Etihad Campus: could and should it be served by rail

[Norm_D_Ploom]

Rail has a minor impact compared to the tube lines as it is incapable of providing the same service levels.

I always use Chiltern from Wembley Stadium station and I'm not sure I agree with that statement

 

[NCT]

I always use Chiltern from Wembley Stadium station and I'm not sure I agree with that statement

What frequency and train length does Chiltern run on match days? The capacity provided there would be a rounding error in relation to the ~30tph underground lines.

 

[Haywain]

I always use Chiltern from Wembley Stadium station and I'm not sure I agree with that statement

What frequency of service can you get there? At Wembley Park there are two lines with high frequency services providing good capacity to a variety of points in central London.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It is worth noting, though, that when Chiltern provide this service it's normally at the expense of withdrawing a big load of other stuff, sometimes even the whole service north of Banbury or on the Met branch. This has been hotly debated as to whether it is appropriate - I certainly have some issues with the idea of it, and I doubt Northern pulling, say, the Hadfield and Marple services entirely to resource an Etihad shuttle would be seen as acceptable.

 

[William3000]

Old Victoria would have been unfit for purpose just like current Victoria. But a station with six or eight 400m through platforms and a high quality elevated concourse would be extremely useful as Manchester's second intercity station rather than just as a glorified diesel Liverpool Central, just the matter of the Arena in the way.

Agreed

 

[NCT]

This is about high quality transport planning. The metropolitan area has a population approaching 3 million and rapidly growing. This is about sensible sustainable urban planning - not 1970s thinking.

It's about evidence based planning. 'High quality transport planning' vs '1970s thinking' is just emotive and meaningless.

It's the carrying capacity that matters and frequent light rail with 60m trains can provide that. Match day traffic alone will never make the business case for such a service provision, however a realistic medium-term combined land use and transport strategy can make a 20-30tph Metrolink Ashton line wash its face.

Any heavy rail solution for Etihad would likely only provide Coventry Arena level of capacity that would be completely overwhelmed by match day numbers so you'd have to close the station on match days.

 

[Zomboid]

The Chiltern service from Wembley Stadium is certainly useful for some purposes, but the heavy lifting is done at Wembley Park by the two tube lines.

Etihad is a different kind of beast - where are people trying to go after an event there? If it's football then chances are a lot of them will be walking away in every direction. The coop arena might actually be a bigger problem despite being 1/4-1/3 the size since those events might attract more out of town people who won't be familiar with the options beyond the tram map.

 

[William3000]

The Chiltern service from Wembley Stadium is certainly useful for some purposes, but the heavy lifting is done at Wembley Park by the two tube lines.

Etihad is a different kind of beast - where are people trying to go after an event there? If it's football then chances are a lot of them will be walking away in every direction. The coop arena might actually be a bigger problem despite being 1/4-1/3 the size since those events might attract more out of town people who won't be familiar with the options beyond the tram map.

It’s every direction - but most are heading back to the city centre

 

[Norm_D_Ploom]

What frequency and train length does Chiltern run on match days? The capacity provided there would be a rounding error in relation to the ~30tph underground lines.

From personal experience I would say 6 or 8 car. I'm not sure about frequency in total because I'm only usually concerned about getting my train to whichever station I've decided to park at. However it not unusual to see a couple of q's go while waiting so I'd guess around 5 / 10 minutes between services for 90 minutes or so around the scheduled end of the game ?

If I'm ever going back to London it's much easier to get Chiltern and then the short walk to Baker St to continue to KX. By the time I'm there I might have got to Baker St on LU.

 

[Chester1]

This is about high quality transport planning. The metropolitan area has a population approaching 3 million and rapidly growing. This is about sensible sustainable urban planning - not 1970s thinking.

Rebuilding a short section of viaduct and opening one station could be planned and built in under five years. There is no indication it will be necessary within that timeframe. It will be on TfGMs radar as a potential long term project and unless and until the Holt Town redevelopment starts in earnst there simply isn’t the demand on a day to day basis to justify shelling out low hundreds of millions of pounds. Even then the business case would be iffy because the alternative of extending a Metrolink service from Piccadilly is much cheaper.

 

[HSTEd]

The metrolink journey from Etihad Campus to Piccadilly railway station is about seven minutes.

At even 15 trams per hour the average journey time is nine minutes with a random arrival at the tram stop. At 30 trams per hour the average would be eight minutes.

It would not be unusual to still be waiting for a 4-tph heavy rail service when the tram gets you to the destination.

 

[biggerisbetter]

As someone who has a season ticket at the Etihad in the south stand, it is quicker for me to walk to Piccadilly than to walk to the tram stop, queue and then travel by tram. Even if you end up boarding a tram from the Ashton line anyway, there are always people alighting at Piccadilly so you can almost always get on the first one.

It would be interesting to see the comparison of numbers using the trams on a match day versus a sold out event at Co-op Live as I imagine a lower proportion drive to the arena and more as a proportion will be heading to the city centre than the more dispersed patterns from the game and higher number using the dedicated express buses.

There is significant scope to improve the matchday and event services however with more frequent trams and eliminating the use of single units. Hopefully this could be achieved once the Next Generation Vehicles are ordered which I understand will be full length. I have also wondered if providing some stabling sidings either in the triangle between Asda, the canal and the tram line for 2-3 post-event crowd busting double-length units would be of value once additional trams are delivered in the future.

I think for the reasons set out, I don’t think a dedicated heavy rail service would be of value to serve the area as unlike Old Trafford, a line with an existing regular passenger service doesn’t pass adjacent to the site and it is difficult to see how such an additional or diverted service could be provided on the already congested network.

More could potentially be made of the proximity of Ashburys station however for people travelling to the east as services there are reasonably regular. Perhaps a free shuttle bus on event days coupled with making the station step free over the longer term (I’d like to see the line four tracked with two tracks forming part of a new metro line with a tunnel through the city centre but I think that is taking the thread too far off topic).

 

[NCT]

Whenever there's a game on at White Hart Lane, most people walk the bit to/from Seven Sisters, which is similar to the Piccadilly - Etihad distance.

 

[Birkonian]

The metrolink journey from Etihad Campus to Piccadilly railway station is about seven minutes.

At even 15 trams per hour the average journey time is nine minutes with a random arrival at the tram stop. At 30 trams per hour the average would be eight minutes.

It would not be unusual to still be waiting for a 4-tph heavy rail service when the tram gets you to the destination.

I attended the sold out Lady Gaga concert at Co-op Live last month. It was less than 20 minutes from leaving the venue to stepping off the tram in the city centre. Impressive.

 

[HSTEd]

As someone who has a season ticket at the Etihad in the south stand, it is quicker for me to walk to Piccadilly than to walk to the tram stop, queue and then travel by tram. Even if you end up boarding a tram from the Ashton line anyway, there are always people alighting at Piccadilly so you can almost always get on the first one.

If you were going to do anything, I'd suggest a single track tram line along Ashton New Road past the southern side of the station, with a one platform tram stop for the southern exits. It could be operated as a loop with the service through the normal station. About 1300m of track along a roadside/road.

Although even that would be way more expensive than simply buying crowdbusters.

 

[Topological]

Reinstating the chord at Piccadilly is expensive to provide a very sporadic service. Victoria is getting full to the brim and terminating there will be difficult.

That is one that often comes up.

It could make a good service from the East of Piccadilly (0 and -1) and then round to Victoria and north instead of via Castlefield.

However, as is always pointed out in these threads the curve didnt actually connect with the east most pair of tracks and had diamond crossings. As such the curve would be essentially useless.

Whether you could force a new alignment through before the whole area is built upon I do not know. It looks possible, but would be more expensive than the present disused viaduct makes it look.

That is a curve that could have value, but is well into the category of not going to happen.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That is one that often comes up.

It could make a good service from the East of Piccadilly (0 and -1) and then round to Victoria and north instead of via Castlefield.

Totally agree. Indeed I think it would be far more valuable than the Ordsall Chord in some ways by allowing some long distance services to be taken off Castlefield and put into the main train shed instead (where you could create additional platforms on the north side fairly easily as it's just a car park, though doing things like sending the Norwich that way would require other changes such as sending it via Marple instead of Hazel Grove else it'd have to cross the formation). But I'd also agree it's relatively unlikely, and Etihad isn't really justification for it on its own, indeed you might well actively not want to clog up the capacity of it were it built by putting a station there unless loops were possible.

 

[Zomboid]

Some of that is already possible to some extent - take the EMR via Denton to Victoria and get it off Castlefield, for example.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Some of that is already possible to some extent - take the EMR via Denton to Victoria and get it off Castlefield, for example.

I seem to recall that until HS2 Phase 2B happens (i.e. pretty much never) additional trains via Denton are too hard to path because Stockport viaduct is just too busy and they'd need to cross the formation. Otherwise a Stockport to Manchester Victoria twice an hour might actually be quite useful; one of those could actually be the Norwich.

 

[Zomboid]

It's one of those things where you could throw a bit of money at it and maybe achieve something. Obviously there's paths and platforms at Victoria to consider, but putting that aside... Stockport is due a resignalling at some point, perhaps pairing the lines by use over the viaduct would reduce the conflicts and allow some trains to run to Victoria, including anything that goes down the Hope Valley.

 

[Topological]

Totally agree. Indeed I think it would be far more valuable than the Ordsall Chord in some ways by allowing some long distance services to be taken off Castlefield and put into the main train shed instead (where you could create additional platforms on the north side fairly easily as it's just a car park, though doing things like sending the Norwich that way would require other changes such as sending it via Marple instead of Hazel Grove else it'd have to cross the formation). But I'd also agree it's relatively unlikely, and Etihad isn't really justification for it on its own, indeed you might well actively not want to clog up the capacity of it were it built by putting a station there unless loops were possible.

I would see Etihad as a Coventry Arena type solution with no trains on matchdays. I think there might be demand for the area during normal times.

Given what was spent on the Ordsall chord, perhaps a completely new chord is not impossible.

However, like Ordsall, the necessary platforms to gain full benefit at Piccadilly require building and that is probably where it all falls down (even if the chord itself can be paid for)

 

[HSTEd]

Any rebuild of Manchester Victoria with additional platforms is going to be extremely expensive and disruptive, and I have to ask whether (given that money is already budgeted for a rebuild at Oxford Road regardless) that is truly the best place to spend the money in the Manchester area.

Concentrating the money on the Deansgate-Oxford Road-Piccadilly station complex and its approaches would seem (to me) to be the better option.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Whenever there's a game on at White Hart Lane, most people walk the bit to/from Seven Sisters, which is similar to the Piccadilly - Etihad distance.

It is indeed so. Ballpark 1.8 miles walk for both of these.

And, of course, it's another 1.8 miles back again afterwards!

 

[The Planner]

Some of that is already possible to some extent - take the EMR via Denton to Victoria and get it off Castlefield, for example

You still end up crossing it though. Are you then re-routing via Chat Moss?

 

[Zomboid]

You still end up crossing it though. Are you then re-routing via Chat Moss?

I mean, it's not happening is it? But yeah, it would then have to go via Chat Moss.