I think there was an idea in the 1930s for an underground tube style network in Manchester, cant find much on Google but I have definitely read about it.
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Andy Burnham wants to take the Bee Network underground by 2050
- Thread starter wanderingriver
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
I think the situation of the Sandhills new tram stop would have been intended to allow tram services to both Bury and to Oldham/Rochdale to be served by it.
Would the proposed tunnel cause any problems with the operational usage of the Queens Road tram depot?
Talk of taking the Bee Network underground takes me back to the time when we lived in West Timperley and in our garden, we had a variety of mining bees which are solitary and live underground.
Last edited:
Whatever first underground scheme Manchester decides to go with will have to be incredibly lean otherwise it'll just get thrown out by Treasury. As long as Sandhills continues to exist on one route then it'll have to be part of compromises - it can't be allowed to become a cost driver.
A tunnel portal in that area will still have to ensure access to Queens Road depot for both the Bury and Oldham routes, but I don't think there's a big issue here.
Parebunks
Member
Quite odd the framing of this as the first time Burnham has floated going underground given last year's Rapid Transit Strategy. Page 61-62 and Draft Map E perhaps the most relevant - seeming to suggest two potential projects of a SW-NE tunnel to relieve the Metrolink core, and a NW-SE tunnel to relieve Castlefield, then remarking that that still leaves a 'north-south gap' - Oxford Road?
Someone on Reddit made a fairly convincing impression of what those could look like here, although two tunneled sections by 2050 in addition to the underground station at Piccadilly feels unlikely to say the least. Part of me wonders if these ideas are being floated in an attempt to make the more seriously contemplated Liverpool-Manchester link look like the sensible middle ground in terms of transport investment in the region - a shame really given how far most UK cities lag behind on transport infrastructure, just compare Manchester to Lyon, which is as low as a third of the size but has 4 metro lines as well as a tram network more substantial than Metrolink.
Someone on Reddit made a fairly convincing impression of what those could look like here, although two tunneled sections by 2050 in addition to the underground station at Piccadilly feels unlikely to say the least. Part of me wonders if these ideas are being floated in an attempt to make the more seriously contemplated Liverpool-Manchester link look like the sensible middle ground in terms of transport investment in the region - a shame really given how far most UK cities lag behind on transport infrastructure, just compare Manchester to Lyon, which is as low as a third of the size but has 4 metro lines as well as a tram network more substantial than Metrolink.
Mgameing123
Member
So could maybe converting some tram lines into a Metro work then send them through a city centre tunnel?
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
One thing that was mentioned was the "flagship underground station" at Manchester Piccadilly. As a standalone project in its own right, I wonder what the time period for completion would be and what the cost approximation is thought to be.
If you fail to plan you plan to fail, basically if you don't think about what you want to happen it's never going to happen.
An underground station with a few km of tunnels leading to it on each approach is very different (and much more achievable) than looking to recreate something like the Central Line in Manchester.
If you think I'd it more like Thameslink 2000 (Beelink 2050???), which was an aspersion to create a cross city upgrade to allow a high frequency core to fan out to maximise the use of lines beyond the city.
No one said "well it's now 2001 we'd just give up on Thameslink 2000", yes there was a lot of "well we didn't meet the timeline, how foolish do we look" type comments, however that's not really the goal.
The goal is to draw a line in the sad and aim for it, if you go a few years beyond, so be it.
A line with 1 track in each direction can more than easily carry 15tph, so connect that to three routes then each route can have 5tph, do that on both ends and you've got 6 lines each with 5tph. Do that on two axis and you've got 12 lines with 5tph.
Does Manchester need that now? Maybe, however, even if you think that it doesn't, it could do with higher frequencies. Even if that means 3tph before growing the frequency over time.
An underground station with a few km of tunnels leading to it on each approach is very different (and much more achievable) than looking to recreate something like the Central Line in Manchester.
If you think I'd it more like Thameslink 2000 (Beelink 2050???), which was an aspersion to create a cross city upgrade to allow a high frequency core to fan out to maximise the use of lines beyond the city.
No one said "well it's now 2001 we'd just give up on Thameslink 2000", yes there was a lot of "well we didn't meet the timeline, how foolish do we look" type comments, however that's not really the goal.
The goal is to draw a line in the sad and aim for it, if you go a few years beyond, so be it.
A line with 1 track in each direction can more than easily carry 15tph, so connect that to three routes then each route can have 5tph, do that on both ends and you've got 6 lines each with 5tph. Do that on two axis and you've got 12 lines with 5tph.
Does Manchester need that now? Maybe, however, even if you think that it doesn't, it could do with higher frequencies. Even if that means 3tph before growing the frequency over time.
YorkshireBear
Established Member
- Joined
- 23 Jul 2010
- Messages
- 9,673
Sensible post, having a vision is important or you will never realise it.
When you look at similarly sized European cities and their transport network I think it could definitely support such frequencies.
supervc-10
Member
- Joined
- 4 Mar 2012
- Messages
- 763
It's also a growing city, and fewer and fewer people are enamoured with the car. We need to be proactively building public transport, and not just in London. Making more of the city workable without a car being involved is a good thing.
duffield
Established Member
Piccadilly to Victoria on the tram is pretty agonisingly slow when you're in a hurry. Once you get onto the old rail formations it's generally fine though.
25 years is not long in infrastructure terms
Indeed, it's also an anticipated that passenger numbers could double over that timeline.
5% annual growth would mean they would double in just 15 years.
In one of his books (I forget which but it was one about London), journalist Christian Wolmar repeatedly comments that in this country we only build infrastructure too late. He commented that London is always one line away from what it needs capacitywise.
I see no reason why that pattern wouldn't be the same for Manchester. As a nation we seem obsessed with short term thinking and avoid long term planning because people think it costs too much. A belief very much in hold on the Treasury. People analyse problems, find solutions, then spend decades fighting for the cash. Look what happened to Crossrail. Decades fighting for it then it's pretty much at capacity from day one.
I would say it's a dead cert that Metrolink will be bursting at the seams for years before the necessary infrastructure is ready to run. And we'll be way behind getting the next thing we need in place.
aron2smith
Member
It also makes me wonder just how far Birmingham/ West Midlands is behind even Greater Manchester, let alone anywhere else. How can a city region of that size have just one tram line and no metro? Even Nottingham has 2 tram lines!
Living just outside London on the route of Crossrail 2, the appetite is already there for it for sure as it would massively upgrade one of the busiest lines through North London into Hertfordshire. It's amazing how they get so many trains on just the 2 tracks of the Lea Valley Line/ West Anglia Mainline if I'm honest.
It's clear though whatever city or region we are, there needs to be a long term strategic plan for rail and other infrastructure. The way government is run altogether just seems to get in the way.
They manage better because they can build stuff cheaper. Why they can build stuff cheaper is a massive topic.
We absolutely need to plan, but the first place to plan isn't transport, it's land use. GMCA needs to produce the next version of Places for Everyone that demonstrates a trajectory towards metro numbers.
Metrolink corridors already have 10tph frequencies. For as long as only these frequencies are needed the existing Metrolink does the job. To justify the cost of an underground metro you need to produce the benefits the scale of putting half the Metrolink system underground allowing that to double capacity, so that the remaining half can double its capacity on the freed up surface network as well. You need the population density and knowledge economy trip rates to produce the benefits that then justify the costs.
We are in the UK and we are ruled by the Treasury. Working to that is far easier than working against it. Crossrail was only justified due to chronic Central line overcrowding and there was an expectation that both Crossrail and Central line would be full on day 1 of Crossrail opening. Manchester will have to demonstrate those numbers. That means a credible trajectory that without capital intervention the Atrincham - Bury corridor would be 4 standees to the square metre throughout the 3 hour peak even after having all workings being double sets, intermediate cabs taken out, and 2+2 seating replaced by longitudinal.
The proposals are NOT a major underground railway line with high frequencies. No one in TfGM is talking about making the Altrincham line underground, or building a 15 mile underground line with a 1-2 minute frequencies or anything like that.
All the proposals are for a city centre tunnel. And the Metrolink in the city centre is very busy and has to compete for space with all the other road traffic in narrow, congested streets. And whilst it may do the job for the existing lines, there's plenty of proposals for new above ground lines and tram-train conversions and they will put more and more pressure on the existing city centre links.
At some point the city centre lines and streets won't be able to absorb any more trams. You have to plan for that. And that's what they are doing.
I'm talking Trafford - Sandhill size of project, not a 15-mile one. Even that little bit is going to cost around £3-5bn in today's money which is larger than all the Metrolink infrastructure capex to date. Even this assumes a very lean project with no complex junctions and no messy tram-train interfaces.
This is not an incremental scheme, and you can't simply look for incremental benefits to justify such a scheme. The need to keep any scheme lean means you need to look for that size of benefit from only a small number of corridors, otherwise the cost of junctions will rapidly outweigh the benefits. I'm looking at Altrincham (plus Didsbury) - Bury (plus a possible Middleton spur) as that's the only corridor remotely close to produce the Central line type numbers that will justify even a short cross-city tunnel.
Don’t forget the Wythenshawe/Airport Line.
Personally I would convert the Bury/Altrincham line to a light metro, and include the Didsbury Line but divert to Bury (as Oldham/Rochdale town centres will still require trams). Along with this, I would build a new stretch of street running tram track from Chorlton High School (where the Airport Line joins the Didsbury Route) to the Peterloo Memorial direct via the medians of Mauldeth Road West and Princess Road, and divert all Wythenshawe/Airport trams along this alignment.
kevin_roche
Member
- Joined
- 26 Feb 2019
- Messages
- 997
There were also these articles:
December 2020 - Manchester Evening News: Why Manchester wants a huge, new underground station at Piccadilly
January 2022 - Place North West: Underground Manchester Piccadilly HS2 station plans are ‘oven-ready’
That was even too costly for the spendthrifts at HS2.
The airport line is outside of my 'Altrincham - Bury' light metro as that one is street running with trams limited to ~60 metres in length. I have a solution for the airport line but won't elaborate just yet.
Yes, Altrincham/Didsbury - Bury/Middleton should become a light metro with DLR-style ~90m trains - doable as Altrincham, Didsbury and Bury are all completely segregated / former rail lines with no on street running (as soon as the current city centre on-street running is removed). Yes, once we are in metro mode the planning for Metrolink as a whole needs to change from planning a bus network to planning a 'proper' metro one. That means simplifying routings to minimise construction costs and delays.
In simplified terms, isolating Altrincham/Didsbury - Bury(/Middleton) into a new metro allows Media City / Eccles, Trafford Park and Oldham services to double in frequency (the single track around Newton Heath would need some work - not easy). A service pattern could look like
- Media City - Rochdale via 2CC - 12 tph
- Trafford Park - Ashton - 12 tph
- Oldham - Ashton - 12 tph
- Eccles - Victoria / Oldham - 12 tph
Trams belong in the street, not in tunnels. When the tram is in the street, it is part of that street, part of the street furniture, part of the city. It's a facility. Trams shouldn't be thought of as a poor man's underground, an 'Underground' is something else.
In the street you can see a tram coming, and when on board and moving the city-scape slides past - all visual clues and familiarity. You are still 'there' - down town. A tram comes, you get on from the sidewalk, you get off straight onto the sidewalk.
But when trams are in tunnels you first have look for and find a 'station', go into 'The System', down the steps, into a different environment, and there you might become dis-oriented because the visual cues are gone. Then, at last you can get on board a tram. It sets off - into a tunnel. There is no scenery, just the tunnel wall - all those pipes! then, after a while, oops - this is my stop - I think.
Trams are not underground trains - they are a different thing. The idea that tram networks have to be changed into underground networks is a fundamental mistake. Your town will be the worse for it. Don't do it!
In the street you can see a tram coming, and when on board and moving the city-scape slides past - all visual clues and familiarity. You are still 'there' - down town. A tram comes, you get on from the sidewalk, you get off straight onto the sidewalk.
But when trams are in tunnels you first have look for and find a 'station', go into 'The System', down the steps, into a different environment, and there you might become dis-oriented because the visual cues are gone. Then, at last you can get on board a tram. It sets off - into a tunnel. There is no scenery, just the tunnel wall - all those pipes! then, after a while, oops - this is my stop - I think.
Trams are not underground trains - they are a different thing. The idea that tram networks have to be changed into underground networks is a fundamental mistake. Your town will be the worse for it. Don't do it!
Yes but a city like Manchester would be best off with two systems at once. Milan does: a underground network that swiftly cuts through the city centre and reduces journey speeds considerably, and an intensive network of street trams which are more reliable, more capacious, and rather quicker than buses.
Manchester unfortunately was forced by politico-economic circumstances to make do with the latter. Even though one of the aims of the network was to link suburbs from opposite sides of the city; the swift cross-city journey then becomes snarled up with urban road traffic.
If some tram services become effectively a rapid transit metro by being diverted underground, that is surely a good thing. More room for conventional street trams on the surface and a more efficient journey for those travelling a greater distance. Presumably the trams on these routes could be replaced by purpose-designed metro trains in due course.
WibbleWobble
Member
The Rouen Metro deals with it quite well. Despite the name, it is a tram line but dives underground beneath one of the main north-south thoroughfares in a cut and cover box tunnel for just over a mile, although a section in the middle is back overground to cross the river. Tram stops are still every 200 metres or so.
Don't ever go to Cologne, or Brussels, or one of many, many other towns where trams go underground
I have been to Brussles several times, but long ago (the late 40s early 50s and then "Expo 58"). In 1958 they were talking about putting the trams underground, my host there was enthusiastic about it, digging out newspaper articles and wot-not showing the proposals. But his enthusiasm was really for the new roads, inner city ring road, flyover junctions and so-on and even then, in my youth, I saw that the other side of "Trams underground" was also "More room for cars". And so it has proved to be, it was the thinking of the time, the fashionable thing to do, but no longer.
In my view private cars are a curse! And we are shaping the urban environment in such a way that we can't manage without them. I mean - look at Milton Keynes - Built for the car ! Almost all of us live in car dependent environments one way or another.
Have you seen the "Not Just Bikes" videos?
Topological
Established Member
Manchester should just get the chequebook out and build a X-shaped network centred on Piccadilly. The arms would reach to:
1. Airport* - Uses the existing Styal line. Longer-distance trains routed via NPR. Trains emerge from their tunnel near Slade Lane (but on the West of the mainline formation)
2. Wigan via Bolton - Underground from north of Salford Crescent and via Victoria
3. Oldham via Ashton - Most expensive route but has the most regeneration power
4. Hale via Altrincham and Salford Quays - Picks up all the major development sites to the West of Manchester
The lines would naturally be 1-2 and 3-4.
Although Salford Crescent has just undergone an extension, that will all become redundant when the only route north is the Atherton line.
Castlefield then gains the capacity for more Ordsall Chord services and more trains to the CLC.
The Chat Moss has the express Manchester to Scotland back, but there are fewer services on that route anyway after the Transpennine go to NPR. Local services on the Chat Moss would be concentrated at the Liverpool end where there are more stations and would terminate at Newton-le-Willows (infrastructure needed).
1. Airport* - Uses the existing Styal line. Longer-distance trains routed via NPR. Trains emerge from their tunnel near Slade Lane (but on the West of the mainline formation)
2. Wigan via Bolton - Underground from north of Salford Crescent and via Victoria
3. Oldham via Ashton - Most expensive route but has the most regeneration power
4. Hale via Altrincham and Salford Quays - Picks up all the major development sites to the West of Manchester
The lines would naturally be 1-2 and 3-4.
Although Salford Crescent has just undergone an extension, that will all become redundant when the only route north is the Atherton line.
Castlefield then gains the capacity for more Ordsall Chord services and more trains to the CLC.
The Chat Moss has the express Manchester to Scotland back, but there are fewer services on that route anyway after the Transpennine go to NPR. Local services on the Chat Moss would be concentrated at the Liverpool end where there are more stations and would terminate at Newton-le-Willows (infrastructure needed).
This is all simply solved. Stick Metrolink in a tunnel, stop calling it a tram and call it a light railway.
Which is easy on two counts. One, a modern tramway is simply a light rail system that goes partially on roads. Remove the on road element and lo, it's not a tram. And two, the average passenger doesn't care one bit whether the vehicle they are on is underground or overground, because all they care about is simple. Will it get them where they want to go, quickly and easily.
What you call it is basically irrelevant. Whether it is underground or overground is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether it works for passengers.
- Status