Tram passengers have been left in the lurch after the entire Metrolink network was halted by a communication failure.

A control room fault at Metrolink’s headquarters in Trafford Park on Sunday afternoon suspended all lines across Greater Manchester.

Metrolink bosses could not confirm on Sunday night whether services would be running again in time for Monday morning rush hour.

The communications failure, which struck at around 3.30pm on Sunday, also meant that Metrolink were unable to make announcements or update information displays at stops.

Services ground to a standstill as trams were cleared of passengers for ‘safety reasons’ and travellers were forced to catch replacement buses and trains or find other forms of transport.

Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) could not confirm on Sunday evening whether the Metrolink system would be back online for Monday morning commuters.

A spokesman for TfGM said the failure was ‘frustrating’ but work was ongoing to resolve the system problem ‘as soon as possible’.

They said: “We are conducting system tests to establish the cause of the issue and get the systems working again as quickly as possible, it is however a complex task and investigations are still underway.”

Although drivers were able to contact the control team by radio, the breakdown of the digital tracking system meant that tram movements could not be visibly monitored.

“Visibility is the difficulty in terms of actually getting people around,” the TfGM spokesman said.

“They are not able to see the position and location of the trams from the control room so for safety reasons they wouldn’t want them driving round the system.”

(Image: TfGM)

They added it was ‘very unlikely’ that the control room fault was connected with the international cyber attack on Friday, May 12, adding that a similar communications failure happened at Metrolink HQ last month.

Many tram stops were completely deserted on Sunday evening while long queues formed in Shudehill bus station as weekend passengers attempted to use alternative forms of travel to get home.

The Rochdale, Bury, Ashton, Manchester Airport and East Didsbury lines were forced to suspend their services following the fault.

The Altrincham and Eccles via Media City lines had been closed on the Sunday for routine maintenance, but this maintenance work is not understood to have contributed to the system failure.