Cost of four-tracking Castlefield.

[Nottingham59]

The Castlefield viaduct is a notorious bottleneck that constrains the entire rail network in the North West. Ways round the constraint were discussed in this thread (now closed): https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/potential-ways-round-the-castlefield-problem.249725/

Many have said that the cost of four-tracking would be prohibitive, so I thought I would have a go at working out how much that cost might be.

My proposal is a twin-track tunnel from Ashburys to the Chat Moss line, with just one underground station next to Piccadilly with two 200m platforms. I reckon that would cost £2.5Bn to get a working railway, with future enhancements to eventually support 16tph through this new NPR core. Is that affordable? Would it fix the problem?

EAST-WEST TUNNEL



This arrangement would give the Liverpool-Leeds connectivity that is needed for NPR, and keep East-West flows separate from North-South local traffic that would still use Castlefield.

WESTERN PORTAL
Working from West to East, the Salford portal would join the Chat Moss line, with grade separation. The River Irwell is 1.4km away, so the gradient would be moderate.


TUNNEL
Any tunnel under Manchester needs to avoid the nuclear command centre under much of China Town. This is why the aborted Pic-Vic tunnel curved south towards Princess Street, as shown here.

Otherwise, the tunnel can take whatever route is most convenient, as it would not have stations except at Piccadilly.

CENTRAL STATION
I reckon we only need one station in central Manchester and it should be at or very near Piccadilly. I'd propose locating it under Fairfield Street where a Pic-Vic station was planned, shown in red below. We only need two platforms as trains will not terminate. Trains from the west could use turnback sidings at Guide Bridge if necessary.



An alternative site, shown in yellow above, would be where the HS2 station was planned. This would be easier for construction access, but means that the station would be less conveniently situated. Either NPR station would be 10-15m below ground level to allow the line to pass below the river Medlock, so would not block the proposed alignment of the HS2 station, which was to be built 10m above ground level. Though of course, it would have to be compatible with any future resurrection of HS2. This diagram shows the side view of the HS2 station box with levels.


An even better site would have been directly under Mayfield Station, but that has now been redeveloped.

EASTERN PORTAL
The East NPR portal would be located on land immediately to the north of where HS2 was to transition into its tunnel. This land was to be bought for HS2 work and then returned for future development, so we know it is available. HS2 mapping can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...lan-and-profile-maps-crewe-to-manchester-2022



The portal would need a gradient of around 1:50 to get over the Gorton Road bridge and join the northen pair of lines that passes through Ashburys station towards Guide Bridge. These would become the fast lines if extended all the way to Guide Bridge.

ESTIMATED COSTS
These figues use the cost estimates of new railway from: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/cost-of-new-railway-lines-in-2024.268709/

• £50M: Western Portal structure
• £75M: New twin-track railway in portal (750m @ £100M/km)
• £75M: New line for Chat Moss grade separation (750m @ £100M/lm). This could be left for later, but with the route safeguarded.
• £1000M: Twin tunnel to Fairfield St (2.5km @ £400M/km)
• £500M: Twin platform underground station in box. Budget for Old Oak common was £1.67 at 2019 prices, but the outturn OOC cost may be two or three times this. OOC was much bigger, with 6x400m platforms underground and 8 platforms on the surface.
• £600M: Twin tunnel to East Portal (1.5km @ £400M/km)
• £50M: Eastern Portal structure
• £50M: New twin track railway to Ashburys West Junction (500m @ £100M/km)
• £100M: Sundries, such as turnback sidings somewhere.

Total = £2.5 Billion. Is this reasonable? Is this affordable? What other approach would relieve Castlefield and contribute more to the agglomeration benefits that will underpin economic growth in and around Manchester?


FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS
Recommended enhancements (not costed in the above, but needed to allow 16tph through the core)

• New fast chord towards Wigan and Scotland using the alignment planned for the HS2 Golborne link
• New East to South chord at Newton-le-Willows to allow trains from Manchester to access the WCML slows with grade separation
• Use the exising third track at Eccles station as a fast avoiding line, with stoppers using the middle track as a bi-directional slow line.
• Add a third track at Patricroft station, with stoppers using the middle track as a bidirectional slow line
• Reinstate four-tracks from Ashburys to Guide Bridge, on existing alignment: northern pair fast, southern pair slow
• New Platforms at Guide Bridge station on the reinstated slow lines

To support high-frequency service Liverpool-Leeds, more investment would be needed between Guide Bridge and Staylbridge and on the Chat Moss route into Liverpool.

Other enhancements would be possible. Feel free to discuss, but probably best in a new thread.

• Remove existing platforms at Guide Bridge and realign fast lines to curve towards Stalybridge at 1km radius raising line speed to 80mph.
• Make the Central Manchester station 400m long. This would allow 400m HS2 trains to reach Manchester via Newton-le-Willows, and immediately triple the capacity of HS2 phase 1 into Manchester.
• Three or four track the Chat Moss line between Eccles and Patricroft stations to allow fast trains to avoid stoppers
• Build turnback sidings at Guide Bridge (where the Freightliner depot is now) and add platforms with a multi-storey car park above to give a new P&R station with direct access from the M60.
• Add a second western portal to access the line to Bolton
• Additional tunnels from central manchester station to the WCML, at Longsight (1.5km away) or better after Slade Lane junction (3.5km).
• Or connect into the HS2 tunnels allowing HS2 services from London to Manchester to continue towards Scotland.
• Four track Stalybridge to Diggle by converting the Micklehurst Loop to Metrolink with some street running, to serve Mossley and Greenfield passengers with high fequency tram service. Reduce/eliminate stopping on the main line, giving non-stop fast line running from Manchester to Dewsbury
• Work out how to increase capacity into Liverpool from the Chat Moss route
• Add additional lines from Dewsbury to Leeds to deliver full NPR.
• Convert Castlefield into a 16tph S-bahn, serving local destinations on a 15-minute repeating timetable.

 

[Bald Rick]

I think you‘re about £2bn light there, and need to have a think about how much additional capaciy ot would actually provide, without some of the additional works you’ve listed.

 

[HSTEd]

Now I know Manchester property has gone a bit mad in the last decade or so, but I'm not sure knocking down the relative handful of buildings in the way of just four tracking Castlefield is going to approach the cost of this solution.

 

[Nottingham59]

Now I know Manchester property has gone a bit mad in the last decade or so, but I'm not sure knocking down the relative handful of buildings in the way of just four tracking Castlefield is going to approach the cost of this solution.

If you can do duplicate the viaduct, that would be great. But I really don't see how it would fit. Would you build to the north or the south of the existing structure? Or build a double deck structure over the top? What buildings do you think would need to be demolished?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Nov 2024 ==

I think you‘re about £2bn light there, and need to have a think about how much additional capaciy ot would actually provide, without some of the additional works you’ve listed.

Thanks for the feedback. I agree: to use the capacity of the central core, then there would have to be significant investment in capacity around Newton-le-Willows and beyond, and beyond Guide Bridge.

But at this stage I just wanted to see if people on here thought my estimates of providing the Ashburys-Patricroft section of a trunk route through Manchester was about right. If there's a cheaper way then I'd love to hear it.

 

[Meerkat]

Now I know Manchester property has gone a bit mad in the last decade or so, but I'm not sure knocking down the relative handful of buildings in the way of just four tracking Castlefield is going to approach the cost of this solution.

As an outsider just looking at Streetview etc I think the cost would be high, but it might be the opposition to doing it that is more of a problem. Some of the buildings look tricky to demolish without uproar, and a railway above the street is going to be pretty grim.

In terms of a tunnel isn't Oxford Road a major traffic generator from the area to the south?

 

[HSTEd]

If you can do duplicate the viaduct, that would be great. But I really don't see how it would fit. Would you build to the north or the south of the existing structure? Or build a double deck structure over the top? What buildings do you think would need to be demolished?

I don't think you could do it quite so simply as a second viaduct built in parallel.
On some sections of the route you only really have room to the south of the alignment, and on other sections you only have room to the north of the alignment.

I think a double deck solution would get very expensive and disruptive to build, although it might give better results in terms of the junctions. It would also likely require much less demolition of non railway structures.

Most of the expensive demolition is likely between Oxford Road and Princess Street, because thats the primary section where there is no road available to cantilever over.
Beyond that, working out what to do about Deansgate station would be a major pain.
It would be expensive but I doubt it would be as expensive as a tunnel solution with at least one and probably two underground stations.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Nov 2024 ==

As an outsider just looking at Streetview etc I think the cost would be high, but it might be the opposition to doing it that is more of a problem. Some of the buildings look tricky to demolish without uproar, and a railway above the street is going to be pretty grim.

I guess the hard part is that rebuilding the viaduct to four tracks is likely to require the provision of proper walking routes and the like that aren't present now. The width may more than double in that case, although you might get some of that back with slab track needing less tolerance for track position.

In terms of a tunnel isn't Oxford Road a major traffic generator from the area to the south?

I would say so, yes.
So I'm not sure a tunnel could get away with bypassing both Oxford Road and Deansgate.

 

[Meerkat]

It would be expensive but I doubt it would be as expensive as a tunnel solution with at least one and probably two underground stations.

Though if you are swapping the expansion from one side to the other then the disruption costs will be huge, plus constructing it above that road will lead to some rather unpopular building work and road closures?

 

[Dspatula]

That tunnel alignment is still going to be hitting parts of the Guardian exchange that extend to the south and as Bald Rick says you're not going to achieve enough in extra paths to justify £5bn, best case 10 paths either end given the different stopping patterns required, two paths freed on Castlefield and maybe two extra paths via Bredbury. And that's not factoring in that'd probably need to divert the return path of the Drax train which means finding a path across Stockport.....
The bridge is surrounded by listed buildings two for sure at the east end of Oxford Rd station and even it's cheaper its only very going to allow the second transpennie airport path reliably, the return of 2nd hourly Warrington stopper and the extension of Oxford Rd terminators to Piccadilly. Nice to have sure but wouldn't surprise if it worked out as about Billion pounds per path.

I'm pretty sure the biggest constraint to path around Manchester is still Slade Lane to Piccadilly along with platform space at Piccadilly and well the project to fix that is dead.

I might say connect CLC and Style lines with a tunnel via Vic and Pic relieve Castlefield and Slade lane but now I'm down £15billion and I've created issue at Cheadle Hulme and Stockport so can't say I have any better ideas. All fun

 

[HSTEd]

The bridge is surrounded by listed buildings two for sure at the east end of Oxford Rd station and even it's cheaper its only very going to allow the second transpennie airport path reliably, the return of 2nd hourly Warrington stopper and the extension of Oxford Rd terminators to Piccadilly. Nice to have sure but wouldn't surprise if it worked out as about Billion pounds per path.

The total reorganisation of the railways in manchester that would follow such a project makes "adds x paths" a difficult comparison to make.
If a four track Castlefield existed the entire railway system of the North West would be very different to now.

I'm pretty sure the biggest constraint to path around Manchester is still Slade Lane to Piccadilly along with platform space at Piccadilly and well the project to fix that is dead.

Well a four track castlefield requires no additional paths south of Piccadilly and renders platform space at Piccadily a non-issue....

 

[Bevan Price]

Given the way construction costs tend to escalate way above initial estimates, I suggest your ideas would cost more like £10-15 bn.

 

[Nottingham59]

Given the way construction costs tend to escalate way above initial estimates, I suggest your ideas would cost more like £10-15 bn.

Possibly. But these estimates are already many times those quoted by HS2 contractors to win the tenders for construction

For instance, HS2 contract C1 to construct the civils from Ruislip to Wendover was awarded for less than £1 billion. I don't know what they would quote today, but I would guess less than £10-15bn, and C1 is a much larger job than Ardwick-Eccles would be.

News

"High Speed Two (HS2) Limited today announced that ALIGN, the bidding joint venture (JV) of Bouygues Construction, Sir Robert McAlpine, and VolkerFitzpatrick, with its design partners, Jacobs and Ingerop, has been awarded the £965m Chilterns Tunnels and Colne Valley Viaduct main works civils contract (Lot C1), a key section of Phase One of the HS2 high-speed rail network between London and Birmingham.

And yes, I know it's not the complete railway, but it included a 3km viaduct and 16km twin bored 360kph tunnel with five vent shafts.

HOME — ALIGN JV

alignjv.com

HS2 C1 PACKAGE​

"In July 2017 the Align joint venture was awarded the C1 package of the UK High Speed 2 line (HS2). C1 consists of 21.6km of high speed rail infrastructure. This will include a 3.37km viaduct, 16.04km twin-bored tunnel and five vent shafts handling both intervention and tunnel ventilation facilities."

 

[Dspatula]

The total reorganisation of the railways in manchester that would follow such a project makes "adds x paths" a difficult comparison to make.
If a four track Castlefield existed the entire railway system of the North West would be very different to now.

How could you reorganise services if there are no changes to infrastructure beyond Castlefield?
There's still the issue Ordsall lane being a flat junction, there isn't any more capacity at the Liverpool end of chat moss, the stopping patterns on the CLC still constrain the number of services, etc.
If your going to have to change service patterns anyway how much could be be achieved on the current and/or all ready committed planed infrastructure in the area?

Well a four track castlefield requires no additional paths south of Piccadilly and renders platform space at Piccadily a non-issue....

My point was if doesn't relieve that area it's not going achieve much for additional paths and so won't be funded, same for the tunnel plan.

 

[HSTEd]

How could you reorganise services if there are no changes to infrastructure beyond Castlefield?
There's still the issue Ordsall lane being a flat junction, there isn't any more capacity at the Liverpool end of chat moss, the stopping patterns on the CLC still constrain the number of services, etc.

Well the elimination of the curve allowing trains from the Chat Moss to access Victoria, or at least the removal of essentially all trains using it, would simplify the operations on Ordsall Lane considerably.
Assuming the four tracks through castlefield are paired by use rather than direction, that gets you one flat junction for "free", although I'd need to work out a timetable to work out where to use that.

Indeed, if you are being aggressive you would cut the access from Victoria towards Bolton/Wigan entirely and route all Victoria and Wigan/Bolton trains through Castlefield, joining them to trains running south from Piccadilly today.

If your going to have to change service patterns anyway how much could be be achieved on the current and/or all ready committed planed infrastructure in the area?

We've had many years of trying to tweak service patterns to get more trains through this infrastructure.
I doubt there is much more to be squeezed out by that route.

 

[Metrolink]

The Castlefield viaduct is a notorious bottleneck that constrains the entire rail network in the North West. Ways round the constraint were discussed in this thread (now closed): https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/potential-ways-round-the-castlefield-problem.249725/

Many have said that the cost of four-tracking would be prohibitive, so I thought I would have a go at working out how much that cost might be.

My proposal is a twin-track tunnel from Ashburys to the Chat Moss line, with just one underground station next to Piccadilly with two 200m platforms. I reckon that would cost £2.5Bn to get a working railway, with future enhancements to eventually support 16tph through this new NPR core. Is that affordable? Would it fix the problem?

EAST-WEST TUNNEL

View attachment 169525

This arrangement would give the Liverpool-Leeds connectivity that is needed for NPR, and keep East-West flows separate from North-South local traffic that would still use Castlefield.

WESTERN PORTAL
Working from West to East, the Salford portal would join the Chat Moss line, with grade separation. The River Irwell is 1.4km away, so the gradient would be moderate.
View attachment 169526

TUNNEL
Any tunnel under Manchester needs to avoid the nuclear command centre under much of China Town. This is why the aborted Pic-Vic tunnel curved south towards Princess Street, as shown here.

Otherwise, the tunnel can take whatever route is most convenient, as it would not have stations except at Piccadilly.

CENTRAL STATION
I reckon we only need one station in central Manchester and it should be at or very near Piccadilly. I'd propose locating it under Fairfield Street where a Pic-Vic station was planned, shown in red below. We only need two platforms as trains will not terminate. Trains from the west could use turnback sidings at Guide Bridge if necessary.

View attachment 169527

An alternative site, shown in yellow above, would be where the HS2 station was planned. This would be easier for construction access, but means that the station would be less conveniently situated. Either NPR station would be 10-15m below ground level to allow the line to pass below the river Medlock, so would not block the proposed alignment of the HS2 station, which was to be built 10m above ground level. Though of course, it would have to be compatible with any future resurrection of HS2. This diagram shows the side view of the HS2 station box with levels.
View attachment 169534

An even better site would have been directly under Mayfield Station, but that has now been redeveloped.

EASTERN PORTAL
The East NPR portal would be located on land immediately to the north of where HS2 was to transition into its tunnel. This land was to be bought for HS2 work and then returned for future development, so we know it is available. HS2 mapping can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...lan-and-profile-maps-crewe-to-manchester-2022

View attachment 169533

The portal would need a gradient of around 1:50 to get over the Gorton Road bridge and join the northen pair of lines that passes through Ashburys station towards Guide Bridge. These would become the fast lines if extended all the way to Guide Bridge.

ESTIMATED COSTS
These figues use the cost estimates of new railway from: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/cost-of-new-railway-lines-in-2024.268709/

• £50M: Western Portal structure
• £75M: New twin-track railway in portal (750m @ £100M/km)
• £75M: New line for Chat Moss grade separation (750m @ £100M/lm). This could be left for later, but with the route safeguarded.
• £1000M: Twin tunnel to Fairfield St (2.5km @ £400M/km)
• £500M: Twin platform underground station in box. Budget for Old Oak common was £1.67 at 2019 prices, but the outturn OOC cost may be two or three times this. OOC was much bigger, with 6x400m platforms underground and 8 platforms on the surface.
• £600M: Twin tunnel to East Portal (1.5km @ £400M/km)
• £50M: Eastern Portal structure
• £50M: New twin track railway to Ashburys West Junction (500m @ £100M/km)
• £100M: Sundries, such as turnback sidings somewhere.

Total = £2.5 Billion. Is this reasonable? Is this affordable? What other approach would relieve Castlefield and contribute more to the agglomeration benefits that will underpin economic growth in and around Manchester?


FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS
Recommended enhancements (not costed in the above, but needed to allow 16tph through the core)

• New fast chord towards Wigan and Scotland using the alignment planned for the HS2 Golborne link
• New East to South chord at Newton-le-Willows to allow trains from Manchester to access the WCML slows with grade separation
• Use the exising third track at Eccles station as a fast avoiding line, with stoppers using the middle track as a bi-directional slow line.
• Add a third track at Patricroft station, with stoppers using the middle track as a bidirectional slow line
• Reinstate four-tracks from Ashburys to Guide Bridge, on existing alignment: northern pair fast, southern pair slow
• New Platforms at Guide Bridge station on the reinstated slow lines

To support high-frequency service Liverpool-Leeds, more investment would be needed between Guide Bridge and Staylbridge and on the Chat Moss route into Liverpool.

Other enhancements would be possible. Feel free to discuss, but probably best in a new thread.

• Remove existing platforms at Guide Bridge and realign fast lines to curve towards Stalybridge at 1km radius raising line speed to 80mph.
• Make the Central Manchester station 400m long. This would allow 400m HS2 trains to reach Manchester via Newton-le-Willows, and immediately triple the capacity of HS2 phase 1 into Manchester.
• Three or four track the Chat Moss line between Eccles and Patricroft stations to allow fast trains to avoid stoppers
• Build turnback sidings at Guide Bridge (where the Freightliner depot is now) and add platforms with a multi-storey car park above to give a new P&R station with direct access from the M60.
• Add a second western portal to access the line to Bolton
• Additional tunnels from central manchester station to the WCML, at Longsight (1.5km away) or better after Slade Lane junction (3.5km).
• Or connect into the HS2 tunnels allowing HS2 services from London to Manchester to continue towards Scotland.
• Four track Stalybridge to Diggle by converting the Micklehurst Loop to Metrolink with some street running, to serve Mossley and Greenfield passengers with high fequency tram service. Reduce/eliminate stopping on the main line, giving non-stop fast line running from Manchester to Dewsbury
• Work out how to increase capacity into Liverpool from the Chat Moss route
• Add additional lines from Dewsbury to Leeds to deliver full NPR.
• Convert Castlefield into a 16tph S-bahn, serving local destinations on a 15-minute repeating timetable.

If you’re considering this as an alternative to 4 tracking Castlefield, how does this relieve congestion on this section by connecting the line towards Guide Bridge and line towards Eccles.

What services currently run there that would be relived of travelling on the Castlefield corridor?

I don’t see it making a difference based on the explanation you’ve given, although feel free to clarify/elaborate.

 

[Bald Rick]

Possibly. But these estimates are already many times those quoted by HS2 contractors to win the tenders for construction

But the contract costs will not be the full costs of the work. Maybe not even the majority.

 

[Meerkat]

May as well go all in with an S-bahn tunnel connecting Cornbrook/Eccles line/Salford Crescent with Ashburys.

 

[Bevan Price]

Well the elimination of the curve allowing trains from the Chat Moss to access Victoria, or at least the removal of essentially all trains using it, would simplify the operations on Ordsall Lane considerably.
Assuming the four tracks through castlefield are paired by use rather than direction, that gets you one flat junction for "free", although I'd need to work out a timetable to work out where to use that.

So what do you do with the trains currently using the Chat Moss route going via Victoria?
2 each way TP services** and 1 each way Chester/Leeds via Clader Valley, plus a few freights per day ?
(** - December 2024 timetable)

 

[HSTEd]

So what do you do with the trains currently using the Chat Moss route going via Victoria?
2 each way TP services** and 1 each way Chester/Leeds via Clader Valley, plus a few freights per day ?
(** - December 2024 timetable)

Ideally, the reorganisation would route TP/freight services through Castlefield and Guide Bridge, whilst other services get split at Manchester and joined onto trains that currently terminate in Piccadilly's main trainshed.

Four tracking and the accompanying simplification of the rat's nest of junctions would allow many more trains to run after all.

 

[mr_jrt]

I'm literally throwing this out there having had it pop into my head (so I'm aware it's a bit "undercooked"), but could a more...left-field solution be an option?

How about rather than just building one tunnel, how about you build two, and sell off the existing viaduct land for redevelopment, a-la Holborn Viaduct in London. Obviously it will cost more than a single tunnel, but if you don't need platforms on one pair of tracks, then it could be a relatively cheap way of adding that through capacity whilst raising funds for the project as a whole. Ideally a tunnel would have a better alignment, too, which might speed things up a bit.

 

[Nottingham59]

May as well go all in with an S-bahn tunnel connecting Cornbrook/Eccles line/Salford Crescent with Ashburys.

Agreed, but we've got that already with Castlefield viaduct. But it connects Cornbrook/Eccles/Salford Crescent to the just the airport and Stockport lines. Maybe the new tunnel should take local traffic from Ashburys too? But then it would need a second western portal to get local traffic to Salford Crescent, unless those local trains could feed the Chat Moss stoppers. I'll have to see if that can be incorporated. So agreat idea: thanks.

With long-distance traffic out of the way, Castlefield could be a 16tph S-bahn. This diagram is just a starting point for the sort of services that I think would be feasible with an East-West trunk route and HS2 built.


Red: S-bahn carries local services at 16tph on Castlefield

• To the west: Liverpool via CLC; Chat Moss stoppers; Wigan via Atherton/Westhoughton; Stalybridge. Perhaps 4tph each
• To the east: 8tph Airport; 2tph to each of Crewe via Stockport; Stoke; Buxton; Hope Valley

Yellow: S-bahn not through Castlefield

• Bolton to Rochdale. (Could be fully segregated from Atherton-Castlefield line with four tracking at Salford Crescent). Also could swap 2tph between Atherton and Bolton lines)

Light Blue: Local trains through Marple and Guide Bridge. Terminating in the Piccadilly main shed. (As suggested above, could these go to Eccles/Chat Moss? It would release plaforms at Piccadilly)

Dark blue: East-West trunk route. Perhaps 12tph.

• to the east: 8tph to Leeds; 2tph Bradford via Halifax; 2tph Sheffield via Marple
• to the west: 4tph Liverpool via Chat Moss fast; 4tph Preston (and Scotland); 4tph Warrington BQ and Chester/Crewe.

Not shown:

• 2tph South Pennine fast to main shed at Piccadilly, via Hazel Grove and Stockport. I would not continue these onto Liverpool, disrupting the Castlefield S-Bahn.
  
  
• 4tph HS2 to London from HS2 station
• 2tph HS2 to Birmingham Curzon St then London
• 2tph HS2 to Birmingham Curzon St or Interchange (reverse) then Nottingham via HS2 East

That tunnel alignment is still going to be hitting parts of the Guardian exchange that extend to the south

The Selnec map suggested that the junction of Portland St and Dickinson St is far enough south. But the tunnel could swing further south if necessary.

(It begs the question if the Guardian Exchange is so big and so deep and no longer in use, then could the structure, or the space, be used as a station box?)

as Bald Rick says you're not going to achieve enough in extra paths to justify £5bn, best case 10 paths either end given the different stopping patterns required, two paths freed on Castlefield and maybe two extra paths via Bredbury.

Yeah, it needs a lot of extra investment beyond the central section. I'm working on that, lol.

And that's not factoring in that'd probably need to divert the return path of the Drax train which means finding a path across Stockport.....

Send them overnight. It's ridiculous that the rail industry allows empty freight trains to use up track capacity in South Manchester during the day.

I'm pretty sure the biggest constraint to path around Manchester is still Slade Lane to Piccadilly along with platform space at Piccadilly

I have always thought a fifth and sixth track between Lonsight and Slade Lane could eliminate some problems there. I think they would fit. And add platforms to the east of Piccadilly platform one. There's space on the existing structure, now used as a car park.

 

[mike57]

One issue which the tunnel doesn't address is the need for terminating platforms at Piccadilly for trains arriving from the north and west. I suspect that some these trains carry on to the airport because that's a terminating point rather than because they are needed. I have always thought the Airport would be better served by a high frequency metro service, from a dedicated platform(s) at Piccadilly.

 

[HSTEd]

One issue which the tunnel doesn't address is the need for terminating platforms at Piccadilly for trains arriving from the north and west. I suspect that some these trains carry on to the airport because that's a terminating point rather than because they are needed. I have always thought the Airport would be better served by a high frequency metro service, from a dedicated platform(s) at Piccadilly.

My understanding is that those services go to the airport because stakeholder consultations always raise hell when someone proposes withdrawing them.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Send them overnight. It's ridiculous that the rail industry allows empty freight trains to use up track capacity in South Manchester during the day.

The financial sustainability and operational practicality at terminals for the vast majority of freight flows depends on assets being cycled throughout the 24-hour day.