Not that helpful if you are trying to get from Scotland to Manchester Airport.
Couldn't the begining of your second paragraph answer the first sentence of the first? Others above have suggested that the Castlefield corridor worked well enough when it "predominantly had an intensive 'metro' service" - what if it was largely reserved for local trains again? Instead of having the Ordsall Chord worked exclusively by TPE, it could be used by 2tph from Stalybridge operated by Northern. By massively reducing the risk of importing delays from east of the Pennines, and removing Nova 1 and Nova 3 trains from Castlefield, that should be more reliable. Obviously there's the problem of what to do with the two TPEs you take off the Ordsall Chord, but dismissing the Chordsall Chord as a mistake because of how the DfT or the rail industry chose to use it is a bit of a stretch. How would the journey times on a Northern Victoria-Airport stopper compare to Metrolink from Victoria to Piccadilly/Airport? If it's significantly quicker than Metrolink it could make changing at Victoria less of an issue, allowing more services to be diverted to Victoria and away from Castlefield.
Correct, the Airport is the main dumping area of trains that run through Castlefield, as there is only one bay at Manchester Oxford Road and Manchester Piccadilly(P13/14) is unsuitable as a terminus.Some services run beyond to Crewe, others run via Stockport)
You make a very good point here. My first statement is made in the context of the present-day situation with the railways around Manchester. Switching the Castlefield corridor services back to all-metro operation (i.e. as limited to the confines of the Greater Manchester area as possible) would certainly improve the efficiency of an intense service through there. However this would be a radical change and one can't help but feel as though the current situation has drifted too far away from this, the expectation now being that a wide variety of cross-Manchester services are provided, and what can be done is limited by external factors to do with this. So with that context, if the choice was between the Ordsall Chord and platforms 15/16 at Manchester, I'd lean more towards the latter.
A little off-topic but there was a London-Rochdale service briefly in the early 2000's (or possibly late 90's?) but it ran via Warrington and Victoria.
Prestwick is an absolute nothing airport, and while Edinburgh and Glasgow have a decent range of flights, there's still a lot of destinations that you can do from Manchester and not there. Obviously you could fly down and connect in Heathrow, but it's not cheap or that convenient, and last time I did it I ended up dumped in a hotel outside Heathrow for one night of my 7 night trip.
I'm not sure the trademark Bletchleyite technique of pulling numbers from thin air on the basis of no research or personal experience makes a particularly compelling argument, but no doubt you can keep it up all day.
Regarding end door stock, the consultation document has this to say:
But all three options have 2 or 3tph of TPE end door Nova trains passing through Castlefield, so that is unlikely to change. Speculative ideas for different service patterns have been discussed in
That isnt true, and I doubt Avanti would agree to it as it would have to be proposed and agreed officially. There is an agreement not to do it because of the passenger flow issues, but it isnt banned.
That's not what the TPRs say. It's to be avoided if possible, but sometimes you can't make things work without it.
In summer 2019 the xx.40 Euston-Manchester via Crewe and xx.55 Manchester-Euston via Crewe were extended to Glasgow via Wigan, and they therefore were booked to call at Manchester Piccadilly at their normal booked times. So they also called at Wilmslow and Stockport and Crewe. The other two services each hour between Manchester and London ran as normal from the main station at Piccadilly.
Considering that train routing doesn't exist, it is an odd straw man, and I doubt you would put a diesel train through there on a regular basis, as that is what it would be.
Youd proberly get a better business case by converting the Pendolinos to bi mode and diverting them from Euston to Brighton via the West London Line.
According to CAA figures, in 2019, 1.3% (346,000 people) of Manchester Airport passengers had a Scottish origin or destination (excludes those actually flying between Scotland and Manchester)
A couple of years ago there was a morning working which used Platform 1 at Oxford Road (and which definitely wasn't 1R50) where it was overtaken by a following service - I was on it once because I wanted to go to Deansgate and the following service didn't stop there. The service I was on probably originated from Manchester Airport because I change there if I want to go to Deansgate rather than having to change at platform 14 at Manchester Piccadilly. However I suspect my use of Oxford Road platform 1 pre-dated the May 2018 timetable.
