Bombardier Transportation — together with Vossloh Kiepe (a company involved in rail engineering integration and rolling stock enhancement) — is to supply 16 additional Bombardier Flexity Swift light rail vehicles to Transport for Greater Manchester’s (TfGM’s) Metrolink system. This option forms part of the contract signed with TfGM in 2007 and is valued at about £34 million; Bombardier’s share is valued at about £25 million.

Councillor Andrew Fender, chairman of the TfGM committee, said: “This order will bring our fleet to 120 vehicles, which demonstrates just how far our network has come since it opened in 1992 with just 26 trams. The expansion of the network has been a giant leap for Metrolink, and that leap has been matched by the performance and quality of the new M5000 trams compared to the original — but now retired — T68 vehicles.”