New fourth platform at Manchester Airport station.

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Members of the general travelling public have seen matters of the new fourth platform completed since the three-week station closure in the very early months of 2015 and on more than one occasion, queries have been addressed by them to the senior staff at the station about the seemingly "mothballing" of this completed platform.

 

[spongsdad]

Members of the general travelling public have seen matters of the new fourth platform completed since the three-week station closure in the very early months of 2015 and on more than one occasion, queries have been addressed by them to the senior staff at the station about the seemingly "mothballing" of this completed platform.

The delay in opening the fourth platform brings to mind a similar delay in bringing into use a restored piece of infrastructure not many miles from here, which produced prolonged discussion on another thread. While the reasons may be different, and indeed valid, the travelling public is unlikely to be persuaded by what it sees as glib explanations or, worse, no explanation at all. "Why did we put up with all that travel disruption for a piece of work which seems to be a white elephant?"

 

[PHILIPE]

The delay in opening the fourth platform brings to mind a similar delay in bringing into use a restored piece of infrastructure not many miles from here, which produced prolonged discussion on another thread. While the reasons may be different, and indeed valid, the travelling public is unlikely to be persuaded by what it sees as glib explanations or, worse, no explanation at all. "Why did we put up with all that travel disruption for a piece of work which seems to be a white elephant?"

Similarly in the Cardiff Valleys a few years ago when numerous platforms were extended to accommodate 6 Car DMUs but the additional units allocated were used elsewhere. That's a white elephant and a complete waste of money by the Welsh Government.

 

[Greybeard33]

Yes, but the question is, now P4 is complete, why not use it, to reduce the amount of doubling up needed? Doubling up must be a huge problem when trains are delayed and arrive out of sequence.

Indeed, there's an example of this in the other thread:

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=2199213&postcount=172

With the current three platform timetable, both Platform 1 and Platform 3 are both double occupied at regular intervals throughout the day. So even with Platform 4 in use, double occupancy of at least one platform will still be required.

To accommodate more services post-Ordsall Chord, more double occupancy and/or reduced layover times will be required. 6- or 8-car trains need a platform to themselves, so platform capacity could again become problematic in future.

 

[TheKnightWho]

How much further room for expansion is there?

 

[snowball]

You'd have to demolish Bewley's Hotel and relocate Terminal Road North to add any more platforms now.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

You'd have to demolish Bewley's Hotel and relocate Terminal Road North to add any more platforms now.

If I may be so bold as to decry officially-sanctioned "short-term thinking" with an example from another mode of transport, when the current M60 was known as the M63 in its sectional entity, was it not also the case that those "supposedly endowed with future traffic knowledge forecasting" decided a 2 lane wide carriageway on both sides of the motorway "would be sufficient to meet future forecasted traffic growth needs". We all know that there has been more than one widening on sections of the M60 since those days.

 

[spongsdad]

If I may be so bold as to decry officially-sanctioned "short-term thinking" with an example from another mode of transport, when the current M60 was known as the M63 in its sectional entity, was it not also the case that those "supposedly endowed with future traffic knowledge forecasting" decided a 2 lane wide carriageway on both sides of the motorway "would be sufficient to meet future forecasted traffic growth needs". We all know that there has been more than one widening on sections of the M60 since those days.

Come now, Paul. The original road was the M62, opening in the guise of the Stretford-Eccles bypass. That, if I remember, was in 1960 when I had just started a degree course at UMIST, known then as The Manchester College of Science & Technology.
Your point about traffic forecasting is a valid one, however. I dont know what the going rate is for these guys nowadays but it seems sometimes that a better estimate could be achieved by using a random number generator. Or is that what they already do? Probably five years before MIA station is operating beyond its capacity.

 

[The Planner]

Is it really possible to forecast accurately more than 10 years in advance? Are there any good examples where someone has got it right with a prediction from say the 80s or 90s? Aren't we all meant to be in flying driverless vehicles and pretty much automated everything now?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Come now, Paul. The original road was the M62, opening in the guise of the Stretford-Eccles bypass. That, if I remember, was in 1960 when I had just started a degree course at UMIST, known then as The Manchester College of Science & Technology.

Well my memory still recalls the M63 as being covering the southern periphery of Manchester, but I cannot recall the start and finish points.

We seem to be starting our major education in approximately the same time period, as from 1962 to 1965/6, I was starting a degree course in Mathematics at Manchester University where a great deal of hard work and much application brought forth a First..

 

[bluenoxid]

Well my memory still recalls the M63 as being covering the southern periphery of Manchester, but I cannot recall the start and finish points.

We seem to be starting our major education in approximately the same time period, as from 1962 to 1965/6, I was starting a degree course in Mathematics at Manchester University where a great deal of hard work and much application brought forth a First..

Wikipedia clarifies it.

 

[snowball]

Shame on you for citing Wikipedia on a matter of roads, instead of the SABRE Wiki.

Paul and spongsdad are both right.

In the following, all junction numbers are those that apply today on the M60, not those that applied at the time.

The original M62, opened in 1960, corresponds to what is now M60 J7-J13.

In 1971 most of this (J7-J12) became M63, while J12-J13 remained M62 and was extended NEwards.

In 1974 the M63 was extended SE to J2 (Roscoe's Roundabout, Cheadle).

It was later extended through Stockport, eventually to meet what was then the M66 at J25.

In 1998, with the north-eastern section of what is now the M60 still incomplete, the entire ring was renamed M60. Thus the M63 ceased to exist, and sections of the M62 and M66 became M60, together with a section of the M66 that was still under construction, to be completed in 2000.

 

[HowardGWR]

Nothing stopping anyone making a correction to Wikipedia, quoting your source. I do this for rail whenever I come across anything dubious or inaccurate.

I agree with @ThePlanner on planning . 10 years, even, is stretching it. I can see lots of these roads ('vital links') and bridges gathering lichens and buddleia within two decades, just as easily as I could imagine Manchester Airport either booming or becoming redundant within 50 years.

 

[snowball]

Nothing stopping anyone making a correction to Wikipedia, quoting your source. I do this for rail whenever I come across anything dubious or inaccurate.

I don't think Wikipedia likes personal memory and observation as sources. For the modern history of the road network there's not much published that you can quote, unless you decide to devote your life to trawling archives and libraries. And even a lot of the stuff in local newspapers and professional journals is wrong.

 

[HowardGWR]

I don't think Wikipedia likes personal memory and observation as sources.

I agree, which is why they often label such as 'citation needed'. It's a good insurance policy and I am always grateful to the good volunteer folk who moderate the entries in that way. In fact just quoting some source which is in itself of anecdotal quality, is not good enough. Many oft-quoted railway books have these shortcomings.

Back on topic, it seems to me it's a question of what sort of hub function can Manchester fulfil ( no pax overland links needed for that type of service) or how does it stand up environmentally against the other airports, which perhaps have more room for expansion of short haul, such as Stansted.

 

[krus_aragon]

Similarly in the Cardiff Valleys a few years ago when numerous platforms were extended to accommodate 6 Car DMUs but the additional units allocated were used elsewhere. That's a white elephant and a complete waste of money by the Welsh Government.

Or rather, it's a white elephant until electrification and longer EMUs start plying their trade there.

 

[snowball]

I assume platform 4 didn't come into use today as per the rumour in #144?

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

A Transport for Greater Manchester committee paper says "close to completion - only snagging and installation of escape stairs are ongoing."

 

[Viscount702]

I assume platform 4 didn't come into use today as per the rumour in #144?

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

A Transport for Greater Manchester committee paper says "close to completion - only snagging and installation of escape stairs are ongoing."

The stairs were being installed back in March/April and there is a picture somewhere on SSC showing this. Why hasn't it been finished.

Quite frankly I don't think anything NR say can be trusted to be the whole truth.

Like the Todmorden Curve which they said was ready proved not to be the case. Same with Platform 4. Stated by NR to be finished in February after a blockade but as we know it is still not complete and in use.

 

[Starmill]

What on earth is going on with this project. Why is it so unclear?

 

[Geeves]

Its used for ECS moves only currently so it is at least being used every now and then.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Its used for ECS moves only currently so it is at least being used every now and then.

They will be claiming it is needed for route learning next....

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Just to scratch an old sore, I noticed that Manchester Airport P4 was sitting unused today.
It was barriered off at the buffers end. Trains were doubling up in P3 as usual.
General shortage of trains today with several TP/NT turning round short at Piccadilly because of "points failure" somewhere, Longsight I think.
One 319 vanished off realtimetrains at Ordsall Lane, presumable went to Victoria instead.

 

[northwichcat]

General shortage of trains today with several TP/NT turning round short at Piccadilly because of "points failure" somewhere, Longsight I think.

I was at Stockport at around 17:15 yesterday and pretty much every southbound service was running 10 minutes late. There was an announcement about why it was but I didn't hear due to a Pacer squealing in to the station at the same time it was made. Although I did hear someone waiting on platform 2 very smartly dressed say in a broad London accent "Good God, is that what Northerners use to get to work?" on seeing a Pacer.

 

[The Snap]

I was at Stockport at around 17:15 yesterday and pretty much every southbound service was running 10 minutes late. There was an announcement about why it was but I didn't hear due to a Pacer squealing in to the station at the same time it was made. Although I did hear someone waiting on platform 2 very smartly dressed say in a broad London accent "Good God, is that what Northerners use to get to work?" on seeing a Pacer.

I am frequently in London (but live in Manchester), and last week I used a service out of Waterloo for Clapham Junction instead of using the tube as I normally would to get to the Clapham area.

I find it amazing that this off-peak service at 13:30 in the afternoon was formed by an 8-car train, given that I passed through Stockport at 17:00 the following day returning back to Piccadilly to see a peak-time commuter service to Chester sat in Platform 2 formed of a 2-car 142. It was completed packed, jammed in like sardines.

The train is boarded from Waterloo was a Windsor train I believe. Similarly, the pacer at Stockport was a Manchester Piccadilly to Chester service, a commuter train of a similar distance and longer time than the London equivalent. How can it be then that these very similar services from major cities to urban commuter towns can be so vastly different in terms of seat provision?

How has this been allowed to happen over the years?

Ironically, I assume that 8-car trains out of Waterloo during the off-peak are strengthened to 12-car during the peak. We in the north get doubled-up 142s and think ourselves lucky, if we are so lucky of course! :roll:

 

[jopsuk]

a Windsor train wouldn't be strengthened in the peak. It would be rammed though.

There's simply a much greater density of population. Manchester-Chester passes through an awful lot of countryside. Waterloo-Windsor barely leaves a built up area.

Yes, trains out of Manchester could do with being a bit longer, but the population they serve is simply not comparable

 

[muddythefish]

How has this been allowed to happen over the years?

ll:

Government bias, pure and simple.

Plus northern councils failing to make a song and dance about it.

 

[swt_passenger]

Ironically, I assume that 8-car trains out of Waterloo during the off-peak are strengthened to 12-car during the peak.

That's not generally the case with the 455 operated services, the 8 car 455s stay formed that way all day really because it is much easier than trying to vary their size over the course of a day. They'd need far more ECS paths from Waterloo to Clapham Jn or Wimbledon depots, and more drivers, as they couldn't leave the spare units at Waterloo.

So basically they run around in the off-peak at 8 car for simplification of operations. The same trains run singly at the weekend.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

That's not generally the case with the 455 operated services, the 8 car 455s stay formed that way all day really because it is much easier than trying to vary their size over the course of a day. They'd need far more ECS paths from Waterloo to Clapham Jn or Wimbledon depots, and more drivers, as they couldn't leave the spare units at Waterloo.

So basically they run around in the off-peak at 8 car for simplification of operations. The same trains run singly at the weekend.

How on earth has a thread about the fourth platform at Manchester Airport station has suddenly seen postings about Class 455 services in the Greater London region...:roll:

 

[Greenback]

Indeed. Please keep this thread on topic. If you wish to discuss more general matters, please start a new thread.

 

[najaB]

How on earth has a thread about the fourth platform at Manchester Airport station has suddenly seen postings about Class 455 services in the Greater London region...:roll:

The north can't even get it's own threads, it has to make do with cast-off threads from the south. Getting back to the topic does anyone know how much longer the 4th platform will be out of operation?