a £5 daily and £20 weekly cap, and Bee Network buses let you make as many trips as you like within an hour of your first tap for that single £2.
Parking at the tram
All three park and rides on the Bury line are free to anyone holding a valid Metrolink ticket, and all three are open 05:00 to 01:00 on weekdays and around the clock at weekends.
| Site | Spaces | Blue Badge | Address |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radcliffe | 458 | 22 | Spring Lane, M26 2SZ |
| Whitefield | 318 | 13 | Stanley Road, M45 8QH |
| Bury | 96 | 4 | Angouleme Way, BL9 0AY |
Source: Bee Network park and ride.
Bury Interchange’s own car park is the small one, with 96 spaces, which is why it fills early. Radcliffe, four and a half times the size and six minutes further out, is the one to aim for if you are driving to the tram from the north of the borough. Radcliffe and Whitefield both have a 2.3 metre height restriction. Whitefield has two electric charging points. Overnight parking is allowed at all three on Friday and Saturday nights only, with the car collected by noon the next day.
Getting to London
Because there is no station in the borough, every London journey from Bury starts with the tram. The sensible route is the yellow line straight to Manchester Piccadilly, then Avanti West Coast to Euston.
On a weekday the fastest Piccadilly to Euston train is 1 hour 59 minutes, on the 07:00 departure. Most services take between 2 hours 08 and 2 hours 17. Add the 37 minutes on the tram and a few minutes to walk up from the Metrolink platforms, and Bury to London is about two hours and 50 minutes door to platform on a good morning.
Walk-up fares from Manchester, checked on the National Rail timetable: an Off-Peak Single is £79.80, an Off-Peak Return £114.00, and an Anytime Single £193.00. Advance singles booked ahead start at £36.00, which is the difference between a sensible day trip and a painful one.
Two alternatives that look attractive and mostly are not:
- Via Manchester Victoria. The green line drops you at Victoria, but almost no London trains leave from there. The journey planner sends you on a 22-minute transfer across to Piccadilly, giving a total of 2 hours 39 to 2 hours 47 from Victoria. Go to Piccadilly on the yellow line instead.
- Via Bolton. Bolton has a National Rail station and Bury does not, so people try it. The London journey from Bolton needs a change and takes 2 hours 40 to 2 hours 49, and the walk-up fares are higher, at £205 or £292 for an Anytime Single depending on the route, against £193 from Manchester. Only worth it if you live in Tottington or the west of the borough and are being dropped off.
The heritage line, and what it is not
Bury Bolton Street station sits a five-minute walk from the Interchange and looks exactly like a working main-line station, which is the source of most of the confusion. It is the operational centre of the East Lancashire Railway, a 12-mile preserved line running between Heywood and Rawtenstall through Burrs Country Park, Summerseat, Ramsbottom and Irwell Vale. It runs steam and heritage diesel services on published operating days, it is a genuinely good day out, and it will not get you to work. Details are on the things to do page.
Where these figures come from
- Journey times and frequencies: the published Bee Network Metrolink timetable for the green line (Bury to Altrincham) and yellow line (Bury to Piccadilly), read on 9 August 2026. Victoria and Piccadilly times are calculated from the timetabled running times either side of Queens Road.
- Fares: Bee Network contactless and pay as you go, and the tram fare zones, which confirm that Bury and Radcliffe to Piccadilly crosses all four zones and Whitefield to Piccadilly crosses three.
- Park and ride: Bee Network park and ride.
- London trains and fares: traintimes.org.uk, which publishes National Rail Enquiries timetables and walk-up fares, checked for Monday 10 August 2026.
Fares and timetables change. Check before you travel, and check roadworks and travel updates if you are driving instead.
Have your say
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