Nottingham59
Established Member
Approaches to Manchester from the south are full, with major junctions such as Wilmslow South, Cheadle Hulme and Slade Lane unable to handle more trains per hour. To get round these constraints, both LUMO and LNWR are proposing to run services to Manchester Victoria, via Warrington and the Chat Moss route, where there appears to be capacity available. But these services will be limited to 5-car trains (class 803 with 402 seats, and class 730 with 406) because of limited platform lengths at Manchester Victoria.
But there seems to me to be plenty of space in the approaches to Victoria to accommodate longer platforms, as shown in google maps:
Within the footprint of the existing railway, it seems to me that the island between platforms 4 and 5 could be extended to 415m, by extending to the north under Cheetham Hill bridge, and to the south over the River Irwell. This would be enough to allow full-length HS2 trains to use Victoria in eight years time, each carrying 1100 passengers: nearly three times the LUMO/LNWR proposals.
What do people think? Is this feasible? You would need to move the wide staircases at each end of this platform, which are presumably needed to handle crowds spilling out of the AO Arena.
Alternatively, they could buy out and demolish the Arena, which has now been superseded by the Coop Live venue. The space released would fit 4 new 400m platforms to the north of the existing station, with room to spare.
This second approach would only be worth it if HS2 were eventually to approach Manchester from the west, rather than the South. (Which is really a discussion for another thread.)
But there seems to me to be plenty of space in the approaches to Victoria to accommodate longer platforms, as shown in google maps:
Within the footprint of the existing railway, it seems to me that the island between platforms 4 and 5 could be extended to 415m, by extending to the north under Cheetham Hill bridge, and to the south over the River Irwell. This would be enough to allow full-length HS2 trains to use Victoria in eight years time, each carrying 1100 passengers: nearly three times the LUMO/LNWR proposals.
What do people think? Is this feasible? You would need to move the wide staircases at each end of this platform, which are presumably needed to handle crowds spilling out of the AO Arena.
Alternatively, they could buy out and demolish the Arena, which has now been superseded by the Coop Live venue. The space released would fit 4 new 400m platforms to the north of the existing station, with room to spare.
This second approach would only be worth it if HS2 were eventually to approach Manchester from the west, rather than the South. (Which is really a discussion for another thread.)
