Feasibitity study into improving Manchester Piccadilly railway station.

[Xenophon PCDGS]

In a telephone call that I have just taken, I was informed that Rosie Winterton had made a visit to Manchester where it was announced that the Government had ordered a feasibility study into Manchester Piccadilly, allowing for more rail freight to pass through and with the advent of the Ordsall Chord, more faster and more direct services to and from Manchester Airport.

Has anyone else on the forum been aware of this very recent announcement of a new feasibility study, as if true, it will most certainly be a source of some annoyment to those forum members who would prefer fewer, not more, services to Manchester Airport once the Ordsall Chord project is completed.

 

[D841 Roebuck]

Isn't much of the freight through Piccadilly diesel hauled Freightliners from Trafford Park to points south?

If so, send them via Northwich/Middlewich/Sandbach to hit the WCML, and Robert Gascoyne Cecil's your uncle...

 

[snowball]

Isn't much of the freight through Piccadilly diesel hauled Freightliners from Trafford Park to points south?

If so, send them via Northwich/Middlewich/Sandbach to hit the WCML, and Robert Gascoyne Cecil's your uncle...

How do you get them to Northwich from Trafford Park without going through Oxford Road?

This proposed study seems nonsensical to me. The two-track section east of Oxford Road can't affordably be widened, and even if it could, the flat junctions would be a limiting factor.

On the SSC forums there has been discussion that the Port Salford freight terminal may supplant Trafford Park as a road/rail freight transfer point because it will have easier access to the WCML.

Also scepticism has been expressed there about the two freight paths per hour that are supposed to remain through Oxford Road after completion of the Northern Hub.

 

[D841 Roebuck]

Run round at Cornbrook (alongside the Metrolink stop).

 

[snowball]

Run round at Cornbrook (alongside the Metrolink stop).

Doesn't that just get you to the Warrington Central line?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Run round at Cornbrook (alongside the Metrolink stop).

I'm sure the Metrolink trams will be happy to run alongside 775m container trains on the Cornbrook-Altrincham line...

These are the options avoiding Oxford Road:
a) run west on the CLC with a new WCML connection at Warrington or Allerton
b) new route across the MSC to the L&M
c) new route at Glazebrook to Kenyon/Lowton (reopening old GC route)
d) move everything to Port Salford

a and b will be expensive and destructive
c could possibly be engineered alongside HS2
d looks the best short-term bet

 

[jimm]

In a telephone call that I have just taken, I was informed that Rosie Winterton had made a visit to Manchester where it was announced that the Government had ordered a feasibility study into Manchester Piccadilly, allowing for more rail freight to pass through and with the advent of the Ordsall Chord, more faster and more direct services to and from Manchester Airport.

Has anyone else on the forum been aware of this very recent announcement of a new feasibility study, as if true, it will most certainly be a source of some annoyment to those forum members who would prefer fewer, not more, services to Manchester Airport once the Ordsall Chord project is completed.

Before people get too carried away theorising, perhaps the original poster could explain why the Labour MP for Doncaster Central - if that is the Rosie Winterton he is referring to - would be in Manchester making an announcement on Government policy?

 

[WatcherZero]

What about using the freight line through East Manchester then Victoria?

 

[Eagle]

What about using the freight line through East Manchester then Victoria?

Can't get to Trafford Park from Victoria.

 

[HSTEd]

Isn't the primary impediment to widening the track between Oxford Road and the soon to be quadroupled platforms at Manchester Picadilly the ex-UMIST campus being in the way?

Well that is all being demolished in 2018 anyway.

 

[WatcherZero]

Can't get to Trafford Park from Victoria.

No, but can reach Port Salford from the east.

 

[YorkshireBear]

There were proposals originally looked at that had p15/16 going to a second level viaduct and the ordsall curve being higher. Think it died because of costs. In my eyes thats the only way to get more freight through there.... Ideally Manchester needs a new freight terminal that is more accessible.

 

[edwin_m]

Hasn't all this already been looked at under the Northern Hub?

 

[Chris125]

Why would there be another study? It's already been done in the Manchester Hub Study - see page 25. The recommended solution described below forms part of the Northern Hub project.

"On the Castlefield corridor provision of two additional
through platforms at Manchester Piccadilly immediately
to the south of the existing platforms 13 and 14, hence
known as 15 and 16, allows trains to arrive in one
platform while another train is departing in the same
direction from another. This intervention with minor
works at Manchester Oxford Road to operate in the
same manner increases the effective capacity to allow
trains to be planned to run three minutes apart rather
than the existing four minutes apart."

Chris

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Before people get too carried away theorising, perhaps the original poster could explain why the Labour MP for Doncaster Central - if that is the Rosie Winterton he is referring to - would be in Manchester making an announcement on Government policy?

All I did was to report what I had been told in a telephone call. Being in a somewhat fraught state of health, as many on this forum are aware of the fact that my recovery from the stroke that I suffered from last year can have its peaks and valleys, I was not up to the task of delving deeply into this, so I left it up to our resident transport experts to see how valid those statements made to me were. If have no idea whomsoever the Rosie Winterton referred to actually is.

 

[snail]

Are you confusing her with Ann Winterton the former Conservative MP for Congleton?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Are you confusing her with Ann Winterton the former Conservative MP for Congleton?

If there was any confusion, it would have been in the mind of the person from the London area who telephoned me with this information.

I offer my most sincere apologies to all forum members if this information given to me would prove to be fallacious. I am deeply annoyed by what now seems to be an untruth as I am most certainly not in the habit of posting spurious information, as most of you will be aware.

 

[WatcherZero]

I have looked and there has been no Government press releases on the topic.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Mindful of the reservations expressed, I have sent a PM to yorkie to explain matters and to request this thread be locked as soon as possible.