We need to talk about Castlefield again.

[Ianno87]

They’re needed now because there is no other way. That was the point of my view. Before 1993 there was other ways.

But it's not 1993 any more. It's 2020.

Even if you waited 30 mins for a train you’d still be in Manchester at least 20 minutes before the tram that departed at the start of your wait.

From where?

Certainly not true from, say, Hollinwood or south of Oldham who make up a fair proportion of the ridership rather than picking the extremes. Plus the few extra stops added (e.g. South Chadderton) save people time by putting them closer to the station in the first place, rather than just benefitting people who happen to live near the existing stations

Fair point about Victoria, hopefully with the new arena being built at east lands they will demolish the current one and rebuild some of the lost station.

Not much chance of that, in my view. There's definitely scope to operate the existing station better.

 

[Dr Hoo]

They’re needed now because there is no other way. That was the point of my view. Before 1993 there was other ways.

Accepting that in the very early days of Trafford Park Freightliner terminal (which I think opened in 1969) there were services to places like Stockton and Follingsby (Newcastle) that could sensibly run via the loop round to Gorton, the terminal soon focussed on services via the WCML that could only sensibly be served via Castlefield. Following extension of electrification in the spring of 1980 any other route could only be considered a very poor alternative, even if necessary for diversions during engineering work, because of locomotive changes, reversals and excessive journey time.

 

[HSTEd]

How about using the old alignment that branches off the Warrington route at Glazebrook and runs past Culceth and crosses the Newton-le-willows route?

You could build a flying junction at Glazebrook out in the countryside and concentrate via Picadilly on that route, with Patricroft and Eccles being picked up by a train from Victoria?

 

[furnessvale]

How about using the old alignment that branches off the Warrington route at Glazebrook and runs past Culceth and crosses the Newton-le-willows route?

You could build a flying junction at Glazebrook out in the countryside and concentrate via Picadilly on that route, with Patricroft and Eccles being picked up by a train from Victoria?

All been considered in the document.

 

[Jozhua]

I'm proposing closing 13/14 as an alternative plan.

Replaced by 2 new, straight, wide, fit-for-purpose platforms that have the majority of capacity and throughout benefits of 4 curved, narrow, congested ones. That risk just baking in current operational problems than solving them.

I doubt it would be any better than what currently exists! The current platforms can take the longest trains that arrive on them. Plus, at least with some new platforms, trains could load while the freight rolls through, and two trains can load at once.

I see little to no cost savings vs two more platforms with this plan and a lot of service disruption in the meantime if the current ones need to be demolished.

No I’m serious. You can’t combine rail and road. All they are doing is creating more congestion. Those lines ran much better when they were under the control of British rail. Frequent fast services into the city.
freight was able to run in and out of Trafford park without having to run through Piccadilly.
Look at the Oldham line, on a fast service to Manchester the train could do it in 10 minutes. What’s the journey time now?
We had fantastic suburban services that have been lost over the years.

LOL, this would make Manchester's stations even more congested and frankly I wish you luck converting them back to heavy rail. Metrolink can be slow, but it would be hard convincing all the communities that have gained a rail connection to the city to give it up for the benefit of those further out. Plus, what about those who live out on the edges but don't go to the city centre?

I get the freight issue and agree this is less than ideal, but 15/16 would help keep the existing movements.

 

[Ianno87]

Accepting that in the very early days of Trafford Park Freightliner terminal (which I think opened in 1969) there were services to places like Stockton and Follingsby (Newcastle) that could sensibly run via the loop round to Gorton, the terminal soon focussed on services via the WCML that could only sensibly be served via Castlefield. Following extension of electrification in the spring of 1980 any other route could only be considered a very poor alternative, even if necessary for diversions during engineering work, because of locomotive changes, reversals and excessive journey time.

Furthetmore, the Fallowfield loop:
-Is useless for heading south, where most trains want to go
-Is of course now (for a short section) part of Metrolink, and the rest a very useful and popular cycle route.

I doubt it would be any better than what currently exists! The current platforms can take the longest trains that arrive on them. Plus, at least with some new platforms, trains could load while the freight rolls through, and two trains can load at once.

I'm convinced that's not a useful as everybody is making it out to be. Two trains loading at once suggests some very inefficient dwell times at play.

Target should be 90 second dwell times with 2 minutes platform re-occupations to get theoetical 16tph capability.

I see little to no cost savings vs two more platforms with this plan and a lot of service disruption in the meantime if the current ones need to be demolished.

You'd "just" build two new platforms alongside the existing viaduct to the west. Close the old ones, open the new ones. No track layout changes needed. The old platforms could just be left like Kings Cross Thameslink (other than cleared of platform fixtures and fittings).

Benefit is using the space left by the old platforms to regulate trains clear of the main station throat.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm convinced that's not a useful as everybody is making it out to be. Two trains loading at once suggests some very inefficient dwell times at play.

Target should be 90 second dwell times with 2 minutes platform re-occupations to get theoetical 16tph capability.

Which just isn't going to work unless you (and I know @Bantamzen will soon be here to tell me off ) turn it into something that looks a lot more like Thameslink or London Overground, and shove everything else through Victoria.

Better to "build big" - how about flattening the lot and putting in a 6-track replacement - 2 islands and a pair of through lines for the freight, or even 2 islands? The land's there for it, you'd just have to knock down the hotel. Then schedule a 5 minute dwell for everything going through, and all of a sudden it'll be back punctual again.

 

[Clip]

Better to "build big" - how about flattening the lot and putting in a 6-track replacement - 2 islands and a pair of through lines for the freight, or even 2 islands? The land's there for it, you'd just have to knock down the hotel. Then schedule a 5 minute dwell for everything going through, and all of a sudden it'll be back punctual again.

knocking down that hotel will be very expensive and quite difficult to do though....

 

[HSTEd]

If you are knocking down the hotel might as well go whole hog and implement a new station......

 

[Purple Orange]

If there was an actual proposal to knock down buildings either side of the castlefield corridor, the level of compensation and disruption would probably mean digging a tunnel or building more terminus platforms on a site on the very edges of the city might be preferable. The city is expanding rapidly and soon many brownfield sites near to central Manchester will be enveloped and become part of central Manchester, so we may as we’ll stick a train station on one of those sites.

 

[Bevan Price]

No I’m serious. You can’t combine rail and road. All they are doing is creating more congestion. Those lines ran much better when they were under the control of British rail. Frequent fast services into the city.
freight was able to run in and out of Trafford park without having to run through Piccadilly.
Look at the Oldham line, on a fast service to Manchester the train could do it in 10 minutes. What’s the journey time now?
We had fantastic suburban services that have been lost over the years.

Yes, but neither of the surviving Oldham stations were particularly convenient for the town centre. Mumps was a good 10 minute walk from the town centre, and the main pedestrian route into the station involved using a subway that was grim, even in daylight. Werneth was even worse, in a bleak neglected area of the town and probably 15 minutes walk from the town centre.

 

[cle]

Mumps was horrible, and frequency was terrible. The Met has been an absolute blessing for Oldham.

Imagine the Alty terminators were heavy rail still! If anything, the Met should take more capacity, likely from east of Piccadilly. It’s Manchester's version of the RER

 

[Ianno87]

Mumps was horrible, and frequency was terrible. The Met has been an absolute blessing for Oldham.

Imagine the Alty terminators were heavy rail still! If anything, the Met should take more capacity, likely from east of Piccadilly. It’s Manchester's version of the RER

Imagine the Castlefield corrdidor if Altrincham were still heavy rail...

 

[daodao]

Once again, I re-iterate that the solution to the Castlefield corridor problem is to remove all long-distance passenger trains not run by Northern Rail from it. It should be used solely by local trains to places in historic Lancashire, and possibly the West Riding. All long-distance passenger trains should terminate at or run through Victoria, or terminate in the main train shed at Piccadilly.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Once again, I re-iterate that the solution to the Castlefield corridor problem is to remove all long-distance passenger trains not run by Northern Rail from it. It should be used solely by local trains to places in historic Lancashire, and possibly the West Riding. All long-distance passenger trains should terminate at or run through Victoria, or terminate in the main train shed at Piccadilly.

But then you have the same problem at Victoria, which only has 4 through platforms which have to take terminating services too.

I do agree a solution would be to bulldoze Vic and the Arena and completely rebuild a second Hbf which would take most services that cross Manchester (say 8 long through platforms with an overall roof - something a bit like Leeds?), with Castlefield taking a more Merseyrail-like EMU only service, but that would be even more expensive than just building 15/16.

If you are knocking down the hotel might as well go whole hog and implement a new station......

If you mean to replace 13/14 rather than the whole of Picc (there's nowt wrong with the terminal part, really) then I agree.

If you mean bulldoze the terminal bit, er, why? There's not a lot wrong with it.

 

[daodao]

But then you have the same problem at Victoria, which only has 4 through platforms which have to take terminating services too. .....

The only long-distance services that would need to terminate at Victoria are the hourly Scotch and North Welsh services, and they should move to/from a siding east of Victoria outwith the few minutes after arrival/before departure. The half-hourly services from Liverpool to North-East England would merely call there.

 

[HSTEd]

If you mean to replace 13/14 rather than the whole of Picc (there's nowt wrong with the terminal part, really) then I agree.

If you mean bulldoze the terminal bit, er, why? There's not a lot wrong with it.

Apart from the fact its a terminal?
As this whole mess has shown, we have too many services using the through section because that is the attractive part of the station in operational terms.
If more capacity is provided on the through platforms a lot of the terminal platforms simply become surplus to requirements.

If people want to redevelop Mayfield, Uni North campus and such, and we are already demolishing the hotel (as proposed in the post I was replying to) there is little reason not to go full blown Stuttgart 21 and build an all new station.

For example a through station would allow the HS2 platforms to access the lines to the north of the city - which allows service possibilities that are not available at the moment.

Instead of running a 200m unit from Birmingham to Manchester Picadilly, you could run a 400m formation to Manchester-"Central", have it split and take over two of the Airport terminating trains. Birmingham Curzon St - Manchester Airport - Manchester Station- (stations to Edinburgh/Glasgow and Newcastle via Leeds) as an example.

That releases capacity on the Styal Line and allows us to do interesting things with it in urban transport terms.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Then you'd definitely have to 4-track the whole thing!

 

[Senex]

Once again, I re-iterate that the solution to the Castlefield corridor problem is to remove all long-distance passenger trains not run by Northern Rail from it. It should be used solely by local trains to places in historic Lancashire, and possibly the West Riding. All long-distance passenger trains should terminate at or run through Victoria, or terminate in the main train shed at Piccadilly.

But you then cut Liverpool's direct connection with Sheffield and Nottingham. If you wanted to send those trains via (a massively rebuilt) Victoria without a pretty big time-penalty, you'd need to spend a lot of money on putting back the Droylesden-Denton line with good junctions at both ends and laying in a much faster junction at Heaton Norris in order to get the fastest possible time from Victoria to Piccarilly that way round.

 

[HSTEd]

Then you'd definitely have to 4-track the whole thing!

If you are willing to pay to buy out the developers of University North Campus (perhaps using the existing trainshed as a sweetener).... there is little reason not to have at least three tracks all the way through.

There is room from cantilevering over roads, the river, or through Uni buildings for most of the corridor.


Given the low speed that is attained on the corridor anyway, "slaloming" is acceptable to a reasonable degree.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But you then cut Liverpool's direct connection with Sheffield and Nottingham. If you wanted to send those trains via (a massively rebuilt) Victoria without a pretty big time-penalty, you'd need to spend a lot of money on putting back the Droylesden-Denton line with good junctions at both ends and laying in a much faster junction at Heaton Norris in order to get the fastest possible time from Victoria to Piccarilly that way round.

There's still a connection at Ashton under Lyne from the Victoria direction onto the route of the flying Dentonian (for want of a better name). VT used it for diversions in the 90s and it's still shown on maps as being there.

 

[Purple Orange]

Mumps was horrible, and frequency was terrible. The Met has been an absolute blessing for Oldham.

Imagine the Alty terminators were heavy rail still! If anything, the Met should take more capacity, likely from east of Piccadilly. It’s Manchester's version of the RER

This. I’d also build a 3CC & 4CC through the city centre (perhaps one needs to be more on the periphery like Great Ancoats Street or Whitworth Street rather than through the middle).

 

[Bletchleyite]

This. I’d also build a 3CC & 4CC through the city centre (perhaps one needs to be more on the periphery like Great Ancoats Street or Whitworth Street rather than through the middle).

Here's another wildcat idea - having built the new Victoria Hbf on the present site and sent all the through services that way (perhaps build a west-north connection onto the Ordsall Chord so you can get there from the CLC, which is the only line that can't serve Vic at present, and looks possible as there's little in the way other than a load of road junctions which could be reworked or bridged over), give Castlefield over to Metrolink, which would be a bit more like its original role?

Perhaps you could run a route Alty-Ashton and Airport-Ashton that way? Or use it to run from that side to new tram-train services to the likes of Rose Hill Marple?

Or even...and I know it's hotly debated, give up on the Chord and go for the "Merseyrail and Metrolink meet at Warrington Central" idea, with perhaps some more 4-tracking on Chat Moss to allow more services that way? Warrington would still have long-distance services at Bank Quay, and the west Manchester local stations could finally get an acceptable local service.

 

[Ianno87]

But you then cut Liverpool's direct connection with Sheffield and Nottingham. If you wanted to send those trains via (a massively rebuilt) Victoria without a pretty big time-penalty, you'd need to spend a lot of money on putting back the Droylesden-Denton line with good junctions at both ends and laying in a much faster junction at Heaton Norris in order to get the fastest possible time from Victoria to Piccarilly that way round.

A fast change at Piccadilly between half hourly fast services ought to suffice. Better than one direct train an hour in a "turn up and go" sense.

 

[faltskog36abba]

Mumps was horrible, and frequency was terrible. The Met has been an absolute blessing for Oldham.

Imagine the Alty terminators were heavy rail still! If anything, the Met should take more capacity, likely from east of Piccadilly. It’s Manchester's version of the RER

Mumps was badly located to the town centre and all uphill .However I disagree about the frequency of trains, Two fast and Two stopping via Hollinwood, Two to Shaw and Two to Man Vic via Rochdale.

 

[daodao]

But you then cut Liverpool's direct connection with Sheffield and Nottingham. If you wanted to send those trains via (a massively rebuilt) Victoria without a pretty big time-penalty, you'd need to spend a lot of money on putting back the Droylesden-Denton line with good junctions at both ends and laying in a much faster junction at Heaton Norris in order to get the fastest possible time from Victoria to Piccarilly that way round.

I would retain an hourly Northern Connect express service from Liverpool (in historic Lancashire) to Sheffield (in the historic West Riding), running via the CLC line, M/c Oxford Rd and then Stockport. This is entirely consistent with my previous post.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I would retain an hourly Northern Connect express service from Liverpool (in historic Lancashire) to Sheffield (in the historic West Riding), running via the CLC line, M/c Oxford Rd and then Stockport. This is entirely consistent with my previous post.

What would work reasonably well is that Castlefield is used exclusively by trains formed of Classes 195 and 331[1] for their wide doors with standbacks, and also e.g. allowing boarding points to be marked on the platform. It would be less important what the origins and destinations were - as you say, Liverpool to Sheffield (or even Nottingham) would be an option.

[1] I'm not sure how positions would vary between 1x4 and 2x2, for example, so that might need to go further and become "formed of 3 or 6 coaches" to work.

 

[Gareth]

A tunnel from east of Eccles through Piccadilly to just before Ashburys. Reinstate fourtrack from Ashburys to Guide Bridge. Fourtrack the Chat Moss, or at least as much as is practical. Fast services go through the tunnel. Local services go through Castlefield.

 

[Jozhua]

How about we airlift the current Piccadilly station with 1000 chinuck helicopters and drop it in the sea, before building a golden Palace of trains.

Then let's build more Victoria platforms in the bowl of the Manchester arena, with a suspended stage over the tracks, so passengers can watch shows by world famous artists while waiting for their train. (please mosh behind the yellow line)

Then we can dump the train shed of Manchester Central on the current Oxford Road site and voila!

Or we could just build 15/16 and make Oxford Roads existing platform 1 accessible by disabled people, so trains can be scheduled there...

 

[markymark2000]

How about we airlift the current Piccadilly station with 1000 chinuck helicopters and drop it in the sea, before building a golden Palace of trains.

Then let's build more Victoria platforms in the bowl of the Manchester arena, with a suspended stage over the tracks, so passengers can watch shows by world famous artists while waiting for their train. (please mosh behind the yellow line)

Then we can dump the train shed of Manchester Central on the current Oxford Road site and voila!

I think this is the most likely to happen because NR and politicians like wasting money on that sort of thing, the second

Or we could just build 15/16 and make Oxford Roads existing platform 1 accessible by disabled people, so trains can be scheduled there...

This on the other hand, would be much more practical and better for passengers. There is no good reason why it hasn't been approved. I'm not an overly big fan of the 15/16 scheme and I do think the money could be spent a little bit better on smaller projects which would have a similar end outcome. That said, I can see the benefits of 15/16 and it could prove to be much better in the very long term.
Platform 1 at Oxford Road is far too sensible an idea to ever be done. I do wish people would stop coming up with such silly ideas