Fantasy: Given no limits, how would you modernise your line?

[Sad Sprinter]

If you upgraded the Chiltern Main Line and also made sure the East West Rail Link was suitable, then you could significantly reduce the number of WCML Birmingham services (at least Pendolino ones). I'd also cut off the Chester service.

2tph Euston to Manchester via Stoke
2tph Euston to Manchester via Crewe (decelerated with more local stops)
2tph Euston to Liverpool
2tph Euston to Scotland direct (not via West Mids)
2tph Euston to Birmingham New Street

E.g. from London
XX00 EUS, PRE, LAN, CAR, MOT, GLC.
XX03 EUS, MKC, STA, CRE, WIL, SPT, MAN.
XX09 EUS, MKC, COV, BHI, BHM.
XX22 EUS, TAM, CRE, RUN, LIV.
XX25 EUS, RUG, SOT, SPT, MAN.
XX30 EUS, MKC, WBQ, WNW, PRE, LAN, OXE, PEN, CAR, LOC, HAY, EDB.
XX33 EUS, WFJ, NUN, CRE, WIL, SPT, MAN.
XX39 EUS, MKC, COV, BHI, BHM.
XX52 EUS, STA, CRE, RUN, LIV.
XX55 EUS, SOT, MAC, SPT, MAN.

XX12 and XX42 to be the Crewe 110mph calling Milton Keynes, Rugby, Nuneaton (etc.)
XX15 and XX45 to be fast to Leighton Buzzard, Bletchley, Milton Keynes, Wolverton, Northampton, Rugby and stations to Birmingham New Street.

Yes getting the Birmingham services onto the Chiltern route would be useful, but probably a bit difficult.

You could also run some Birmingham services via Nuneaton.

You could also upgrade the Midland Mainline to tilting stock, and electify the Hope Valley Line to give 2tph St. Pancras-Leicester-Manchester service.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

Yes getting the Birmingham services onto the Chiltern route would be useful, but probably a bit difficult.

You could also run some Birmingham services via Nuneaton.

You could also upgrade the Midland Mainline to tilting stock, and electify the Hope Valley Line to give 2tph St. Pancras-Leicester-Manchester service.

The Chiltern Main Line, even with minimal effort, would be at 4 track relatively quickly and cheaply.

The fastest journey I can find is 1h38m. With a few less stops, Electric traction, a fast route to Paddington (and Old Oak) and a few line speed improvements you could surely manage Moor Street in 90 minutes and therefore only 7 minutes slower than Virgin. People would be encouraged to go via Paddington on account of Crossrail connections to the West End, City and East being vastly better than to Euston.

 

[DanTrain]

Electify the Hope Valley Line

We really are going no limits here

The Chiltern Main Line, even with minimal effort, would be at 4 track relatively quickly and cheaply.

The fastest journey I can find is 1h38m. With a few less stops, Electric traction, a fast route to Paddington (and Old Oak) and a few line speed improvements you could surely manage Moor Street in 90 minutes and therefore only 7 minutes slower than Virgin. People would be encouraged to go via Paddington on account of Crossrail connections to the West End, City and East being vastly better than to Euston.

Agreed. In fact there's no reason why an electric Chiltern couldn't take all of Birmingham's fast services (+ Shrewsbury, Wolves and the Glasgow via Brum), leaving the WCML open to a much-upgraded service to Manchester, Liverpool, North Wales and Glasgow. You could take those 3 fast paths, give:

• One to Glasgow (calling Preston, Carlisle, Glasgow Central)
• One to Liverpool (slow service calling at say Watford Jct, Milton Keynes, Rugby, Nuneaton (1tp2h), Tamworth (1tp2h), Crewe, Runcorn, Liverpool SP and Lime Street)
  
• One to Preston/Blackpool (Watford Jct, Milton Keynes, Rugby, Lichfield TV, Stafford, Crewe, Warrington BQ, Wigan NW and Preston (1tp2h extended to Blackpool)).

This doesn't take into account further capacity contraints further north of course. I am also deeply inside fantasy land

 

[Esker-pades]

The Chiltern Main Line, even with minimal effort, would be at 4 track relatively quickly and cheaply.

The fastest journey I can find is 1h38m. With a few less stops, Electric traction, a fast route to Paddington (and Old Oak) and a few line speed improvements you could surely manage Moor Street in 90 minutes and therefore only 7 minutes slower than Virgin. People would be encouraged to go via Paddington on account of Crossrail connections to the West End, City and East being vastly better than to Euston.

90 minutes from Marylebone is possible (Bicester North, Banbury, Leamington Spa).

 

[keith1879]

Electrify to Buxton, reduce the London to Manchester service to every 30 minutes and use the extra path from Stockport to run a Buxton line train every 15 minutes ....all of which would stop at Davenport. Slightly more realistically - introduce a Stockport to Leeds service via Denton. (All of those ideas have obvious down sides but they would suit me....so there!!!)

 

[keith1879]

Or if we can't afford to electrify the Buxton line go back to steam ....just for fun.

 

[jyte]

90 minutes from Marylebone is possible (Bicester North, Banbury, Leamington Spa).

Yes, I swear Chiltern runs a service once a week that's 90 mins on the nose.

 

[Esker-pades]

Yes, I swear Chiltern runs a service once a week that's 90 mins on the nose.

The fastest I can find is 99 minutes (16:15 from Marylebone or 06:55 from Moor Street).

 

[4-SUB 4732]

Electrify to Buxton, reduce the London to Manchester service to every 30 minutes and use the extra path from Stockport to run a Buxton line train every 15 minutes ....all of which would stop at Davenport. Slightly more realistically - introduce a Stockport to Leeds service via Denton. (All of those ideas have obvious down sides but they would suit me....so there!!!)

Or with your single hourly rubbish service from Chester via Northwich, operate it over Reddish South and up to Leeds. Decent cross-Manchester links avoiding Manchester (Altrincham - Staly, Stockport - Staly) and also decent links for people in places like Buxton, Wilmslow and Crewe to get to Leeds without using Manchester. Frees up much-needed capacity on services into/out of Piccadilly too.

 

[B&I]

However, I'd like to upgrade the WCML once more as an alternative to HS2. (I prefer conventional railways to high speed ones these days)

-GCR freight line (yes I know this topic has been done to death)
-Splitting and joining of trains at Rugby and Crewe to maximise pathing.
-2 adittional Manchester services per hour to Manchester Victoria via Warrington BQ calling at Rugby, Warrington, Victoria
-Hourly "Royal Scot" service to Glasgow fast to Preston.
-140 mph running of course.
-Double headed Pendolinos: 2x8 cars= 16 coach trains.
-Bradford to Euston service via Huddersfield.
- Javelins instead of Desiros?

5 TPH Manchester to London ? How do you plan to fill these, by sending press gangs round Piccadilly Gardens ?

 

[jyte]

5 TPH Manchester to London ? How do you plan to fill these, by sending press gangs round Piccadilly Gardens ?

I mean this is the fantasy thread were I advocated building a 140mph electrified railway from Reading to Penzance.....

 

[B&I]

Certainly agree with somewhat sizeable improvements to the Merseyrail network. Perhaps most notably...

- Re-opening of the route up from Hunts Cross to Aintree. New stations Gateacre, Childwall, Broad Green, Alder Hey Hospital, West Derby, Norris Green. Re-site Rice Lane to be an interchange, re-site Walton to the south to be on both lines; re-site Aintree to the south as an interchange and re-name current Aintree to Aintree Racecourse.

- Re-opening of Bootle New Strand to Aintree Racecourse with stations at Litherland and Orrell.

- 4tph to Wigan Wallgate via Kirkby
- 4tph to Southport via Formby
- 2tph to Skelmersdale
- 2tph to Preston
- 4tph to Aintree via Bootle and Litherland

Combined 16tph south to extend to:

- 4tph to Warrington Central
- 4tph to Aintree Racecourse via Broad Green
- 8tph terminate at sensible busy location in bay platform(s) such as Brunswick.

THIS WAS THE SECOND PHASE OF MY PLAN....

Actually, I'd tweak your suggestions a bit by building a connection at Aintree from the ex-CLC North Liverpool Extension / 'loop' / Southport line to the ex-L&Y North Mersey Branch, and knit those into the northern and eastern sides of a circle line, using the existing Northern Line from Halewood to Seaforth as its southern and western sides.

 

[B&I]

I mean this is the fantasy thread were I advocated building a 140mph electrified railway from Reading to Penzance.....

I know, but 5 TPH Manchester to London with actual passengers aboard ? There's fantasy, and there's delusions of grandeur

 

[B&I]

I'm thinking maybe we need to start a new thread... If you had a huge amount of money, how would you modernise your line... BUT with the restriction that your ideas have to constitute a reasonable solution to a real problem. And, although you allowed to spend huge amounts of money building it, you can only spend that money if there is no obviously better (and cheaper) solution to the problem you're trying to solve. And what you build must have a good chance of attracting enough passengers to stay viable and can't become an ongoing financial black hole once its running. I wonder how that would change some of the proposals here...

(And no, I'm not going going to say which posts I'm thinking about )

We could just change every thread to 'How the railways currently are and how they will be if current proposals sre completed'. That would be fun

 

[jyte]

We could just change every thread to 'How the railways currently are and how they will be if current proposals sre completed'. That would be fun

But then...then I wouldn't be allowed to get the crayons out!

What hill? What village? What protected site of special interest? I WANT TO BUILD THIS LINE.

 

[Indigo Soup]

I know, but 5 TPH Manchester to London with actual passengers aboard ? There's fantasy, and there's delusions of grandeur

Depends how long they are. Run five Pacers an hour and I'm sure you'd... wait. I don't think people in Manchester are that desperate to reach London.

Five 158s an hour?

 

[keith1879]

5 TPH Manchester to London ? How do you plan to fill these, by sending press gangs round Piccadilly Gardens ?

Given that BR only used to run 1 train an hour (and I can even remember 1 every 90 minutes) I'm not so sure that 5 an hour is so unrealistic compared with 3. Make the prices right - I think you could fill them. I don't like the idea mind you. It interferes with my plans for a Buxton - Manchester upgrade....

 

[DanTrain]

Depends how long they are. Run five Pacers an hour and I'm sure you'd... wait. I don't think people in Manchester are that desperate to reach London.

Five 158s an hour?

The suggestion seemed to be 5 double pendolinos an hour (at least 80 carriages per hour!)

 

[B&I]

Given that BR only used to run 1 train an hour (and I can even remember 1 every 90 minutes) I'm not so sure that 5 an hour is so unrealistic compared with 3. Make the prices right - I think you could fill them. I don't like the idea mind you. It interferes with my plans for a Buxton - Manchester upgrade....

Yeah, because there is a huge untapped market of potential train travellers queuing up to take a 400 mile round trip who are currently put off by the lack of cheap advance fares

 

[HSTEd]

Yeah, because there is a huge untapped market of potential train travellers queuing up to take a 400 mile round trip who are currently put off by the lack of cheap advance fares

HS2 would be able to fill five trains per hour, at that point you will have people at london universities living in Manchester!

 

[The Ham]

HS2 would be able to fill five trains per hour, at that point you will have people at london universities living in Manchester!

The costs would probably still be prohibitive, unless you were living at home with your food being provided and you didn't need to attend lectures every day.

However there could be courses where for some lecturers you could be to attend another location for a few days each semester.

More likely would be living and working in Manchester and attending day release, studying a degree or masters.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

5 TPH Manchester to London ? How do you plan to fill these, by sending press gangs round Piccadilly Gardens ?

Well I was just going on what I saw in an "alternative to HS2" document, that suggested you would need 6tph to Euston to meet the travel demands without HS2.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

The suggestion seemed to be 5 double pendolinos an hour (at least 80 carriages per hour!)

Well you could have double Pendos to one destination such as Glasgow on busy periods, but I suggested splitting Pendos at Crewe and Ruby etc. Hence why you could get an extra train to Manchester if you split the current Glasgow service at Warrington.

I don't know if Pendos can work properly coupled together though.

 

[gingertom]

I mean this is the fantasy thread were I advocated building a 140mph electrified railway from Reading to Penzance.....

aim high. Go for a 200mph High speed line.

 

[jyte]

aim high. Go for a 200mph High speed line.

I'll extend it to the end of my garden and put a station there whilst I'm at it!

 

[keith1879]

Yeah, because there is a huge untapped market of potential train travellers queuing up to take a 400 mile round trip who are currently put off by the lack of cheap advance fares

Well ...there's all the people who use the coach and some of the people who use the planes and some of the people who drive as an obvious starting point. I don't think you could fill the trains profitably ....but I bet you could fill them. The current Virgin service is 3 times the provision of the 1990s ..... multiplying it by 1.66 is much less of a step change. I don't like the idea and I don't advocate it ....but I don't dismiss it either.

 

[Aictos]

Well ...there's all the people who use the coach and some of the people who use the planes and some of the people who drive as an obvious starting point. I don't think you could fill the trains profitably ....but I bet you could fill them. The current Virgin service is 3 times the provision of the 1990s ..... multiplying it by 1.66 is much less of a step change. I don't like the idea and I don't advocate it ....but I don't dismiss it either.

Instead of 5tph between London and Manchester why not keep the existing 3tph and instead have 2tph between London and Liverpool?

I rather see this then Manchester getting even more services to London.

 

[B&I]

Instead of 5tph between London and Manchester why not keep the existing 3tph and instead have 2tph between London and Liverpool?

I rather see this then Manchester getting even more services to London.

Because it is a crime punishable on this forum by a long stretch of public bickering and / or the locking of the thread concerned to suggest that Liverpool requires any improvement to its rail services

 

[B&I]

Well you could have double Pendos to one destination such as Glasgow on busy periods, but I suggested splitting Pendos at Crewe and Ruby etc. Hence why you could get an extra train to Manchester if you split the current Glasgow service at Warrington.

I don't know if Pendos can work properly coupled together though.

? Aren't the shortest Pendolinos 9 cars ? Where do we have 18 car platforms ?​

 

[B&I]

Well I was just going on what I saw in an "alternative to HS2" document, that suggested you would need 6tph to Euston to meet the travel demands without HS2.

That may say more about the realism of HS2's demand forecasts than it says about actual demand between Manchester and London