h'way then - lets have your solutions. You have a large station, bordered by ( and partially built over) a canal and river, with a complex series of junctions at one end and a two track elevated urban cutting at the other. Lets try to avoid any silly ideas and explain how you get these extra platforms.
The only real option is to take out the existing car parking which would then have to be constructed above the new platforms. However, there is no extra space for approach new lines. Also I wonder where the main traffic flows are. No point building platforms on that side if the trains want to be on the other side!
You simply are not going to build a platform on the Canal Wharf side until HS2 comes along.
no. I am sick and tired of trite responses based on the idea all the available money goes on London. It is boring.
Building one extra bay platform wont sort it. That is head in the sand mentality. The problem as far as I can see is trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot, 12 lines reducing to 6 lines in the western station throat until it fans out again into 17 platforms and two through roads.
Fortunately there is still plenty of redundant infrastructure that can be used to make those 6 lines into 10 or even 12.
Holbeck viaduct is still intact but severed at both ends from running lines. The southern station bridge is wide enough at the country end of platform 17 where locos were once stabled without going to Holbeck shed until the 1990s. If the station bridge here was widened a short distance towards the viaduct, the very sharp double curve onto Holbeck viaduct could be eased from 20mph to 30 or even 35mph. A bridge over the Wakefield Westgate line at the west end of this viaduct could be extended with embankment between here and former Farnley Junction but joining here with the Morley line instead of Leeds New via Gomersal at 50mph which is the line speed at this point. All TPE trains using platforms 15/16 would use these lines and not use the current conflicting lines through Whitehall Junction unless necessary. This would make 6 into 8 approach tracks.
Second on the list would be the Harrogate lines, that had their own pair of lines into the former Central Station and the land is still available but someone chose to build a 25kv feeder station on it. If this feeder station could be built 300 yards west, where there is railway land available, and the approach viadict is widened between the old Central Station line and the station fan for platforms 2-6, on the inside of the curve where there is undeveloped land around the canal, Harrogate would have unconflicting moves in and out on the bay platforms. That would make 8 into 10 approach lines.
Leeds North West lines from Shipley would use the current Harrogate line completely as they mostly do now and not conflict with trains from to Doncaster/Woodlesford/Bradford Int/Halifax/Calder Valley.
Thirdly, build a curving viaduct from the disused embankment that still exists to the former Central station, over the new Harrogate and Leeds North West lines, as it used to do, to the toe of the extended platforms 0 and 1 for terminating London trains. This would free up the bay and through platforms that London trains currently terminate at and would allow continuation to Harrogate/Bradford FS/Skipton as planned without conflicting with other station movements. That would make 10 into 12 approach lines. This line could even bridge the line from Bradford Int by lowering the Bradford line underneath as both are on embankment currently.
On the east side, the viaduct must be widened at least to 3 tracks as far as Marsh Lane with the centre line at least bidirectional, with 4 track from there to Micklefield. Fortunately the formation and overbridges are wide enough as far as Garforth for 4 tracks.
Darlorich and Bald Rick will of course say it cannot be done or is too expensive 'pie in the sky' or 'typical crayonista' but sometimes I wonder do they live in the real world as they always dismiss rail expansion. But do they use this station on a regular basis and know how services are delayed by waiting for a route into Leeds? I think not but let's wait and see their reply. Something has to be done as again station footfall has caught up with capacity increases in 2000 and these remedies are less destructive than HS2 will be to Leeds. NR has to bite the bullet sooner than later and try to catch up with trebling in footfall over 20 years as growth in jobs in central Leeds will lead to doubling again in commuting in the next 15 years due to planned 77,000 new houses in Leeds City Region by 2030. Trans Pennine electrification wont sort it.
