Etihad Campus: could and should it be served by rail

[William3000]

With the discussion about reopening a new station to serve the redevelopment of Old Trafford football ground, it got me thinking about the Etihad Stadium and Coop Live on the other side of the city.

With the mayor possibly taking over rail services in the city, I wonder whether there is a need and an opportunity to better serve the Etihad Campus. While Old Trafford is effectively served by multiple tram lines and potentially a new railway station, the Etihad is served only by the tram to Ashton-under-Lyme.

While the Etihad is much closer to the city centre and specifically Piccadilly and many seem to walk to the ground, there does seem to be a need for additional capacity.

There is a freight line running immediately west of the stadium. Could a shuttle service operate on match days and during Coop Live events running between Manchester Victoria’s bay platforms and Manchester Piccadilly’s bay platforms stopping at the Etihad Campus? This would involve the partial reconstruction of a viaduct over Ashton Old Road.

Alternatively, could some of the local services between Hadfield, or Rose Hill Marple or New Mills Central be diverted via a new station at the Etihad Campus and run into Victoria instead of Piccadilly?

I do appreciate Piccadilly has a surplus of eastern facing bay platforms while Victoria only has two. I wonder whether a third could be squeezed in with some careful realignment between the tram stops and the 4 through platforms at Victoria, or whether the existing 2 could accommodate. An alternative of course would be to run the local services through to a turn back at somewhere like Salford Central or Bolton.

It seems likely that overtime the Etihad is going to become another key urban quarter and destination and I’m not sure just a single tram stop meets that.

Would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts.

 

[The Planner]

With the discussion about reopening a new station to serve the redevelopment of Old Trafford football ground, it got me thinking about the Etihad Stadium and Coop Live on the other side of the city.

With the mayor possibly taking over rail services in the city, I wonder whether there is a need and an opportunity to better serve the Etihad Campus. While Old Trafford is effectively served by multiple tram lines and potentially a new railway station, the Etihad is served only by the tram to Ashton-under-Lyme.

While the Etihad is much closer to the city centre and specifically Piccadilly and many seem to walk to the ground, there does seem to be a need for additional capacity.

There is a freight line running immediately west of the stadium. Could a shuttle service operate on match days and during Coop Live events running between Manchester Victoria’s bay platforms and Manchester Piccadilly’s bay platforms stopping at the Etihad Campus? This would involve the partial reconstruction of a viaduct over Ashton Old Road.

Alternatively, could some of the local services between Hadfield, or Rose Hill Marple or New Mills Central be diverted via a new station at the Etihad Campus and run into Victoria instead of Piccadilly?

I do appreciate Piccadilly has a surplus of eastern facing bay platforms while Victoria only has two. I wonder whether a third could be squeezed in with some careful realignment between the tram stops and the 4 through platforms at Victoria, or whether the existing 2 could accommodate. An alternative of course would be to run the local services through to a turn back at somewhere like Salford Central or Bolton.

It seems likely that overtime the Etihad is going to become another key urban quarter and destination and I’m not sure just a single tram stop meets that.

Would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts.

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.

 

[Haywain]

Leave things as they are, it clearly works. A station nearer the stadium would just suffer from overcrowding as would the trains serving it.

 

[William3000]

Leave things as they are, it clearly works. A station nearer the stadium would just suffer from overcrowding as would the trains serving it.

The new station wouldn’t necessarily be nearer the stadium but would provide an alternative option. With Manchester City’s capacity about to increase to 62,000 and Coop Live being the biggest arena in the country - bigger than the O2 Arena in London and Manchester Arena at Victoria. It’s likely to become an increasingly important destination and I therefore don’t think with all the additional homes being built a sporadic service would be enough. We need to plan for the future.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Nov 2025 ==

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.

Yes - shows the short-sightedness of rationalisation - but the Etihad Campus has a huge football stadium and the biggest arena in the country. I think it needs more. The station needn’t suffer from overcrowding of designed effectively with wide and long platforms. I do agree about the use of bay platforms at Victoria so purpose would make sense to continue on to Salford Central or Salford Crescent

 

[Haywain]

The new station wouldn’t necessarily be nearer the stadium but would provide an alternative option. With Manchester City’s capacity about to increase to 62,000 and Coop Live being the biggest arena in the country - bigger than the O2 Arena in London and Manchester Arena at Victoria. It’s likely to become an increasingly important destination and I therefore don’t think with all the additional homes being built a sporadic service would be enough. We need to plan for the future.

A new station to provide a service all through the week to support new housing is a different matter to a new station just for special events (football matches and concerts). However, the new housing will benefit from the proximity of the tram line.

The station needn’t suffer from overcrowding of designed effectively with wide and long platforms.

Wide and long platforms only have a benefit if they service long, high capacity and high frequency trains. In terms of what you are thinking you should consider how Cardiff Central copes with events at the Principality Stadium - by putting in place complex and lengthy queueing systems outside the station - or how events at Wembley Stadium deal with the pressure on Wembley Park underground station.

 

[HSTEd]

You'd be better off buying some full length crowd busting tram units. Is there a crossover for turnarounds at the Etihad already?

 

[NCT]

There's track capacity for running 20+tph full-length trams on the Ashton line.

 

[faltskog36abba]

With the discussion about reopening a new station to serve the redevelopment of Old Trafford football ground, it got me thinking about the Etihad Stadium and Coop Live on the other side of the city.

With the mayor possibly taking over rail services in the city, I wonder whether there is a need and an opportunity to better serve the Etihad Campus. While Old Trafford is effectively served by multiple tram lines and potentially a new railway station, the Etihad is served only by the tram to Ashton-under-Lyme.

While the Etihad is much closer to the city centre and specifically Piccadilly and many seem to walk to the ground, there does seem to be a need for additional capacity.

There is a freight line running immediately west of the stadium. Could a shuttle service operate on match days and during Coop Live events running between Manchester Victoria’s bay platforms and Manchester Piccadilly’s bay platforms stopping at the Etihad Campus? This would involve the partial reconstruction of a viaduct over Ashton Old Road.

Alternatively, could some of the local services between Hadfield, or Rose Hill Marple or New Mills Central be diverted via a new station at the Etihad Campus and run into Victoria instead of Piccadilly?

I do appreciate Piccadilly has a surplus of eastern facing bay platforms while Victoria only has two. I wonder whether a third could be squeezed in with some careful realignment between the tram stops and the 4 through platforms at Victoria, or whether the existing 2 could accommodate. An alternative of course would be to run the local services through to a turn back at somewhere like Salford Central or Bolton.

It seems likely that overtime the Etihad is going to become another key urban quarter and destination and I’m not sure just a single tram stop meets that.

Would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts.

I think its a good idea, It was mentioned in the Manchester Hub but wasn't carried forward. Then there was mention of reopening the old Park station just up the road, But again nothing happened. Its Madness as the traffic is terrible and people are parking outside peoples homes. Ashbury's is the nearest rail station about 3/4 miles away.

 

[The Planner]

The new station wouldn’t necessarily be nearer the stadium but would provide an alternative option. With Manchester City’s capacity about to increase to 62,000 and Coop Live being the biggest arena in the country - bigger than the O2 Arena in London and Manchester Arena at Victoria. It’s likely to become an increasingly important destination and I therefore don’t think with all the additional homes being built a sporadic service would be enough. We need to plan for the future.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Nov 2025 ==


Yes - shows the short-sightedness of rationalisation - but the Etihad Campus has a huge football stadium and the biggest arena in the country. I think it needs more. The station needn’t suffer from overcrowding of designed effectively with wide and long platforms. I do agree about the use of bay platforms at Victoria so purpose would make sense to continue on to Salford Central or Salford Crescent

It doesn't though, did anyone know that there was going to be a stadium and arena put there decades ago? If Man City or the owners want to stump up the cash for something that is different.

How many people are you expecting to shift by rail? A 6 car 195 for example is only carrying 450-500 people tops. They will need decent dwell times so the throughput isn't going to be massive across an hour.

 

[William3000]

It doesn't though, did anyone know that there was going to be a stadium and arena put there decades ago? If Man City or the owners want to stump up the cash for something that is different.

How many people are you expecting to shift by rail? A 6 car 195 for example is only carrying 450-500 people tops. They will need decent dwell times so the throughput isn't going to be massive across an hour.

I’m talking about the rationalisation of Manchester Victoria. And while the redevelopment of the Bradford area around the Etihad Campus may not have been foreseen - reducing Victoria from 17 platforms to just 6 does seem shortsighted in my opinion.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Nov 2025 ==

It doesn't though, did anyone know that there was going to be a stadium and arena put there decades ago? If Man City or the owners want to stump up the cash for something that is different.

How many people are you expecting to shift by rail? A 6 car 195 for example is only carrying 450-500 people tops. They will need decent dwell times so the throughput isn't going to be massive across an hour.

Not sure - the detail can be looked at. But much more than that. I think the Overground network in London, which is about that size is an example of what can be done in a similarly dense environment. Twenty years ago nobody would have envisaged the success of London Overground. Manchester is booming - the tram network is great but needs supplementing especially to key destinations like the Etihad.

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

I don't know Manchester but many stations close to football stadiums are actually closed on match days because of overcrowding concerns. Running sufficient services for stadium or arena events and zilch the rest of the time is an operational nightmare. It might be just possible with trams, but not heavy rail.

 

[HSTEd]

I’m talking about the rationalisation of Manchester Victoria. And while the redevelopment of the Bradford area around the Etihad Campus may not have been foreseen - reducing Victoria from 17 platforms to just 6 does seem shortsighted in my opinion.

A 17 platform Victoria would just be a ghost town, there would never be enough traffic to fill it. Or at least, nowhere near enough traffic to fill it could be fitted into it through the spaghetti of track that surrounds it.

Also six platforms is a bit of a dodgy claim when comparing to the count of 17 from the old days, I make it ten rail platforms, including metrolink.

 

[NCT]

Not sure - the detail can be looked at. But much more than that. I think the Overground network in London, which is about that size is an example of what can be done in a similarly dense environment. Twenty years ago nobody would have envisaged the success of London Overground. Manchester is booming - the tram network is great but needs supplementing especially to key destinations like the Etihad.

The Mildmay line operates 100m trains at 10 tph peak. The Ashton line has capacity for 30 trams per hour of 60m trams. The infrastructure is there, just the operation needs to scale up.

 

[William3000]

A 17 platform Victoria would just be a ghost town, there would never be enough traffic to fill it. Or at least, nowhere near enough traffic to fill it could be fitted into it through the spaghetti of track that surrounds it.

Also six platforms is a bit of a dodgy claim when comparing to the count of 17 from the old days, I make it ten rail platforms, including metrolink.

There’s nothing ‘dodgy’ about what I’ve said. The fact is that many more platforms could facilitate a huge increase in much needed services. Rail usage has increased dramatically since 1990 and of course this is also about planning for the next 50 years plus. Population will have hugely increased over that time so corresponding investment is required. The tram stop has 4 platforms but effectively 3 lines as the middle line has two faces.

 

[NCT]

Relevant to this thread, Metrolink has sufficient capacity to serve Etihad. You don’t need 17 platforms at Victoria.

 

[Zomboid]

There's might be an argument for one or two more platforms at Victoria, especially since there's projects in progress to put reversing sidings in.

But looking at the map at least, I don't know how you'd serve the stadium with heavy rail trains which would actually help disperse the crowds at the end of an event. Piccadilly has lots of trains to lots of places is a fairly long but doable walk from there for reasonably fit people, and there's the tram. I would imagine that local bus services would get a boost at the appropriate times as well.

 

[The Planner]

There’s nothing ‘dodgy’ about what I’ve said. The fact is that many more platforms could facilitate a huge increase in much needed services. Rail usage has increased dramatically since 1990 and of course this is also about planning for the next 50 years plus. Population will have hugely increased over that time so corresponding investment is required. The tram stop has 4 platforms but effectively 3 lines as the middle line has two faces.

That assumes you have capacity either side of 17 platforms to utilise it. You don't.

 

[Chester1]

Lets say the OP gets his wish and a service runs between Piccadilly and Victoria stopping at Ethiad Campus. The maximum frequency would be half hourly and serve the two terminals on the edges of the city centre. This would be competing against 10tph across the city centre via Piccadilly. Bury - Piccadilly would be the obvious service to extend to Ethiad campus when development makes 10tph insufficient and would provide 5tph to Victoria.

 

[Topological]

The Phillips Park line is one of those which always looks like it could have a service, but then it is almost impossible to find a service for it.

IF electrified then you could route Hadfield trains to Victoria, but that would deny those stations their Piccadilly connections.

Terminating at Ashburys would avoid any conflicts with the Piccadilly to Guide Bridge section, but who would use a train to Ashburys?

You could have a battery-operated tram-train from Victoria to Ashburys, which would still conflict with the Victoria to Ashton line, though.

As others have said, the benefit is more about local residents than the arena/stadium. However, there may be some use to visit the stadium at non-match times.

 

[TrainTraveler]

Having been to a concert at the Co-op Live I can state that the public transport was inadequate for that.

Going to the concert (well before the start) we got on a fairly rammed tram in central Manchester and got the tram out there.

There was absolutely no hope going back and it was a half an hour walk to Piccadilly to get a tram towards the hotel.

There was a rumour of shuttle busses but nobody stewarding seemed to know anything about them (this was shortly after it opened so matters may have improved).

Probably more trams rather than an infrequent train is the answer and hopefully matters have improved but Co-op live is a small proportion of a football crowd.

 

[Djgr]

Having been to a concert at the Co-op Live I can state that the public transport was inadequate for that.

Going to the concert (well before the start) we got on a fairly rammed tram in central Manchester and got the tram out there.

There was absolutely no hope going back and it was a half an hour walk to Piccadilly to get a tram towards the hotel.

There was a rumour of shuttle busses but nobody stewarding seemed to know anything about them (this was shortly after it opened so matters may have improved).

Probably more trams rather than an infrequent train is the answer and hopefully matters have improved but Co-op live is a small proportion of a football crowd.

Perhaps it might be preferable for concerts to remain at the centrally located and convenient Manchester Arena?

 

[William3000]

Having been to a concert at the Co-op Live I can state that the public transport was inadequate for that.

Going to the concert (well before the start) we got on a fairly rammed tram in central Manchester and got the tram out there.

There was absolutely no hope going back and it was a half an hour walk to Piccadilly to get a tram towards the hotel.

There was a rumour of shuttle busses but nobody stewarding seemed to know anything about them (this was shortly after it opened so matters may have improved).

Probably more trams rather than an infrequent train is the answer and hopefully matters have improved but Co-op live is a small proportion of a football crowd.

Exactly - nobody would serious suggest that Wembley stadium didn’t need both tube and rail, and as I’ve said Old Trafford has about 4 tram lines converging on it. West Ham has many more rail and DLR etc options. I’m simply saying that Man City and the CoOp Live could do with much better than a tram

 

[Haywain]

nobody would serious suggest that Wembley stadium didn’t need both tube and rail,

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

 

[William3000]

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

In part true but Manchester doesn’t have an underground so it’s reliant on trans and heavy rail. And heavy rail Crossrail and Overground and mainline rail south of the river in London carry vast numbers of passengers

 

[Haywain]

In part true but Manchester doesn’t have an underground so it’s reliant on trans and heavy rail. And heavy rail Crossrail and Overground and mainline rail south of the river in London carry vast numbers of passengers

Even if heavy rail was available, how many people could be moved by trains of, say, 4 or 5 cars running at 15 minute intervals? It would be no more than a few thousand at best in the hour after an event. It wouldn't be enough to make a hugely significant difference. And it's worth noting that Wembley is 6-7 miles from central London, compared to the Etihad at around 1 mile from central Manchester.

 

[Chester1]

Exactly - nobody would serious suggest that Wembley stadium didn’t need both tube and rail, and as I’ve said Old Trafford has about 4 tram lines converging on it. West Ham has many more rail and DLR etc options. I’m simply saying that Man City and the CoOp Live could do with much better than a tram

Any BCR reliant on match day traffic would be really poor. The club would need to pay for the relevant upgrades and is unlikely to want to either. I might be out of date but a few years ago the limitation on Ashton line service frequency was power supply. CoOp Live has a much lower capacity than the stadium and the trams and buses should be fine.

 

[Brubulus]

Twickenham only has heavy rail and can really struggle - I'd suspect more so than the Manchester stadiums since far less people drive and far more travel by rail. Sports fans are generally not adverse to a longer walk, so I would guess many Etihad attendees walk from Piccadilly. On the other hand, concert attendance defiantly struggles more, as there are often even less drivers and attendees are less willing to walk, though this would be more of a problem for concerts at the Etihad than events at co-op live, which the tram (with reasonable planning) should be able to handle.

 

[NCT]

In part true but Manchester doesn’t have an underground so it’s reliant on trans and heavy rail. And heavy rail Crossrail and Overground and mainline rail south of the river in London carry vast numbers of passengers

Manchester does not have those vast numbers of passengers to carry.

Whether a rail mode is called underground, heavy, or light is irrelevant. The simple matter is Metrolink is running well below infrastructure capacity, and utilising that capacity would be more cost effective than any heavy rail alternatives.

 

[William3000]

Manchester does not have those vast numbers of passengers to carry.

Whether a rail mode is called underground, heavy, or light is irrelevant. The simple matter is Metrolink is running well below infrastructure capacity, and utilising that capacity would be more cost effective than any heavy rail alternatives.

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.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A 17 platform Victoria would just be a ghost town, there would never be enough traffic to fill it. Or at least, nowhere near enough traffic to fill it could be fitted into it through the spaghetti of track that surrounds it.

Also six platforms is a bit of a dodgy claim when comparing to the count of 17 from the old days, I make it ten rail platforms, including metrolink.

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.