I was thinking that the Bredbury line would convert to Metrolink in entirety, and that out to Guide Bridge/Glossop, there would be a pair of pure Metrolink lines in parallel to the HR lines (which have no stations until Guide Bridge any more).
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Light Rail v Heavy Rail
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Personally, living on the Severn Beach line, which just trundles aimlessly around suburban Bristol and has all its stations served by city buses, I'd love it to be converted to a tramline.
One train per hour (or thereabouts; the timetable is strange) is inconvenient for commuting from the suburbs into the Temple Meads area (which is what I, and the majority of my fellow passengers, use it for), and it doesn't go near Broadmead, the centre, or anywhere where it would be great competition for the buses.
If I were the in charge of it, I'd build a tram network around the city centre: one line starting at Temple Meads and going through the centre from Queen Square to Cabot Circus, another (potentially branching off the former) going up Park Street into Clifton and following the old heavy rail line back around to Temple Meads.
Then you'd get a route which is bafflingly uncovered by the buses (it's impossible to get to Easton, a significant suburb, from TM without getting off one bus, walking through the centre and getting another one), connects suburban commuters to the centre and TM with a much greater frequency, and I wouldn't have to walk up Park Street (a steep hill) every day from Rupert Street because nobody thought that maybe people who live east of Redland may need to get to Clifton at a greater frequency than ~1tph.
As a bonus, you'd get political credit for undoing cuts: if I recall correctly, that's basically where the old trams went before they killed them in favour of the buses.
One train per hour (or thereabouts; the timetable is strange) is inconvenient for commuting from the suburbs into the Temple Meads area (which is what I, and the majority of my fellow passengers, use it for), and it doesn't go near Broadmead, the centre, or anywhere where it would be great competition for the buses.
If I were the in charge of it, I'd build a tram network around the city centre: one line starting at Temple Meads and going through the centre from Queen Square to Cabot Circus, another (potentially branching off the former) going up Park Street into Clifton and following the old heavy rail line back around to Temple Meads.
Then you'd get a route which is bafflingly uncovered by the buses (it's impossible to get to Easton, a significant suburb, from TM without getting off one bus, walking through the centre and getting another one), connects suburban commuters to the centre and TM with a much greater frequency, and I wouldn't have to walk up Park Street (a steep hill) every day from Rupert Street because nobody thought that maybe people who live east of Redland may need to get to Clifton at a greater frequency than ~1tph.
As a bonus, you'd get political credit for undoing cuts: if I recall correctly, that's basically where the old trams went before they killed them in favour of the buses.
Which would suggest that the Cross-City northern end should be light-rail, but then you would need tram-trains to continue working on the south end to Bromsgrove & Redditch.
Also, it's already an every 10minute service, & there's few obvious places for extra stops (south end of Erdington?)
Certainly within the WestMids, I don't see any heavy-rail being converted. Re-use of closed rail routes, yes.
Timetable on Severn Beach line is improving in Dec but still seems a shame the whole concept of MetroWest in Bristol is of heavy rail which restricts frequency to 1 or 2 tph at most for frequent stopper with additional stations given pathing requirements of longer distance services on primarily two track railway. Existing freight on branches and single lines don't make it easy but Bristol has lacked the kind of vision pushed in say Cardiff to think outside the Network Rail/GWR box and maybe reduce operating costs if done in a controlled manner. Feels like an opportunity missed to solve the 'Temple Meads is in the wrong place' problem too. Mass Transit is being mooted but all the signs are that this is independent of the existing rail infrastructure.
While not insurmountable, the H&S issues which arise when light and heavy rail share the same track are significant. Very little of the Metro West routes are used solely by Metro West trains (think it’s just Narroways Hill to Holesmouth and the very last bit at the Beach)
Fully accept that but still feels disappointing something couldn’t have been put together that linked the existing freight branches and by-passed the congested shared approaches to Temple Meads with some street running directly serving the central district at the same time. Seems a lot of effort and cost to reopen Portishead and Henbury to passengers for a very short 20-odd minute journey with only 1 or at best 2 tph. Solutions are presumably being found in the Cardiff Valleys for sharing with the occasional freight service?
But unless you bypass Temple Meads and Filton Bank completely or have entirely separate tracks dedicated to the routes to be operated by light rail it's not just "the occasional freight service" - it's every "heavy rail" passenger train as well. Believe me, I'd love to see a tram-train arrangement continuing alongside Redcliffe Way as a precursor to a proper urban light rail system, but the heavy rail version currently proposed is at least a way of getting things off the ground (I hope)
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