Light Rail Leeds-Bradford would depend on relieving the current line through new Pudsey of its long distance traffic. Without HS2 you'd have to build it along a different non-rail corridor - much more expensive to build and a much slower service.
Drifting off-topic, but if you were connecting Leeds and Bradford with a light train or tram system you wouldn't be running through Bramley or New Pudsey stations, you'd follow the A647 at both ends to reach more people. That might not be what WYCA says in it 2040 Mass Transit Cunning Plan, of course, but the more expensive option would be the better one.
Would need electrification to Hull and Middlesbrough as a minimum to go along with it.
Just saying that if they cancel NPR then some places will not benefit from TRU to the same extent - Hull already feels like the unwanted child of TPE. Yes there are bi-modes but pure EMUs will be beneficial to the Leeds - Manchester section through reduction in track wear.
I think that's unlikely, on the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. They need to give the appearance of coherent thinking, concealing the chaos underneath. So no announcement before the IRP. Construction on Colton to Church Fenton, design work on several sections, and preparation for the public inquiry on Hudds to Westtown, can all continue without any announcement.
Faster acceleration as you're not lugging around tonnes of fuel and engines.
Still needs to get through a business case... so you want as much of the cost in other schemes as possible e.g. Neville Hill - Micklefield covered by TRU so none of that cost is associated with a Hull scheme.
That Manchester - York will be full electrification.
Was the plan not a tunnel at Edge Hill? Of course 4 tracks are needed again almost everywhere they ever existed and perhaps have always been needed in reality. Wavertree station, on the West Coast Main Line needs rebuilding, along with Sefton Park station. Wavertree Technology Park station, which I visited last week, suffered the misfortune of being built in 2000 while the line was only 2 tracks and of course has never had provision for 4 tracks through it. 1960s concrete structures such as the Queen’s Drive flyover are life expired and will need demolishing before they collapse.
Why would you run light rail from Leeds to Bradford via New Pudsey? The station siting is absolutely useless, nowhere near anything in the town except a busy road junction and with no bus connections other than to the bus station, nothing to the other side of Pudsey. The line through the Greenside tunnel should have been retained and the Pudsey avoiding line closed.
Should haves don't create viable solutions today. I'd love a light rail line to go through the centre of Pudsey. If you can come up with a viable route segregated from general traffic I'm all ears.
The line was previously four-track over some of its length, so you could retain heavy rail with light rail alongside over certain sections, then move away from the rail alignment where necessary.
See above.
That suggestion would not go down well with many in the Liverpool area, as it would greatly reduce the space between the railway station and the most iconic Grade I listed St George's Hall that is situated directly opposite it, which is of a neo-classical design containing concert hall and law courts, where construction vibrations could affect that building.
Some of the platforms would go that way but not the Intercity ones. If we can build Crossrail with sensors all over lots of important London buildings, I don't see St George's Hall as insurmountable.
Would "that hotel" be the Adelphi Hotel, that has been a landmark building in that area, by any chance?
I'm assuming the reference is to the Holiday Inn, formerly the St George's Hotel, in the 1960s St John's Centre.
I should imagine some problems with that statement, as I cannot imagine a person of high managerial status based in the Hunts Bank, Manchester, offices of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in 1907 being aware of the wholesale railway station closure programme that took place in the 1960's.
Is it not the case that Sowerby Bridge is used by the York - Blackburn - Preston services as shown in the Northern Trains timetable 9? How would conversion of any part of that route to either tram or tram-train be comparable to existing heavy-rail journeys?
A slightly delayed reply, but I read this and immediately imagined Boris Johnson riding a dragon that breathes high-speed railways instead of fire. (He has the right colour hair!)
If only creating high-speed railways was that easy!
Which way would you send any freight workings?
And given Bradford has somewhere close to 0% chances of ever being connected up to a new high speed line, that pretty much means Bradfordians will be able to go as far as Sowerby Bridge to the West and Leeds to the East … don’t think many would go for that!
I don't think there is any between Sowerby Bridge and Leeds via Bradford, considering it would have to reverse there.
Correct....unless the Bradford avoiding line (Bowling Junction-Laisterdyke Junction) were to be reinstated. However it would still be a very hilly route with a severe weight restriction for freight trains - plus the junctions at the West end of Leeds face the wrong way for some of the freight flows and would force others to pass through the busy station. It's basically a non-starter.
