In the other direction, trams switch to on-street running when they emerge from Victoria Station and continue southwards through the city centre to Piccadilly or Deansgate-Castlefield.

[4][5] Renovation entailed electrification of lines through the station, renewed Metrolink stop with an additional platform, restoration of listed features, upgraded retail units, and a new roof.

[6][7] The Ordsall Chord directly linking Victoria to Oxford Road and Piccadilly was completed in December 2017.

[9] In 1839, Samuel Brooks, vice-chairman of the M&LR, bought land at Hunt's Bank close to the cathedral and presented it to the company for the new station.

The new station had a 852 ft (260 m) long single platform which handled M&LR trains to Leeds and elsewhere at its eastern end.

[15] By the mid-1840s six railway companies operated from the station connecting Manchester to London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield.

[16] Two decades later, the L&YR purchased and demolished the workhouse north of the station, and its site was used to build another bay and five through platforms which came into use in 1884.

[17] That same year, the LNWR opened its own station, Manchester Exchange immediately to the west on the opposite side of the River Irwell, and vacated Victoria.

A year later, the merged company became the largest constituent of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS).

On 23 December 1940, several bombs hit the station destroying the parcels office, and a large part of the roof over platforms 12 to 16.

Proposals to build an underground station, Victoria Low Level as part of the Picc-Vic tunnel project emerged in the early-1970s.

[28] The tunnel project was cancelled in the late 1970s because of high costs, and in the 1980s transport planners turned to light rail as a lower-cost option.

A street-level tramway was built across the city centre linking the stations and two converted rail lines to Altrincham and Bury.

[36] On 16 February 2010, Network Rail announced its intention to refurbish the station as part of the Northern Hub improvement proposals turning it into an interchange for local and regional services throughout north-west England.

[citation needed] In August 2010, Network Rail announced the work would go ahead, despite the withdrawal of the £5 million funding.

[43] The chord allows trains to run directly between Piccadilly and Victoria, shortening journey times on TransPennine Express routes between Manchester Airport and Newcastle, Redcar, Hull and Scarborough.

Reinstatement of the south and west curve at Todmorden on the Caldervale Line facilitated a direct service between Victoria and Burnley Manchester Road Station for the first time in almost fifty years.

As the scheme was a success, in the early 1920s the L&YR drew up plans to extend electrification to the Oldham Loop Line using the same system.

The original M&LR single-storey offices facing Hunt's Bank Approach were built in the Italianate style in sandstone ashlar with slate roofs in 1844.

Facing Victoria Station Approach, its façade is in the Edwardian neo-Baroque style, four storeys high and 31 bays to the rounded corner at the south-east end.

The ornate glass and iron canopy along the façade displays the names of destinations that the station served in Art Nouveau lettering.

[1] The canopy was damaged by the Provisional IRA's 1996 bomb placed in a street adjacent to the Arndale Centre and was restored four years later.

In the entrance is a large, white glazed tiled map showing the former network of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.

[48][49] At the south end of the concourse is the 'soldier's gate' which opened to the former fish docks from where thousands of soldiers departed for World War I and where a bronze plaque was erected to commemorate them.

The gateway was restored in 2015 and a steel screen inserted featuring a map of World War I Commonwealth grave cemeteries in Northern France and Belgium.

From the winter 2023 timetable change, the service has been somewhat reduced (due to ongoing staffing issues at the TOC), with only the hourly Liverpool - Newcastle and Manchester Airport - Saltburn calling here.

The line was extended into the city-centre streets via a sharp curve south from the platform ends and out through a new entrance in the wall at the side of the station;[30][51] The system operates on some British Rail lines that have been converted to light rail operation and on-street tram tracks.

[58] As of 2024, Metrolink services run through Victoria to Altrincham, Bury, East Didsbury, Manchester Airport, Rochdale via Oldham, and Piccadilly.