Manchester Metrolink: how could it be improved?

[Bantamzen]

What advantages does the current rail service actually have compared to a tram though?
It provides one faster train per hour, and stopper services that are somewhat slower than the tram service would be.

Ride quality might be somewhat better, but that is about it. And the tram provides access to the city centre in a way the existing railway simply does not.

Speed, connectivity to rail hubs, more seated capacity on services just for starters. The only thing a tram might offer is higher frequencies, but then there's that little problem of capacity in Manchester which could blow that out of the water. As that is unlikely to get resolved any time soon, I'd say leave the main lines out of the solution.

Is it really a main line for any reason other than tradition?
It's not the primary route between Liverpool and Manchester, it only carries two fast/semi fast and one stopping train per hour east of Warrington, all trains are formed of comparatively short DMU formations.

The primary stopping point for long distance trains on the line, Warrington Central, doesn't feature a non-CLC station (including Oxford Road and Lime Street as CLC) on its destination list until entry number 10 with Sheffield.
Sure it carries two longer distance services, but they hardly interact with much of the line other than stopping at Widnes, Warrington and sometimes Urmston.

Warrington Central gets 3 trains per hour to Manchester and thanks to the mess of the Castlefield corridor is highly unlikely to get more. The secondary statinos on the line get a service well below what would be expected for a peri-urban railway. One only gets one train per two hours but still manages 30,000 passengers per annum! I think there is probably an awful lot of suppressed demand on the route that could be released by more services, which we can only get by Metrolink-ification.

If that occurs, we can put many more trains down the line and we can reduce the operational complexity of Castlefield by reducing the use of the current CLC access to a handful of freight trains per day. If and when Trafford Park depot gets relocated, even that would go away and the junction could be abolished entirely.

Well yes I would say it's a main line, because it's working as a main line. It gives Liverpool two services an hour through Manchester onto Sheffield and beyond, services that would struggle to reach there otherwise. Maybe if NPR ever gets built that will change, but that's still as far away as any aspirations of getting HS2 into Manchester, so let's not hold our breath on that one.

Warrington seems to be stuck between two metropolitan areas whose politicians want to expand their network's reach but aren't sure how to without spending vast amounts of money. So they look at Warrington and both go "hey we could terminate our services there instead and claim expansion!". So the town would have one heavy rail service that would meander towards Liverpool but at least be heavy rail, whereas eastbound passengers could look forward to 30 minutes or more clinging to the grab handles of a tram bouncing along. Or they could keep the heavy rail service as it is.

Of course soon Warrington & Cheshire will soon become a mayoral area as well, so they are likely going to have a say too. And I'm not sure just being a handy place for someone else's network to terminate will be that attractive an option.

Wiring without improving the service frequency probably won't achieve much in traffic terms, and the service frequency can't be improved because of Castlefield.
The future without Metrolink is BEMU services on the present pattern, most likely for the forseable future.

Wiring it would be an enormous expensive for the gain at present 25kV prices.

Castlefield is a separate problem that has a solution mooted, just not the political will to chase it down. And that's why people like Burnham chase Metrolink extensions to pretend they've solved it by converting heavy rail to tram network. But unless a viable third, and maybe even forth Metrolink crossing (given the number of heavy rail routes Burnham is eying up for Metrolink), you're just going to shift the problem from Castlefield to St Peter's Square.

The experience from Germany is that people are willing to spend this long on tram/tram-train vehicles out in the sticks.
Karslruhe even puts people onto tram-trains for ~90 minutes. The Karlsurhe S-bahn line S8 is notionally 120km long!

So in one place it happens, doesn't make it the solution here.

Running through to Chester is a bit far even for me, so I'd suggest breaking the services at Northwich. The journey planner seems to favour going via Warrington Bank Quay or Crewe most of the time from Manchester in any case.

One train per hour to Piccadilly or four/five tram-trains per hour. (The heavy rail solution is going to be fighting larger flows for paths over Stockport Viaduct for the forseable, so unlikely to see that second train per hour materialise)

Breaking the service at Chester. Nope sorry that's a daft idea, plenty of folk travel much further than Northwich to Chester so having to change and hang around at Northwich for a connection would kill the line stone dead.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I'd also be concerned how a tram would interact with buses on the Crescent - removing the bus lanes will wreck the service, but tram and bus sharing space would make the tram even slower. Gateshead style forced interchange at Salford Crescent? Can't see that going down well.

Can anyone recall any TfGM personage of note making comment on the matter of removing bus lanes to ensure trams on such proposed road-running routes are not discomfited? Both are forms of public transport.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Apr 2026 ==

Breaking the service at Chester. Nope sorry that's a daft idea, plenty of folk travel much further than Northwich to Chester so having to change and hang around at Northwich for a connection would kill the line stone dead.

Noting what you say about Northwich, there are the regular existing freight services on the line that passes through Altrincham to there to be borne in mind.

 

[lowe1409]

Warrington seems to be stuck between two metropolitan areas whose politicians want to expand their network's reach but aren't sure how to without spending vast amounts of money. So they look at Warrington and both go "hey we could terminate our services there instead and claim expansion!". So the town would have one heavy rail service that would meander towards Liverpool but at least be heavy rail, whereas eastbound passengers could look forward to 30 minutes or more clinging to the grab handles of a tram bouncing along. Or they could keep the heavy rail service as it is.

Of course soon Warrington & Cheshire will soon become a mayoral area as well, so they are likely going to have a say too. And I'm not sure just being a handy place for someone else's network to terminate will be that attractive an option.

Mayoralty maybe, but a pretty broke one. I don't know about Cheshire west but Cheshire east and Warrington are both struggling massively. Especially after NPR if long distance services get moved off the clc, Warrington will probably take anything offered over 1 DMU per hour as they'll be in little position to offer anything different

I think the solution for the North west would be a unified transport solution, a bit like Germany's Rhine Rhur as the area between Liverpool, Warrington Manchester and Preston is very dense and quite interconnected. A lot of people travel between all these cities. Would Liverpool and Manchester hate being lumped together making it near politically possible? Probably. Would it be a massive benefit none the less? Definitly

 

[Bantamzen]

Noting what you say about Northwich, there are the regular existing freight services on the line that passes through Altrincham to there to be borne in mind.

There are, although not all paths are used to be fair.

And just to expand on my previous reply to @HSTEd, the Mid Cheshire does see quite a mix of commuter & leisure and are not confined to to/from Manchester flows. Quite a lot of people travel to/from Stockport, many connecting onto south & east bound services from there. So simply turning it into an extension of Metrolink to Northwich, then changing onto heavy rail at Northwich just won't work in my mind. For example Chester is a very popular destination at weekends and evenings, with punters from all along the line heading there for a night out (it can be quite a party train on a Friday & Saturday night), then returning on one of the final services. Having to swap modes, and potentially hang around for a while at Northwich is going to impact those kind of journeys and may drive people back into cars or simply go elsewhere. And there are plenty of other types of journey made that would become more difficult swapping modes.

I used to do the mode swapping myself when I worked at Salford Quays, going home getting the trams to Cornbrook & Altrincham, then the Northern service on to Northwich. The one thing I learnt very quickly is that I had to bake in longer than you'd image transfer times at Alty. You'd think that aiming to get there with about 5-10 mins transfer would be more than adequate, but although technically Metrolink works to timetables, in reality they get there when they get there, and delays bake in very easily. Fine if the mode you're transferring to is frequent, but when the Northern service is once an hour I found myself adding in a safe 20 mins rather than 10. Because I'd been caught out when a line of late running trams heading to Altrincham in front of mine meant that by the time we were approaching Navigation Road the Northern service had already sailed by. So as a consequence I added extra time in, which was usually spent hanging around the platform at Altrincham. That actually prompted me to go for a change of office into Central Manchester, as it was making my commute miserable, especially in winter. I can't imagine the occasional traveller would enjoy the same hanging around at Northwich changing modes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Apr 2026 ==

Mayoralty maybe, but a pretty broke one. I don't know about Cheshire west but Cheshire east and Warrington are both struggling massively. Especially after NPR if long distance services get moved off the clc, Warrington will probably take anything offered over 1 DMU per hour as they'll be in little position to offer anything different

I think the solution for the North west would be a unified transport solution, a bit like Germany's Rhine Rhur as the area between Liverpool, Warrington Manchester and Preston is very dense and quite interconnected. A lot of people travel between all these cities. Would Liverpool and Manchester hate being lumped together making it near politically possible? Probably. Would it be a massive benefit none the less? Definitly

If that were ever to be the case, then having a S-Bahn service might well work. But what is being proposed is Cheshire just being a handy a place to terminate other authority's services, rather than anything that improves the service for people in Cheshire.

 

[lowe1409]

If that were ever to be the case, then having a S-Bahn service might well work. But what is being proposed is Cheshire just being a handy a place to terminate other authority's services, rather than anything that improves the service for people in Cheshire.

We can only dream. Sadly though if Cheshire would fund some of the improvements. Or even a bit of joined up thinking between the three. Across Cheshire the top destinations are usually Lime St or Piccadilly and I think it's safe to say most residents travel with some regularity to at least one of the two cities

 

[Topological]

Another critical point about Rusholme, which people are not picking up on, is the primary demand source for public transport.

Most bus journeys are students from Fallowfield accommodation, or the private houses along the corridor, making their way to classes. There is a very high peak close to lecture start times. This is far better catered for by buses running one after another where you can easily have 70 or 80 students on a bus, with another immediately behind and another and another. For services which pass the university 10 minutes after the start there is hardly any demand. If we have a lecture with 1000 first-year students then you can be sure that more than 200 will have come by bus, higher if it is raining or there was a big event the night before. There are multiple lecture theatres that can be handling those numbers at the same time. We also have many theatres that can handle 500 students that would be in use.

Note as well that student traffic only applies between late September and early December and then the end of January to early May (and even then that would be on a limited number of courses for undergraduates, most finish after week 8). It is not a steady demand to justify a tram.

There has also been a notable shift in the number of students staying in the city centre as well. It was a long stated ambition to get the residential streets of the Oxford Road corridor for families. That transition has been happening.

It may only be @Xenophon PCDGS and I thinking it, but buses are far more suitable than trams.

 

[Grimsby town]

My thoughts on the routes suggested:

• Mid-Cheshire - Mostly no. The population density is too low, Knutsford is probably just about close enough to be viable for trams but has high car usage and isn't going to generate enough traffic for a regular tram service. Perhaps if peak extensions could be accommodated cheaply, that might work to Knustford
• Warrington - Yes but only after NPR diverts fast services. Irlam/Urmston are in prime territory. Carrying on to Warrington makes sense if Warrington to Manchester journeys are accommodated on other lines. I'm sure Warrington would be quite happy with 5 trams per hour connecting Padgate and Birchwood with Central over the current 1 or 2 trains. The only potential losers are Birchwood to Manchester commuters but tram services will be far more reliable than a Liverpool to Cleethorpes train.
• Oxford Road - No, there isn't space for the platforms and Metrolink doesn't allow non-tram vehicles to pass through stations
• Salford Crescent - Yes but I'd have reservations about having to cross the ring road at grade and being able to provide platforms and segregated rights of way.

 

[lowe1409]

It may only be @Xenophon PCDGS and I thinking it, but buses are far more suitable than trams.

Issue is the busses can be a mess at times and slow when everyone can only board and exit using one door. I don't know about the university but rusholme at 4ish when the sixth form college finishes is a good enough indicator. Something needs doing with the corridor but agreed that trams are the wrong solution.

 

[HSTEd]

Speed, connectivity to rail hubs, more seated capacity on services just for starters. The only thing a tram might offer is higher frequencies, but then there's that little problem of capacity in Manchester which could blow that out of the water. As that is unlikely to get resolved any time soon, I'd say leave the main lines out of the solution.

Castlefield is a separate problem that has a solution mooted, just not the political will to chase it down. And that's why people like Burnham chase Metrolink extensions to pretend they've solved it by converting heavy rail to tram network. But unless a viable third, and maybe even forth Metrolink crossing (given the number of heavy rail routes Burnham is eying up for Metrolink), you're just going to shift the problem from Castlefield to St Peter's Square.

Solving the tram capacity challenge with a third independent city crossing would cost an order of magnitude (likely literally) less than any heavy rail solution to the Castlefield problem. We'd be talking hundreds of millions rather than billions.
If the money gets even close to existing for a heavy rail Castlefield solution you'd already have paid for a light rail solution like the one I propose many times over.

As to journey times, for a very narrowly defined set of passengers this is true - ie. people living next to Warrington Central travelling to a destination adjacent to Manchester Oxford Road or similar.
The improved frequencies will make real world journey times heavily favour the tram solution for a rather large subset of passengers.

If we look at Merseyrail and Metrolink, the stations on the CLC should have pretty much all have a million plus passengers a year each, but they don't because of the poor service. That poor service is a result of fighting for strongly limited paths into the Castlefield corridor (and to a lesser extent, paths into Liverpool Lime Street). Sure, the ~10% of passengers the Warrington ODM has travelling to beyond Manchester/Liverpool would be somewhat disadvantaged by losing their direct trains to Sheffield etc, but the suppressed passenger traffic from all the other stations will swamp that many times over even if they all defect to other transport modes.

Well yes I would say it's a main line, because it's working as a main line. It gives Liverpool two services an hour through Manchester onto Sheffield and beyond, services that would struggle to reach there otherwise.

If castlefield junction vanished (at least in operational terms), it will be easier to timetable trains in and out of Castlefield, I think its probable Sheffield trains would just run over Chat Moss.
The CLC effectively has flat junctions with the Chat Moss line at both ends after all, flat junctions that this proposal eliminates.

Warrington seems to be stuck between two metropolitan areas whose politicians want to expand their network's reach but aren't sure how to without spending vast amounts of money. So they look at Warrington and both go "hey we could terminate our services there instead and claim expansion!". So the town would have one heavy rail service that would meander towards Liverpool but at least be heavy rail, whereas eastbound passengers could look forward to 30 minutes or more clinging to the grab handles of a tram bouncing along. Or they could keep the heavy rail service as it is.

If they don't want to cling on this supposed tram rollercoaster they could just walk down the road and take the other fast trains on their other railway to Manchester.
The problem is that what might disbenefit central Warrington somewhat is a major benefit to the likes of Widnes, Birchwood, Urlam, Irmston etc that see a radical improvement in the usability of their services.

Widnes alone would likely beat Warrington Central handily on passenger count if it was on Merseyrail. As it is manages the passenger count of Town Green, a station in a considerably less urbanised area with multiple competing stations nearby.

Of course soon Warrington & Cheshire will soon become a mayoral area as well, so they are likely going to have a say too. And I'm not sure just being a handy place for someone else's network to terminate will be that attractive an option.

Well going with this plan provides an oppportunity for Warrington to get a tram system for a small fraction of the regular cost.
They'd have to compare opposition to simply agreeing if they extend the tram from Warrington Central into the town centre or similar.

So in one place it happens, doesn't make it the solution here.

Perhaps not, it does demonstrate that at least some people find this solution acceptable/attractive. That is still a useful data point.

Breaking the service at Chester. Nope sorry that's a daft idea, plenty of folk travel much further than Northwich to Chester so having to change and hang around at Northwich for a connection would kill the line stone dead.

ODM data for Chester for stations between Northwich and Stockport shows (central Manchester stations traffic is going to be dominated by the route via WBQ most of the time):

Lostock Gralam: 2,529
Plumley: 1,192
Knutsford: 7,485
Altrincham: 11,744
Navigation Road: 3,178
Stockport: 20,761

Total of 46,889 per year per direction. That's 128 per day or about seven per train.

By comparison traffic from Northwich to Manchester Piccadilly is 29,452 alone. You'd likely swamp all this cross Northwich traffic with the gain from just getting 5 trains per hour to Hale and Knutsford.....
Of course, given the German example we could just run through to Chester.

 

[lowe1409]

Of course, given the German example we could just run through to Chester.

Is it worth mentioning this example has a population a fraction the size Manchester does. After combinding Merseyside and parts of Lancashire and Cheshire. Would Rhine rhour not be a better comparison?

 

[edwin_m]

Issue is the busses can be a mess at times and slow when everyone can only board and exit using one door. I don't know about the university but rusholme at 4ish when the sixth form college finishes is a good enough indicator. Something needs doing with the corridor but agreed that trams are the wrong solution.

The obvious solution to that is multi-door buses (probably single-deck and articulated) and a tram-style fare system requiring purchase before boarding.

 

[lowe1409]

The obvious solution to that is multi-door buses (probably single-deck and articulated) and a tram-style fare system requiring purchase before boarding.

would articulated buses cope with some of the tight corners in town? (Piccadilly gardens being a big one). And I doubt we will see multi door busses outside of London soon. There certainly seems to be a reluctance for them.

Would a fallowfield loop conversion to metrolink serve a large portion of this part of south Manchester providing a route to avoid the city centre as well for rorss city journeys

 

[Bletchleyite]

Would a fallowfield loop conversion to metrolink serve a large portion of this part of south Manchester providing a route to avoid the city centre as well for rorss city journeys

No. The demand is Fallowfield to the Uni, not the city centre via a massive long loop.

 

[Bantamzen]

Solving the tram capacity challenge with a third independent city crossing would cost an order of magnitude (likely literally) less than any heavy rail solution to the Castlefield problem. We'd be talking hundreds of millions rather than billions.
If the money gets even close to existing for a heavy rail Castlefield solution you'd already have paid for a light rail solution like the one I propose many times over.

As to journey times, for a very narrowly defined set of passengers this is true - ie. people living next to Warrington Central travelling to a destination adjacent to Manchester Oxford Road or similar.
The improved frequencies will make real world journey times heavily favour the tram solution for a rather large subset of passengers.

If we look at Merseyrail and Metrolink, the stations on the CLC should have pretty much all have a million plus passengers a year each, but they don't because of the poor service. That poor service is a result of fighting for strongly limited paths into the Castlefield corridor (and to a lesser extent, paths into Liverpool Lime Street). Sure, the ~10% of passengers the Warrington ODM has travelling to beyond Manchester/Liverpool would be somewhat disadvantaged by losing their direct trains to Sheffield etc, but the suppressed passenger traffic from all the other stations will swamp that many times over even if they all defect to other transport modes.

As someone who regularly passes through Warrington, I'd totally agree the CLC should have much more traffic. Even this afternoon the roads around there were horrendous, and the M56 was backing up quickly eastwards.

However is Metrolink the solution? Let's face it, even at 5tph they will still be considerably slower than 2 out of the three trains through most of the day at the moment, even with transferring from station to final destination on heavy rail. Looking at the morning peak stoppers between Warrington & Oxford Road, they are timed at close to 40 minutes and some of them are operated by 195s which are no slouches. So using tram trains with slower stock, which will then have to jump off the heavy rail network onto the congested Metrolink rails in towards Castlefield and into the centre. It's going to take longer. I'd wager a fair bet that many Warrington commuters on the CLC time their journeys for the fasts where they can. I know I do when I go that way.

I was thinking about this option heading to Warrington Central this afternoon. You've got quite a few stations leading away from Castlefield up to the ship canal, then Irlam and a big gap before you hit Birchwood and the Warrington suburbs. And these areas aren't the most heavily populated. Like I say it feels like just somewhere convenient for TfGM to terminate the services they want to run through the GM suburbs. Breaking up the main line network just to suit individual authorities feels like a bad idea, and will just fracture an already fractured network. However wire the line and bridge a gap and the options to gain speeds and maybe increase capacity open up. Yes it's more expansive but would give the Manchester Liverpool corridor two electrified routes.

Or pigs may fly and NPR gets built. Then you can tram the line all you want....

If castlefield junction vanished (at least in operational terms), it will be easier to timetable trains in and out of Castlefield, I think its probable Sheffield trains would just run over Chat Moss.
The CLC effectively has flat junctions with the Chat Moss line at both ends after all, flat junctions that this proposal eliminates.

It's not for this thread, but sooner or later Castlefield needs an engineering solution, not just turning everything into trams. That's just going to have to be a reality.

If they don't want to cling on this supposed tram rollercoaster they could just walk down the road and take the other fast trains on their other railway to Manchester.
The problem is that what might disbenefit central Warrington somewhat is a major benefit to the likes of Widnes, Birchwood, Urlam, Irmston etc that see a radical improvement in the usability of their services.

Warrington is a bigger area than most of the rest, and a railhead for further afield. Those areas you list are the reason Manchester and Liverpool are wanting their own networks to take over, but neither benefit the biggest player. Not exactly how we should be planning I think. Otherwise we'll end up with a railway network where you have to change services / modes at every council border..

Widnes alone would likely beat Warrington Central handily on passenger count if it was on Merseyrail. As it is manages the passenger count of Town Green, a station in a considerably less urbanised area with multiple competing stations nearby.


Well going with this plan provides an oppportunity for Warrington to get a tram system for a small fraction of the regular cost.
They'd have to compare opposition to simply agreeing if they extend the tram from Warrington Central into the town centre or similar.

A tram system it might not want if it comes at a cost of the existing connectivity.

Perhaps not, it does demonstrate that at least some people find this solution acceptable/attractive. That is still a useful data point.

I don't agree, it's an outlier at best.

ODM data for Chester for stations between Northwich and Stockport shows (central Manchester stations traffic is going to be dominated by the route via WBQ most of the time):

Lostock Gralam: 2,529
Plumley: 1,192
Knutsford: 7,485
Altrincham: 11,744
Navigation Road: 3,178
Stockport: 20,761

Total of 46,889 per year per direction. That's 128 per day or about seven per train.

By comparison traffic from Northwich to Manchester Piccadilly is 29,452 alone. You'd likely swamp all this cross Northwich traffic with the gain from just getting 5 trains per hour to Hale and Knutsford.....
Of course, given the German example we could just run through to Chester.

Or Elsmere Port? Or Wrexham? Hell let's have the trams run all the way to Holyhead in that case...

OK I'm being sarcastic. But back to my point, even Northwich would be a crap journey by tram, taking at least an hour. Frankly it's crap from Altrincham but at least they can reach the centre in around 30 mins. But try commuting every day where you end up standing each way as they bounce up and down the Alty line, it becomes grim. The last thing it needs is more people already on trams arriving into Greater Manchester, creating even more overcrowding. I'd say places like Bury and Altrincham are probably as far as the network should be going. Let's face it there are plenty of areas inside of the M60 screaming for Metrolink with only the horrors of suburban Manchester traffic as a public transport option, so concentrate on them rather than going down the usual UK public transport option of cheaping out and making things worse. As for as the Mid Cheshire goes, if at some point in the future a half hourly service could be achieved, most would be very happy. It doesn't need trams, and if definitely would never get 5 am hour I'm certain!

 

[Topological]

would articulated buses cope with some of the tight corners in town? (Piccadilly gardens being a big one). And I doubt we will see multi door busses outside of London soon. There certainly seems to be a reluctance for them.

Would a fallowfield loop conversion to metrolink serve a large portion of this part of south Manchester providing a route to avoid the city centre as well for rorss city journeys

Manchester did have articulated buses. Mostly on the 8 to Bolton and 135 to Bury. They passed through Piccadilly Gardens, but I think only the 8 did the Parker Street stops and I cannot remember the chronology of that opposite the reduced usage of Moseley Street inbound and the opening of Shudehill. It is a tight corner at the top of Parker Street.

 

[lowe1409]

No. The demand is Fallowfield to the Uni, not the city centre via a massive long loop.

I think it's agreed the uni for now is best served by busses. I was thinking all the none uni, it would provide better connections to places like the quays or people trying to change from saying Altrincham line towards say airport if connections to the mainline stations were feasible.

It could also provide a longer journey but incentivise it with fare zones to be cheaper for say didsbury to tameside journeys pulling people away from the core, this freeing some capacity as it's sometimes hard getting onto trams from city centre at present

 

[Topological]

I do not know whether bus 53 gives an insight into the demand (or lack of) for the circular service. Bus 53 is great for getting between Rusholme and Salford Quays, it goes through the university and starts back past the Etihad Campus. However, I believe it remains a highly infrequent single-decker.

Admittedly, that is Rusholme and not Fallowfield.

Bus 50 does go from East Didsbury to Salford Quays, but is via the City Centre and Chapel Street / The Crescent so is a bit slower. It is much more frequent than the 53.

The Didsbury to Trafford Centre service seems more popular. However, that is going to be much quicker than using a tram on the Fallowfield Loop for any of the journey.

Building the Wetherspoons in Fallowfield probably put the final nail in the coffin of the Fallowfield Loop as a segregated transport system.

 

[The Pelican]

I think the advantage of a Fallowfield Loop tram line (from St Werburgh's Road tram stop to Fallowfield) is that it would be reasonably good quality for the cost, just like the East Disbury line.

I think it's main disadvantage is that it might be a waste of 4 trams per hour through Cornbrook, which could be used on a different route.

I'd build the Stockport line first at any rate.

 

[lowe1409]

I do not know whether bus 53 gives an insight into the demand (or lack of) for the circular service. Bus 53 is great for getting between Rusholme and Salford Quays, it goes through the university and starts back past the Etihad Campus. However, I believe it remains a highly infrequent single-decker.

53 winds through a lot of different places and because of the rough ring it follows, it goes through a lot of run down and Industrail areas where not a lot of people live and isn't fairly dense. I used to commute rusholme to tameside and going via 53 was always significantly longer than going via town. Not to count that waiting for a bus on the side of a dual carriageway in the rain is the grimmest experience one could imagine.

There's also the fact that plenty of people happily take trams who wouldn't be caught dead on a bus. You mention lack of demand for a circular service but is the ever congested m60 not an indicator that alot of people like going around the city and not through it?

 

[Topological]

53 winds through a lot of different places and because of the rough ring it follows, it goes through a lot of run down and Industrail areas where not a lot of people live and isn't fairly dense. I used to commute rusholme to tameside and going via 53 was always significantly longer than going via town. Not to count that waiting for a bus on the side of a dual carriageway in the rain is the grimmest experience one could imagine.

There's also the fact that plenty of people happily take trams who wouldn't be caught dead on a bus. You mention lack of demand for a circular service but is the ever congested m60 not an indicator that alot of people like going around the city and not through it?

I never caught the 53 any further east than Longsight (I lived in Dickenson Road 2000-2003), but did use it the other way a bit. In those days, it went to Salford Precinct, not Salford Quays. It was only later when based in Hulme that I took the 53 to Salford Quays.

I agree that the M60 suggests demand, but that is much further out. I also doubt how much of that traffic would switch to public transport. Many users of the M60 will be joining and then continuing round to their next motorway (for example, a younger Topological, joining from the A34 and heading round to the M61 en route to Preston). No amount of tram coverage will shift that traffic.

If you are going to put a completely new route in then there is a lot to be said for the Princess Parkway/Princess Road. That could be made single carriageway for cars reasonably easily and has a big central reservation (having previously had a trambahn down the middle) so platforms would be no problem. If there is a determination to reach Oxford Road then go in via Greenhays Lane. Though I would look to use the line to serve Hulme and then head for Hulme Street, Charles Street and onto Princess Street.

 

[lowe1409]

I agree that the M60 suggests demand, but that is much further out. I also doubt how much of that traffic would switch to public transport. Many users of the M60 will be joining and then continuing round to their next motorway (for example, a younger Topological, joining from the A34 and heading round to the M61 en route to Preston). No amount of tram coverage will shift that traffic.

I Aknolwdge there will be alot of traffic with no intention of going near Manchester (i.e Cheshire to lancashire or Merseyside to Yorkshire) but the lack of hgvs using particularly the southern section of the m60 to me suggests it's not a route many long distance journeys favour. I could be wrong however.

 

[Topological]

I Aknolwdge there will be alot of traffic with no intention of going near Manchester (i.e Cheshire to lancashire or Merseyside to Yorkshire) but the lack of hgvs using particularly the southern section of the m60 to me suggests it's not a route many long distance journeys favour. I could be wrong however.

Routing from the University to Stockport appears to use the Princess Parkway and the M60 rather than Oxford Road or Kingsway. I guess the same is true for the city centre. That may say there is a potential to feed trains at Stockport station. I am not sure that you would get those cars into a tram to central Manchester.

The M60 also suffers from the classic problem of motorways in UK cities with too many junctions and people having to change lanes all the time. Though for truly terrible motorway design you cannot beat J41 on the M4. The on-slip is just complete when the 3-2-1 countdown begins for the off-slip. Even with light traffic in the middle of the day you are slowing to 20 for that, at busier times you can be averaging less for at least a mile. Stockport does not have anything that bad so the congestion genuinely does point to a large number of journeys.

I think therefore that getting Metrolink to Stockport is an important goal, and then looking to see how to extend East and West from there.

If ever there was more density around Sale, you could argue for a radial Metrolink that parallels the M60, but I am not sure that would work at the moment.

 

[lowe1409]

I think therefore that getting Metrolink to Stockport is an important goal, and then looking to see how to extend East and West from there.

If ever there was more density around Sale, you could argue for a radial Metrolink that parallels the M60, but I am not sure that would work at the moment.

Paralelling the m60 would never work. There's too many lower density areas it travels through and with the exception of Stockport and maybe the Trafford centre, it doesn't travel directly to many centres people would want to actually visit nor have good public transport links. Any sort of orbital metrolink would either have to be further in or further out.

 

[Topological]

Paralelling the m60 would never work. There's too many lower density areas it travels through and with the exception of Stockport and maybe the Trafford centre, it doesn't travel directly to many centres people would want to actually visit nor have good public transport links. Any sort of orbital metrolink would either have to be further in or further out.

Which brings us back to "where is the M60 traffic going?" question. Because any further in Metrolink orbital would need to involve radial journey times and the orbital part for users of the M60.

Logically, the first orbital Metrolink we see will be Bolton - Bury - Rochdale, with the latter pair the first to be connected. Arguably Rochdale-Oldham is part of an orbit and that exists.

I am not just not convinced that the M60 provides any support to something as far in as the Fallowfield Loop was.

 

[lowe1409]

Which brings us back to "where is the M60 traffic going?" question. Because any further in Metrolink orbital would need to involve radial journey times and the orbital part for users of the M60.

Logically, the first orbital Metrolink we see will be Bolton - Bury - Rochdale, with the latter pair the first to be connected. Arguably Rochdale-Oldham is part of an orbit and that exists.

I am not just not convinced that the M60 provides any support to something as far in as the Fallowfield Loop was.

People will travel outwards to the m60 from inside it, to travel around it, to come off and go back in again. The only difference with Fallow field is it will be traveling in towards it, before traveling back out again. Same principle, just you travel in the opposite direction to reach it. Sure it might be not be the most efficient for Altrincham to Ashton journeys, though surely it'll be alot more pleasant than going through town anyway, particularly at rush hour. The A6010 justifies being dual carrige way for large portions of its orbit, and that's in a similar place to the loop

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The seating availability of the current fleet is acceptable for making a journey on the current network, but once talk is made of much longer journeys on an extended-area network, as has been stated in recent postings, the current seating availability and the type of seating would be totally unsuitable.

 

[HSTEd]

However is Metrolink the solution? Let's face it, even at 5tph they will still be considerably slower than 2 out of the three trains through most of the day at the moment, even with transferring from station to final destination on heavy rail. Looking at the morning peak stoppers between Warrington & Oxford Road, they are timed at close to 40 minutes and some of them are operated by 195s which are no slouches. So using tram trains with slower stock, which will then have to jump off the heavy rail network onto the congested Metrolink rails in towards Castlefield and into the centre. It's going to take longer. I'd wager a fair bet that many Warrington commuters on the CLC time their journeys for the fasts where they can. I know I do when I go that way.

I've gone digging for a while through the Warrington Central report on Realtimetrains. As far as I can tell the only services timed for 195s are the Liverpool stoppers that terminate at Warrington Central. All the Northern trains I can find east seem to be timed as 75mph Sprinters, even when operated by Class 195s. I may have missed a few but that seems to be the situation.

The running times of a 75mph DMU lashup with stop spacings as short as you see on the eastern half of the CLC are not very impressive. If you go looking you can find some pretty slow times given the distances being covered.

A 2-car super Sprinter weighs 76 tonnes, has 570hp at the engine and four of eight axles powered through a hydraulic transmission.
The Class 399 weighs 66 tonnes, has 1170hp at the motors and six of eight axles powered with an (duh) electric transmission.

The only advantage the Sprinter has is a higher nominal top speed (75mph vs 62mph).

Given the short station spacings (average stop spacing is about 2500m), I think its going to be substantially faster than the existing sprinter-timed DMUs on the stopping services.
Obviously our vehicle would not literally be a Class 399, it would longer and high floor, but it still demonstrates the sorts of performance modern light rail type vehicles are capable of.

I've had trouble finding a train that stops every station but I found one in the morning that stops all stops other than MUFC Halt (which is basically dead) and Glazebrook. It covers the distance from Deansgate to Warrington Central in 34 minutes stop to stop.
Assuming Deansgate-CAstlefield is a central Manchester station (given how close it is to Oxford Road!) I think we'd likely be looking at something much closer to 30 minutes than 40, once you include the stops at Cornbrook, Glazebrook and account for radically increased acceleration.

I was thinking about this option heading to Warrington Central this afternoon. You've got quite a few stations leading away from Castlefield up to the ship canal, then Irlam and a big gap before you hit Birchwood and the Warrington suburbs. And these areas aren't the most heavily populated. Like I say it feels like just somewhere convenient for TfGM to terminate the services they want to run through the GM suburbs. Breaking up the main line network just to suit individual authorities feels like a bad idea, and will just fracture an already fractured network. However wire the line and bridge a gap and the options to gain speeds and maybe increase capacity open up. Yes it's more expansive but would give the Manchester Liverpool corridor two electrified routes.

I'm not sure I see what that gains us in terms of gains for the (high) price.
Two 25kV electrified routes might be nice to have, but it doesn't make more paths appear.

Diversionary purposes will never justify major infrastructure because diversions are very rare and operationally troublesome. In any case, in an emergency a metrolink and merseyrail to Warrington approach can still perform a "get me home" function. Sure it might be annoying to take a tram to Warrington, walk down a platform and board a Merseyrail train, but it will still get you home. It's still going to beat a late notice Rail Replacement bus in capacity and speed terms.

I'd say "breaking up" the network to improve local services is what Merseyrail has done and it has certainly achieved massive traffic levels compared to lines that were not broken up. The previous "main" lines from Liverpool to Preston and Liverpool to Manchester via Wigan were sacrificed to this objective after all.

It's not for this thread, but sooner or later Castlefield needs an engineering solution, not just turning everything into trams. That's just going to have to be a reality.

Well, we could argue that converting the CLC to Metrolink is an engineering solution. It might not be the one many want, but it is still engineering.
Combined with the proposed Trafford Park relocation it significantly simplifies the junction complex, and even without that it is still going to make it easier to timetable trains through.

Warrington is a bigger area than most of the rest, and a railhead for further afield. Those areas you list are the reason Manchester and Liverpool are wanting their own networks to take over, but neither benefit the biggest player. Not exactly how we should be planning I think. Otherwise we'll end up with a railway network where you have to change services / modes at every council border..

We shouldn't be talking about arbitrary lines on a map, for sure. Terminating Merseyrail at Ormskirk or West Kirkby/Headbolt lane are examples of why that is a bad idea. You end up with awkward stubs like the line between West Kirkby/Headbolt Lane and Wigan that is served by one train per hour from the Manchester end and are not very useful as a serious transport system.

But in the case of Warrington, its not just a council border, I'd argue its a sensible place to place the break between the two suburban/periurban networks because its a significant traffic centre in its own right. It's not just a platform in a field. It'd be like if Merseyrail went to Wigan which seems eminently sensible to me.

A tram system it might not want if it comes at a cost of the existing connectivity.

Connectivity to Sheffield and Nottingham and not much else. Sure its a nice to have, but not that many people use it as can be seen from the ODM data.
I think Warrington Bank Quay provides way more in the way of connectivity options than Central does.

OK I'm being sarcastic. But back to my point, even Northwich would be a crap journey by tram, taking at least an hour.

The tram marginally beats the heavy rail service into Manchester from Altrincham and there are (according to the electronic sectional appendix) no speed limits above 60mph between Northwich and Altrincham.

I'd say it would be a few minutes quicker than now, so something like 50 minutes or so.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The tram marginally beats the heavy rail service into Manchester from Altrincham and there are no speed limits above 60mph between Northwich and Altrincham.

I'd say it would be a few minutes quicker than now, so something like 50 minutes or so.

I remember the good old days days when there was just a stop at Sale after leaving Altrincham, heading towards Manchester. I think it was the DMU Chester to Manchester trains that did that.

 

[lowe1409]

Connectivity to Sheffield and Nottingham and not much else. Sure its a nice to have, but not that many people use it as can be seen from the ODM data.
I think Warrington Bank Quay provides way more in the way of connectivity options than Central does.

I think that's excluding the connectivity sacrificed from the slightly smaller but still important stations. For Urmston, Lime st is the second most popular destination after oxford road. For Birchwood, the story is the same with significant flows also to South Parkway and Warrington West. At Warrington west, The numbers are roughly equal between Lime st and oxford road with both seeing about 70,000 passengers each way. Widnes is similar with 60,000 split between Piccadilly and Oxford Rd vs 80,000 for Lime St. South Parkway is the busiest with 105k heading into Manchester. All these more local flows will be disrupted and potentially putting more people in cars who previously used the train. The best solution I feel would be a high frequency, heavy rail service linking the two cities. Sure it'll be expensive as the Manchester end certainly will need a lot of work, I'm unsure too much about the Liverpool end though it looks like most of the route is 4 tracked and might be easy to segregate into Lime St, whether it has the capacity I'm unsure but that's another question. Metrolink to Warrington would be by far the longest and potentially busiest branch of the network if it should be built, and potentially would need a lot of dedicated tramway in the city centre anyway to deal with the likely high frequency the service will need to support.

I feel Metrolink is best suited to suburban lines as opposed to interurban. I know some smaller cities in Europe use interurban trams (most notably Karlsruhe which has a population about 10% That of Manchester's). We should be looking at what similar European cities have. Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, and Cologne all have heavy rail metros and S-bahns. Not an interurban light rail system. Metrolink has proven itself with routes such as Altrincham and Bury as well as more local routes such as through the Quays. I think we should stick with trying to find similarly comparable routes for light rail conversion. I feel some of the other routes often proposed Such as Warrington and Wigan potentially more suit a proper S-Bahn or Overground style service.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've gone digging for a while through the Warrington Central report on Realtimetrains. As far as I can tell the only services timed for 195s are the Liverpool stoppers that terminate at Warrington Central. All the Northern trains I can find east seem to be timed as 75mph Sprinters, even when operated by Class 195s. I may have missed a few but that seems to be the situation.

I have never understood why, absent the wires, they don't dedicate 2 car 195s to these services and path them for a 195 in "performance mode". You would probably get ten minutes at least off an end to end stopper which is seriously significant as well as improving resilience. Sure, you can't use them everywhere and they are needed for the WCML runs, but 15x lashups on Hope Valley locals (particularly if they could use 158s) are far less of an issue.

Northern did learn quite quickly how good the 195 is as a local unit rather than an express one (probably hence the lack of Northern Connect services for which they were ordered originally) but don't seem to be quite allocating them for the best effect.