Rival Manchester Piccadilly proposal

[edwin_m]

The section of HS2 that tunnels under Manchester is also the one that delivers the NPR services for Liverpool.

 

[si404]

The section of HS2 that tunnels under Manchester is also the one that delivers the NPR services for Liverpool.

Yes, but if HS2 reverse-Ss rather than Ys, then the trans-pennine trains would be mostly London and Birmingham to Leeds, leaving little-to-no room for Liverpool-Leeds, and likely limiting Liverpool-Manchester due to the required capacity for Leeds and Manchester to London and Birmingham (6tph is likely to be difficult if you have another 8tph to Manchester rather than another 5tph as planned under the Y).

 

[Camden]

The section of HS2 that tunnels under Manchester is also the one that delivers the NPR services for Liverpool.

Actually not so, that only requires a new line connecting north of the Manchester delta junction. The dog leg actually increases the cost of connecting Liverpool, but the cost is still very reasonable. Ironically, the ask of an underground HS2 station in Manchester only came about originally as a spoiler to make the Liverpool plan seem overwhelmingly costly. At that stage, competition emerging in Liverpool was a policy concern in Manchester (no longer considered any danger).

Even if it wasn't for the double spend of a line connecting Leeds through the Pennines and another connecting it to Sheffield, I would say that if Manchester wants a tunnel at the expense of their eastern HS2 branch, Leeds has no chance.

 

[edwin_m]

Actually not so, that only requires a new line connecting north of the Manchester delta junction. The dog leg actually increases the cost of connecting Liverpool, but the cost is still very reasonable. Ironically, the ask of an underground HS2 station in Manchester only came about originally as a spoiler to make the Liverpool plan seem overwhelmingly costly. At that stage, competition emerging in Liverpool was a policy concern in Manchester (no longer considered any danger).

Even if it wasn't for the double spend of a line connecting Leeds through the Pennines and another connecting it to Sheffield, I would say that if Manchester wants a tunnel at the expense of their eastern HS2 branch, Leeds has no chance.

The line from the delta junction into Liverpool relies on the HS2 line from there into Manchester to provide the Liverpool-Manchester high speed service. My point is that if the delta-Manchester line isn't built (which includes the tunnel under Manchester) or it is filled up with London/Birmingham-Leeds trains then there is no high speed route between Liverpool and Manchester.

 

[HSTEd]

The line from the delta junction into Liverpool relies on the HS2 line from there into Manchester to provide the Liverpool-Manchester high speed service. My point is that if the delta-Manchester line isn't built (which includes the tunnel under Manchester) or it is filled up with London/Birmingham-Leeds trains then there is no high speed route between Liverpool and Manchester.

It seems highly unlikely, once all the west coast compatibles are taken away, alongwith teh London-Birmingham trains, that the remaining Birmingham-Manchester/Leeds trains will entirely fill the route?

At worst you end up with all trains stopping at Manchester Airport as if it was a northern OOC.

EDIT:
HS2 is capable of 18 trains per hour.

15tph north of Birmingham+2tph Birmingham-Manchester/Leeds.

Even if all the remaining trains go into Manchester Airport, the loss of the 2tph to liverpool implies at least three paths available for Liverpool-Manchester Services.
And thats with six London-Leeds via Manchester trains! Not including classic compatibles to York and Newcastle!

I don't think you need that many.

EDIT #2:

Taking the old 17tph service pattern from aaages back as a baseline.
If we assume that the eastern branch is replaced by a stub, and services to Leeds and points north of there are redirected via Manchester, we end up with:

3tph London-Manchester
2tph Birmingham-Manchester
3tph London-Leeds
2tph Birmingham-Leeds
3tph London-York/points north
1tph Birmingham-York/points north.

Some of these services being composed of half sets.

That's 14 trains per hour.

If we assume that 3tph London-Manchester, 3tph London-Leeds and 3tph London-York/points north are replaced with 4tph London-Leeds and 3tph London-York/points north.

That takes us to 12 trains per hour.

I find it highly unlikely that Birmingham-Manchester and Birmingham Leeds will both fill 2 400m trains per hour, so I think we can replace that with 2 trains per hour.

That takes us to 9 trains per hour.

I don't think there is a major capacity crunch.

 

[kieron]

PS. I also think that that the Liverpool-Manchester NPR should be built first, on the basis that it appears to be the fastest route to establishing NPR services (with reversals at Piccadilly). I’m just trying to rationalise the reasons for Leeds-Manchester being prioritised, so I hope my points don’t make you feel like you are being defensive.

As I understand it, NPR is a brand which was created following the decision to cancel Leeds-Manchester electrification. Building that bit gives you Liverpool-York electrification. Building the Liverpool-Manchester Airport bit (whatever the route) doesn't.

If you suspect the government might give up on funding high speed rail proposals at some point, you want the bits that matter to you as far up the list as possible.

 

[NotATrainspott]

The only way I can see the eastern arm being dropped from HS2 is if it goes to a separate project which is better suited at creating a new mainline route east of the Pennines. Likewise NPR needs a very different technical solution than HS2 in order to best serve east-west traffic. The HS2 story is for a high-spec mainline route designed for long intercity cruises between city pairs large enough to justify their own services. This is fine for the western arm (as the first half of a Scotland-London HSR route). Phase 1 and 2a are pretty much inevitable - the only real tweak that could be considered would be some passive provision for some trains to cross Birmingham in a distant future phase.

The design of any city centre stations will be quite intimately linked to the new rail routes in that urban area. The HS2 requirements are relatively easy to solve, since you just need to find somewhere with some 400m terminus platforms. Really the networks should be designed for NPR first as it'll be much more sensitive to the route plans in cities. The NPR plans still seem to be based on adding the bare minimum new track onto the routes designed for London trains. No one in their right mind would ever even consider reversing NPR trains in Manchester to get from Liverpool to east of the Pennines if they designed it from scratch.

 

[Jozhua]

I live in Manchester and frequently travel to the East Midlands.

Personally, I (and I'm sure many mancunians) don't care about high speed development, instead a better regional rail network and city centre reliability. I also come from the East Midlands and it makes me sigh to see the region starved of development yet again...

I understand the logic behind HS2, but honestly I don't think NPR is the best use of money.

Instead, better capacity through cities like Manchester/Leeds, increasing reliability, along with electrification of the existing Pennine route.

Hope Valley capacity expansions (beyond existing plans) for journeys between the East Midlands and North West, perhaps doubling express services. Have one Hope Valley train an hour dive straight down towards Chesterfield/Alfreton and Nottingham, a cheap solution that could save travellers on this route 20-30 minutes.

All this to say, let's ditch NPR and spend the money on projects that can be delivered faster and bring more benefits to everyone. Plus, the money saved can be used to build HS2 (phase 2b) and boost connectivity along the kind of Eastern routes XC serves so poorly now.

 

[LittleAH]

I live in Manchester and frequently travel to the East Midlands.

Personally, I (and I'm sure many mancunians) don't care about high speed development, instead a better regional rail network and city centre reliability. I also come from the East Midlands and it makes me sigh to see the region starved of development yet again...

I understand the logic behind HS2, but honestly I don't think NPR is the best use of money.

Instead, better capacity through cities like Manchester/Leeds, increasing reliability, along with electrification of the existing Pennine route.

Hope Valley capacity expansions (beyond existing plans) for journeys between the East Midlands and North West, perhaps doubling express services. Have one Hope Valley train an hour dive straight down towards Chesterfield/Alfreton and Nottingham, a cheap solution that could save travellers on this route 20-30 minutes.

All this to say, let's ditch NPR and spend the money on projects that can be delivered faster and bring more benefits to everyone. Plus, the money saved can be used to build HS2 (phase 2b) and boost connectivity along the kind of Eastern routes XC serves so poorly now.

That won't go down well with northern stakeholders. However, (and I don't want to take this off topic) I do think NPR as it stands is flawed.

However, If you ignore this bonkers HS2 idea suggest and utilise aspects of the current HS2 design for a Cross-Pennine Railway, along with TRU which seems like it will be getting the green light very soon, then it seems everybody wins (bar Bradford).

If travelling from Liverpool to York you'd:
- Build a new line High speed line between Liverpool and Lymm
- Use HS2 line between Lymm and Manchester Pic through Manchester Air
- Use TRU between Manchester and Leeds via Huddersfield with some line speed improvement and new bits of line where required (e.g different tunnel to Standege and between Westtown and Leeds)
- New High Speed spur between Leeds and Garforth to meet up with HS2
- HS2 to York.

 

[edwin_m]

It seems highly unlikely, once all the west coast compatibles are taken away, alongwith teh London-Birmingham trains, that the remaining Birmingham-Manchester/Leeds trains will entirely fill the route?

At worst you end up with all trains stopping at Manchester Airport as if it was a northern OOC.

EDIT:
HS2 is capable of 18 trains per hour.

15tph north of Birmingham+2tph Birmingham-Manchester/Leeds.

Even if all the remaining trains go into Manchester Airport, the loss of the 2tph to liverpool implies at least three paths available for Liverpool-Manchester Services.
And thats with six London-Leeds via Manchester trains! Not including classic compatibles to York and Newcastle!

I don't think you need that many.

EDIT #2:

Taking the old 17tph service pattern from aaages back as a baseline.
If we assume that the eastern branch is replaced by a stub, and services to Leeds and points north of there are redirected via Manchester, we end up with:

3tph London-Manchester
2tph Birmingham-Manchester
3tph London-Leeds
2tph Birmingham-Leeds
3tph London-York/points north
1tph Birmingham-York/points north.

Some of these services being composed of half sets.

That's 14 trains per hour.

If we assume that 3tph London-Manchester, 3tph London-Leeds and 3tph London-York/points north are replaced with 4tph London-Leeds and 3tph London-York/points north.

That takes us to 12 trains per hour.

I find it highly unlikely that Birmingham-Manchester and Birmingham Leeds will both fill 2 400m trains per hour, so I think we can replace that with 2 trains per hour.

That takes us to 9 trains per hour.

I don't think there is a major capacity crunch.

HS2 is capable of 18TPH on the line between London and Birmingham. Trains further north won't always be dropping neatly into slots so the intrinsic capacity here is lower, and the Manchester Airport station would need to be as big as Old Oak Common HS2 station to serve a similar frequency (I doubt there is the space). Also the northern sections are probably to be built with ballasted track and would probably need slab track instead. None of this is insurmountable but it would take more time and money.

The section between Crewe and Lichfield has similar issues as it would also carry the Liverpool, Preston, Scotland and (in part) the Macclesfield trains. Adding Leeds would push it up to about 17TPH.

 

[Camden]

As I understand it, NPR is a brand which was created following the decision to cancel Leeds-Manchester electrification. Building that bit gives you Liverpool-York electrification. Building the Liverpool-Manchester Airport bit (whatever the route) doesn't.

If you suspect the government might give up on funding high speed rail proposals at some point, you want the bits that matter to you as far up the list as possible.

NPR was a brand name invented by George Osborne's clique. It started out as HS3, and that in turn started out as a Liverpool originating service to Manchester. Everything tumbled from there, where previously only HS2 existed.

Liverpool commissioned a report challenging its exclusion from the HS2 network, demonstrating a positive BCR and capacity need. The argument was supplemented by a proposal to make double use of any new line to relieve both passenger and path capacity issues by creating a high speed "javelin" between Liverpool and Manchester, using the platform capacity freed by the axing of European services. HS3 didn't exist at this point.

It was Liverpool's intention to steal a march on Osborne's clique by presenting this as the first part of what could become HS3 with further development.

Their more well resourced competitors hurriedly put together their own release and announced HS3 aka NPR - where the price for Liverpool's line was set at an underground station in Manchester, and thus no chance of Liverpool's line happening on its own merit.

This whole sorry saga (HS2) has been one of organisations, cliques and areas working against each other to control, change or protect the agenda. No one should expect any of it to make sense.

 

[Purple Orange]

As I understand it, NPR is a brand which was created following the decision to cancel Leeds-Manchester electrification. Building that bit gives you Liverpool-York electrification. Building the Liverpool-Manchester Airport bit (whatever the route) doesn't.

If you suspect the government might give up on funding high speed rail proposals at some point, you want the bits that matter to you as far up the list as possible.

You could do that by just electrifying Manc-Leeds-York and not building any new rail, but that would not be NPR. When I state I’d prefer to build Liverpool-Manchester NPR first, I’m implying a high speed rail link from Liverpool to the delta for the HS2 Manchester spur. That does not mean electrification over the Pennines should not happen, as that should happen regardless.

 

[Purple Orange]

I live in Manchester and frequently travel to the East Midlands.

Personally, I (and I'm sure many mancunians) don't care about high speed development, instead a better regional rail network and city centre reliability. I also come from the East Midlands and it makes me sigh to see the region starved of development yet again...

I understand the logic behind HS2, but honestly I don't think NPR is the best use of money.

Instead, better capacity through cities like Manchester/Leeds, increasing reliability, along with electrification of the existing Pennine route.

Hope Valley capacity expansions (beyond existing plans) for journeys between the East Midlands and North West, perhaps doubling express services. Have one Hope Valley train an hour dive straight down towards Chesterfield/Alfreton and Nottingham, a cheap solution that could save travellers on this route 20-30 minutes.

All this to say, let's ditch NPR and spend the money on projects that can be delivered faster and bring more benefits to everyone. Plus, the money saved can be used to build HS2 (phase 2b) and boost connectivity along the kind of Eastern routes XC serves so poorly now.

However by building HS2 and NPR, we create more capacity on all the existing lines that carry long distance services, which in turn creates better capacity for local transport.

I don’t think your view is fully representative of most Mancunians. Some Mancunians, but not most.

 

[Glenn1969]

As far as I knew HS2 has nothing to do with NPR. They are being planned by different organisations and the main reason for building HS2 Phase 1/2a is London- Birmingham capacity relief of WCML that has little to do with Northern needs

Unless things have changed?

 

[Purple Orange]

As far as I knew HS2 has nothing to do with NPR. They are being planned by different organisations and the main reason for building HS2 Phase 1/2a is London- Birmingham capacity relief of WCML that has little to do with Northern needs

Unless things have changed?

Nothing has changed, but that has not been suggested. Phase 1 and 2a only creates relief in to Euston for the WCML. Phase 2b creates relief in to St. Pancras and Kings Cross, while giving opportunity to create some relief in to Piccadilly, New St and Leeds. Yes NPR is a separate project, but it needs to link in with HS2. As a project itself, NPR can create relief in to Manchester & Leeds on a similar scale that HS2 does in to Euston.

 

[edwin_m]

Nothing has changed, but that has not been suggested. Phase 1 and 2a only creates relief in to Euston for the WCML. Phase 2b creates relief in to St. Pancras and Kings Cross, while giving opportunity to create some relief in to Piccadilly, New St and Leeds. Yes NPR is a separate project, but it needs to link in with HS2. As a project itself, NPR can create relief in to Manchester & Leeds on a similar scale that HS2 does in to Euston.

One of the reviews suggested that HS2 Ltd should become the agency just for building Phase 1 and 2a, and there should be some other body to take charge of Phase 2b and NPR together. There's probably also a case for operational integration of the HS2 services between Birmingham and the North with NPR, because there will probably be a need for Birmingham-Sheffield-Leeds and maybe Birmingham-Manchester-Leeds trains to reduce the use of busy shared sections and to provide more direct journeys.

Phase 1 and 2a also creates some relief for Birmingham. HS2 phase 2b creates some relief at Piccadilly and Leeds by removing some London trains. There's unlikely to be any relief at St Pancras, at least in terms of the number of trains, because the 2TPH to Corby and 4TPH to Leicester and beyond are still needed to serve the stations that don't get any HS2 service. St Pancras may have fewer passengers than it otherwise would, because Sheffield, Chesterfield and some Derby/Nottingham passengers will be on HS2.

 

[Ianno87]

Nothing has changed, but that has not been suggested. Phase 1 and 2a only creates relief in to Euston for the WCML. Phase 2b creates relief in to St. Pancras and Kings Cross, while giving opportunity to create some relief in to Piccadilly, New St and Leeds. Yes NPR is a separate project, but it needs to link in with HS2. As a project itself, NPR can create relief in to Manchester & Leeds on a similar scale that HS2 does in to Euston.

And NPR is likely to make use of capacity on HS2 infrastructure around Manchester, Leeds, etc. by joining onto it.

 

[HSTEd]

HS2 is capable of 18TPH on the line between London and Birmingham. Trains further north won't always be dropping neatly into slots so the intrinsic capacity here is lower,

Well we can probably make them be so, adding a couple of minutes padding to the Birmingham-to-north trains so that they are reliably able to slot into those paths doesn't change the journey time advantges that much.

and the Manchester Airport station would need to be as big as Old Oak Common HS2 station to serve a similar frequency (I doubt there is the space).

Well if we are redesigning the Phase 2 project to have this new station, we can probably afford to move or change the design of the Manchester Airport station.

Also the northern sections are probably to be built with ballasted track and would probably need slab track instead. None of this is insurmountable but it would take more time and money.

We are already burning time and money at an extraordinary rate.
Honestly I'd argue that slab track throughout would be a good move, it seems inevitable once capacity is made available someone will want to use it, so we should assume the lines will all be operated flat out.

I suppose it comes down to the savings from not building the east branch completely (or even at all) compared to the costs of upgrading the west branch and building the transpennine line, which It hink would have to be built anyway in the future.....

Honestly I personally prefer the S route because that allows as many flows as possible to be stacked onto the trains end to end to improve utilisation, but then I am aiming more at a metro-style system than a conventional "intercity one".

It seems likely you can make persuasive arguments for both operating concepts.

 

[Glenn1969]

But the S route is no good to most of Yorkshire and a lot of the Midlands and presumably renders Midlands Connect dead in the water

 

[BayPaul]

metro-style system

It struck me that this could be a concept that would work - a service every 10 minutes London - Manchester Airport - Manchester - Leeds, extended every 20 minutes to York and Newcastle. Journey times would still be lower than present I believe, but frequency so much better - turning Intercity travel into a true metro system could be really interesting for how it could change the way the country works. Far too many impossible issues to solve I'm sure, but a nice thought experiment!

 

[johnnychips]

Would you beat the present 2h from Kings X to York?

 

[FQTV]

Would you beat the present 2h from Kings X to York?

1h48m on some services.

 

[HSTEd]

Would you beat the present 2h from Kings X to York?

Assuming we can manage something close to the currently 68 minutes to Manchester (I think that includes an intermediate stop, that would in this case be at the Airport), we have ~59km to cover to Leeds.
At 225kph the 395s on HS1 cover 57km in 19 minutes, and going to my big book of train times from the 2010 Tokaido Shinkansen timetable.... ~60km would be on order of 17 minutes.

That puts London-Leeds at ~1hr25
It is a further 35km or so to York.

Which is something like a 12 minute jump based on Tokaido numbers.

So assuming we have a properly engineered through station at Leeds, we'd be looking at 1hr37 to York-ish.

Ofcourse that would require a dedicated line all the way to York, but even cutting the speed over the last section I'd say beating 1hr48 is easily achievable.
And a 400m capable platform at York to avoid having to split at Leeds and lose time there.
Unfortunately the best place for a 400m platform is under Network Rail's brand new building complex.

EDIT:

York apparently has two 400m+ platforms but only in one direction according to the Sectional Appendix, for reasons not immediately apparent.
Assuming my reading is correct and curvature limits on platform extensions only apply to the extensions and not the original platform, you should be able to get at least 2 400m platforms at York, which is probably enough.

1h48m on some services.

Whilst crack express timings are impressive, they are not that important in the grand scheme of things.
One train a day or two trains a day being able to do something matters less than being able to do it several times an hour, all day every day.

 

[FQTV]

Assuming we can manage something close to the currently 68 minutes to Manchester (I think that includes an intermediate stop, that would in this case be at the Airport), we have ~59km to cover to Leeds.
At 225kph the 395s on HS1 cover 57km in 19 minutes, and going to my big book of train times from the 2010 Tokaido Shinkansen timetable.... ~60km would be on order of 17 minutes.

That puts London-Leeds at ~1hr25
It is a further 35km or so to York.

Which is something like a 12 minute jump based on Tokaido numbers.

So assuming we have a properly engineered through station at Leeds, we'd be looking at 1hr37 to York-ish.

Ofcourse that would require a dedicated line all the way to York, but even cutting the speed over the last section I'd say beating 1hr48 is easily achievable.
And a 400m capable platform at York to avoid having to split at Leeds and lose time there.
Unfortunately the best place for a 400m platform is under Network Rail's brand new building complex.


Whilst crack express timings are impressive, they are not that important in the grand scheme of things.
One train a day or two trains a day being able to do something matters less than being able to do it several times an hour, all day every day.

The fast York times are not all that unusual, and certainly weren’t a few years ago. Hatfield kaiboshed a lot of ECML timings, and (apparently) filling up the south ECML with commuter services never brought them back.

The 0600 off Newcastle used to arrive at King’s Cross at 0848. It’s now 0559 and 0909.

 

[edwin_m]

Assuming we can manage something close to the currently 68 minutes to Manchester (I think that includes an intermediate stop, that would in this case be at the Airport), we have ~59km to cover to Leeds.
At 225kph the 395s on HS1 cover 57km in 19 minutes, and going to my big book of train times from the 2010 Tokaido Shinkansen timetable.... ~60km would be on order of 17 minutes.

That puts London-Leeds at ~1hr25
It is a further 35km or so to York.

Which is something like a 12 minute jump based on Tokaido numbers.

So assuming we have a properly engineered through station at Leeds, we'd be looking at 1hr37 to York-ish.

Ofcourse that would require a dedicated line all the way to York, but even cutting the speed over the last section I'd say beating 1hr48 is easily achievable.
And a 400m capable platform at York to avoid having to split at Leeds and lose time there.
Unfortunately the best place for a 400m platform is under Network Rail's brand new building complex.

EDIT:

York apparently has two 400m+ platforms but only in one direction according to the Sectional Appendix, for reasons not immediately apparent.
Assuming my reading is correct and curvature limits on platform extensions only apply to the extensions and not the original platform, you should be able to get at least 2 400m platforms at York, which is probably enough.



Whilst crack express timings are impressive, they are not that important in the grand scheme of things.
One train a day or two trains a day being able to do something matters less than being able to do it several times an hour, all day every day.

You're spending a good deal of money there just to save about 10min!

 

[HSTEd]

You're spending a good deal of money there just to save about 10min!

As we know its not really all about the journey time savings!
Although if you are on the TPE route or even XC you save rather more than that!

 

[Starmill]

Whilst crack express timings are impressive, they are not that important in the grand scheme of things.
One train a day or two trains a day being able to do something matters less than being able to do it several times an hour, all day every day.

It's a significant number of services in about 1h50, not just a handful.

 

[edwin_m]

As we know its not really all about the journey time savings!
Although if you are on the TPE route or even XC you save rather more than that!

But you're also devoting a lot of capacity to Leeds that is currently earmarked for other places in the north west and Scotland. There would be losers from this idea (I won't mention Liverpool here).

 

[Killingworth]

You understand incorrectly: Manchester-Liverpool is much more intense across all modes, including that rail has a lower modal share (and thus greater potential for growth too, despite the high volumes).

I won't refer to the rest as it feels more like defensiveness than point making. The thrust of my point is not a "mine is bigger than yours", but to point to the dogged determination to spend a lot of money on one thing (Pennines) and not another (Liverpool), and the conclusions one can possibly draw about the subsequent implications for another piece of high spending (Leeds via Sheffield) that looks increasingly disposable.

The wonderful thing about modelling current traffic flows is that it shows just that. It doesn't show traffic flows that would occur if changes were made to speed those flows.

40 years ago I had to make journeys to rural Surrey from the suburbs of Sheffield. Rail wasn't a realistic option due to time, and the distances from stations at both ends. In those days the M1 was a lot quieter than it is now but the M25 was still incomplete so on a Sunday afternoon I'd drive down through Central London. On a Friday night I'd use the bits of M25 that then existed trying both east and west side to get home.

The M25 has revolutionised road traffic in and around London, today's traffic flows now vastly different from what they were back then, both in numbers and routes taken.

Rail traffic flows between northern cities cannot be significantly speeded up using old Victorian corridors threaded through congested suburbs. Nor can they be using most of the tracks meandering up and down through fields, villages, towns and the Pennines.

We have to think big, and that means some big tunnels. Once we get digging it may become more routine. (I note the Nowegians think nothing of tunnelling anywhere and everywhere - but their rocks are easier to work through.)

Tunnelling beneath Manchester has to be the start of the ultimate rail solution to reach all destinations significantly quicker. Just removing some surface routes would allow those remaining to improve performance.

Returning to the M25 experience I look at travel between the centres of Manchester and Sheffield. The road journey is likely to take an hour or more at most times of the day. The current best rail journey times are about 50 minutes. It's only 32 miles as the crow flies but nearer 42 by either the Hope Valley or Woodhead. A dream for 30+ years time. The nearer any route gets to a straight and level line the faster it should become. Taken as far as a hypothetical tunnel could get, city centre to city centre all the way a journey time of 20-25 minutes could be achieved, half the current time.

Of course the loadings being seen in January 2020 (and certainly in June) couldn't possibly justify the expenditure to build such a scheme. However, if it had been in place 30 years ago how much more intense would the traffic flows have looked now? We can't tell because we don't know how the existence of such a service would have changed the relationship between the two cities.

However, running a tunnelled network below the Manchester conurbation should be the aim, and continuing in more tunnels towards Leeds for the North East seems the very expensive best first bet.

The only help for services from Sheffield to Manchester and Liverpool would be removal of some conflicting surface trains through Stockport, Piccadilly and Castlefield.

 

[edwin_m]

The wonderful thing about modelling current traffic flows is that it shows just that. It doesn't show traffic flows that would occur if changes were made to speed those flows.

It can do that though. For example British Rail reckoned a 10% cut in journey time on an intercity route would lead to a 9% increase in passenger numbers on that flow. This probably assumed the capacity was available. Simple service enhancements tend to be assessed using the MOIRA model that is based on that work, and can also assess what happens if the demand is choked off by insufficient capacity.

For more transformative changes other techniques are needed, as if today's train service between two places is useless the above assumption would predict the demand for a new service to be an infinite multiple of zero! There are various computer models containing data on the propensity of people to travel between particular areas, the speed of driving and the speed and frequency of the various public transport options between them. It's also more difficult, but still possible I believe, to model the longer-term changes that arise from a big change in connectivity - if there was a better train service between Manchester and Sheffield then over a period of years people would consider changing jobs or moving house to make use of it.