Large white elephant spotted near Wigan

[Aictos]

I see Cambridge is continuing to be a white elephant:

Indeed, Peterborough suffers from severe overcrowding in the peaks on the buses and these extra 8 Double Deckers would do so much to reduce this instead of introducing a white elephant service.

Indeed Stagecoach said publicly last year that in 2011, brand new double deckers will be ordered and certain routes converted back to Double Decker operation - Has anything happened, nope

What needs to be done is for the TOCs serving the Peterborough to Cambridge market to offer more and longer trains, which would more beneficial to more then just passengers commuting between the two as it would mean more seats on already overcrowded trains for passengers between Birmingham and Stansted Airport and Liverpool to Norwich with a end hopefully to the silly idea of using 2 car Class 170s on a busy Inter Regional/Airport service.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

....Oh it will avoid the congested road, it will morethan likely have it's own lane on there, making the East Lancs even harder to get down in a morning, most places on there have choke points where it isn't possible to add another lane, so the only option is to steal one for the buses.

I believe the post was in response to Luton rather than Leigh. The Luton Scheme appears to join the A505 (the road it is meant to bypass) shortly before reaching Dunstable where it is single lane (and will require a right turn either towards Dunstable college (which is hard for many normal buses to manage anyway) or at the A505/A5 junction (which, last time I was there, was a double mini roundabout)), and joins the normal road in Luton somewhere in the A6/A505/Luton railway station area (has medium to heavy traffic at the best of times), and then it has to get up to the Airport and back on normal roads!

 

[Deerfold]

I see Cambridge is continuing to be a white elephant:

So a plan for a private company at no extra cost to taxpayers to use the busway for additional services increases it being a white elephant?

 

[WatcherZero]

It was sarcasm, after all these pessimistic people assuming a white elephant because of personal bias!

 

[Deerfold]

It was sarcasm, after all these pessimistic people assuming a white elephant because of personal bias!

Apologies - my sarcasm meter must be on the blink.

 

[Toots]

I think everyone in the areas concerned would have preferred the return of heavy rail and at the very least connection to the Metrolink system.The main problem of course was that the trackbed and many of the bridges have been removed and in the case of Monton Green, from where the railway went on to join the Liverpool to Manchester line at Eccles this has a substantial amount of new dwellings where the embankment has been removed,so it wouldn't have been so much the connections at Eccles where both platform space and allignments still exist (it is now a goods loop),it is simply the huge cost of buying up the 'new' buildings,replacing the embankments and numerous bridges that have disappeared since it's closure...... and of course that all has to be achieved and paid for before the first sleeper has been laid....

 

[Nym]

But of course you could have just linked it into the Rail Network at Walkden with a tightish curve and an embankment / bridge.

 

[Toots]

You'll have to forgive me here Nym..So you've left Leigh and we've gone through Tyldesley and onto Ellenbrook are you suggesting a cut off before Roe Green Junction?...I can see what you are getting at,but I can't just picture where you are doing it..

 

[yorksrob]

I think everyone in the areas concerned would have preferred the return of heavy rail and at the very least connection to the Metrolink system.The main problem of course was that the trackbed and many of the bridges have been removed and in the case of Monton Green, from where the railway went on to join the Liverpool to Manchester line at Eccles this has a substantial amount of new dwellings where the embankment has been removed,so it wouldn't have been so much the connections at Eccles where both platform space and allignments still exist (it is now a goods loop),it is simply the huge cost of buying up the 'new' buildings,replacing the embankments and numerous bridges that have disappeared since it's closure...... and of course that all has to be achieved and paid for before the first sleeper has been laid....

Alas, Cambridge and Dunstable have no such excuse !

 

[t_star2001uk]

I can remember the experimental guided busway that was installed in Birmingham in the early 80s. Although it was only an experiment it didnt last that long and was removed. Didnt local and national government think to look at the ealy experimental schemes before commiting large amounts of taxpayers cash. IMHO tramways and heavy rail are a much better solution to urban transport. If enviromental concerns are a big issue then either trams or trolley buses offer a solution. In Riga the capital of Latvia there is a very good mix of tram, trolleybus, conventional bus and heavy rail. The public transport system in this country is both reliable and cheap, most routes have at least 6 modes of transport per hour with a flat fare on all modes for any distance within the Riga transport area.

 

[Nym]

You'll have to forgive me here Nym..So you've left Leigh and we've gone through Tyldesley and onto Ellenbrook are you suggesting a cut off before Roe Green Junction?...I can see what you are getting at,but I can't just picture where you are doing it..

This route:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=208537899835423960920.0004a52fabee9f1011216

Blue is the basic route
Yellow/Red would be an extension to meet the Bus Station / Shopping Centre
The only issue is a tight curve onto the Walkden line, but it's not un-doable,

 

[snail]

Who said they where going to get to the hospitals? If they wanted to get buses there now all they have to do is change the routes, the busway won't make that any easyer, get off that high horse obsession about hospital links!

TfGM, via the OP:

The 21km bus route, a priority project for Transport for Greater Manchester, will take passengers from Leigh to Manchester city centre and the Central Manchester Hospitals site

Don't shoot the messenger, it was a perfectly valid question. I wasn't asking how buses can get there, I was asking how do you get from Leigh to the Hospitals on the train using your wonderful restored rail link?

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Call this a stupid question, but is there a massive call for direct links to hospitals? We tried it a few years ago around here with buses and IIRC all but two routes were cut last year.

 

[Nym]

TfGM, via the OP:
Don't shoot the messenger, it was a perfectly valid question. I wasn't asking how buses can get there, I was asking how do you get from Leigh to the Hospitals on the train using your wonderful restored rail link?

1) What MattE Said
2) You jump to that every time, so why do YOU think it's an important thing

3) VERY easy way to link all rail links to the Hospital... Extend the 147 to Victoria

1a) We have direct buses from Bury to RBH, via Farnworth and the're VERY lightly loaded, mainly with passengers on bus passes between Farnworth and Bury.
1b) The 147 doesn't see THAT many passengers to MGHSC, mainly between the universities and piccadilly.

 

[snail]

2) You jump to that every time, so why do YOU think it's an important thing

Eh? Please enlighten me as to when I have asked about travelling to hospitals outside of this thread?

PS I never said it was important, I simply wanted to know how to get there by train, which you have kindly answered. Thank you.

 

[Nym]

Every thread about the LGB you're jumping to the loss of potential hospital links whenever heavy rail is mentioned as an alternative.

 

[yorksrob]

It was sarcasm, after all these pessimistic people assuming a white elephant because of personal bias!

I'm afraid I really can't see all this bias against buses that people claim is around on the forum. In all the time I've been on here I've not seen anyone argue that we should have anything other than a full and comprehensive network of bus services encompassing every town and major village in the country.

I'm personally quite happy for my hard earned tax pounds to continue subsidising bus services for the greater good.

If anything, I think that those who would argue that towns like Leigh, St Ives and Dunstable which are already awash with buses (see Leigh bus station), shouldn't have a railway link, even though they would clearly benefit from one, and should instead make do with more buses, are guilty of the same institutional bias against railway expansion shown by the previous Government which led to all these schemes appearing in the first place.

 

[snail]

Every thread about the LGB you're jumping to the loss of potential hospital links whenever heavy rail is mentioned as an alternative.

Well, it's pantomime season so why not...

No I haven't. I can only recall one recent thread about the busway and the discussions there were about cost estimates.

But you can find something to show I did, then I have a hat here ready to eat.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

At least Bury and Oldham are (or will be) tram stops near Manchester - it seems that poor old Leigh will get nothing more than a bus stop.
A credible rapid link by bus to Leigh's nearest station would take about 15 minutes maybe less if a few measures were introduced and would mean with one change passengers could achieve the same journey time in to Central Manchester at a fraction of the cost of constructing a 'busway'. All alas unlikey due to 'cross-border' politics and the continuing insular nature of our PTE's and Councils in preferring to score points off each other rather than collaborate.

 

[A0]

It hasn't opened yet, they only started work on it in the last year or so, but the idea is as sound as making a ship float better by cutting a whole in the hull.

IIRC, the rail link plans (back in 1996 - which where either diesel shuttle or Thameslink services to London) included stops at the L&D hospital (well a short distance away, but far closer than the bus way will have them and within walking distance), which would have been useable for Challney High school (although not ideal), and at Luton Town FC (which would have suited half the pupils at said high school and is essentially in the Bury Park area of Luton).

I'm not exactly sure where the Dunstable stop would have been, but the Luton stop would have been the former Bute Street site, behind the bus station, next to the existing station and a short walk to the shopping centre. I think there was talk of another stop between the L&D and Dunstable, possibly the Halfway House (there is also a Tesco supermarket there).

The problem with the busway is it basically copies the existing bus routes, excepting that it runs down the side of the relief road for much of it's length. A road which I note is not mentioned in any publications of the scheme, despite several mentions of the jammed A505 being a 'key point' for the scheme.

The only reason Friends of the Earth are now backing the scheme is because there is no other scheme to back!

The Dunstable scheme was never going to get off the ground after about 1995.

The increase in services on Thameslink have taken all the spare capacity and to get from the old Dunstable line onto the MML 'slows' (which are the eastern pair of tracks) would either have meant having to cross the fasts or involved expensive flyovers.

Additionally, the Dunstable line had limited capacity - I believe it was only ever single track (happy to be corrected if I'm wrong) so the best that could be achieved was IIRC a half-hourly service.

And the site of Bute St had been sold to the university who have built accommodation on it and at least one bridge has been removed.

Dunstable, unlike St Ives, also has decent connections to other, existing railway stations - Leagrave is on the Luton / Dunstable border, Luton, Luton Airport Parkway and you could also argue Leighton Buzzard is easily accessible allowing the WCML to be used.

St Ives as a GBW didn't (and still doesn't) convince me - that one probably should have been a rail link.

Dunstable though, I couldn't see any practical alternative.

 

[WatcherZero]

At least Bury and Oldham are (or will be) tram stops near Manchester - it seems that poor old Leigh will get nothing more than a bus stop.
A credible rapid link by bus to Leigh's nearest station would take about 15 minutes maybe less if a few measures were introduced and would mean with one change passengers could achieve the same journey time in to Central Manchester at a fraction of the cost of constructing a 'busway'. All alas unlikey due to 'cross-border' politics and the continuing insular nature of our PTE's and Councils in preferring to score points off each other rather than collaborate.

The existing bus from Town Centre to Atherton station takes exactly 15 minutes and runs every 10 minutes.

 

[Nym]

The existing bus from Town Centre to Atherton station takes exactly 15 minutes and runs every 10 minutes.

And takes 28mins from Atherton to Victoria...

So a rough guess would be a heavy rail service to Leigh, roughly the same distance, would take 30mins too...

 

[ivanhoe]

Of course, all of this talk pre supposes that the majority of travel requirements from Leigh are towards Manchester. I would argue that Leigh also connects into Warrington and Wigan. I do disagree however with the assumption by most people on here that heavy rail coming back to Leigh will be the panacea for all of it's travel problems. It won't be but at least the Busway will be more inclusive.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Whilst being more interested in how the general public actually are given good public transport links, rather than the methodology of the travel method used, I would venture to say that once this busway is up and running, it will be interesting to see what patronage it actually receives and the sectional loadings made. Until then, any discussion, either for or against this system, cannot be based on hard facts, as the Leigh area may well have a different travel ethos to other areas where such a system is envisaged.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

The Dunstable scheme was never going to get off the ground after about 1995....

In 1995 there were FOUR ideas for the route, bus, Thameslink, tram and a rail shuttle service (a bit like Stourbridge got, but with bigger vehicles). The council were only ever interested in the bus scheme, but even then the bus scheme had more stops on it than the current plan.

....The increase in services on Thameslink have taken all the spare capacity and to get from the old Dunstable line onto the MML 'slows' (which are the eastern pair of tracks) would either have meant having to cross the fasts or involved expensive flyovers....

Semi-fast southbound Thameslink services at the time joined the fast line at Radlett generally and only two of the four semi-fast northbound services went as far as Luton (to Leagrave Junction) and only if they were on time.

The branch would probably have had to join the fast lines as there really is no room for a flyover, but I doubt capacity issues were as bad as that at the time, although I have no definitive proof of that.

....Additionally, the Dunstable line had limited capacity - I believe it was only ever single track (happy to be corrected if I'm wrong) so the best that could be achieved was IIRC a half-hourly service....

I only remember it being single track but then I only remember it after the relief road was built right next to it, there was/is space in places for loops and double track to be installed though.

....And the site of Bute St had been sold to the university who have built accommodation on it and at least one bridge has been removed....

Possibly some of the track bed was, but the station was where the carpark is behind the bus station AFAIAA.

....Dunstable, unlike St Ives, also has decent connections to other, existing railway stations - Leagrave is on the Luton / Dunstable border, Luton, Luton Airport Parkway and you could also argue Leighton Buzzard is easily accessible allowing the WCML to be used....

I lived within 15 minutes walk of Leagrave for the best part of 25 years, I don't recall any bus routes from Dunstable to Leagrave station, there was no bus stop at the station when I was last there 5 or so years ago (I do recall the 5 and another route (15?) went from Luton to the vague vicinity of Leagrave station).

There was one bus per hour to Leighton Buzzard each hour (I can't recall if it was the 61, 69 or 70), not that that was part of the scheme at any time that I know of.

I can recall buses to the airport being either 31, X31, 37 (via Houghton Regis) or 38 (also via Houghton Regis), but only ever one of the routes at any given time (not sure of any buses to Luton Parkway though).

I also recall buses to Luton Station being 31 or X31 only.

....Dunstable though, I couldn't see any practical alternative.

Tram was considered for a few years, but rejected, partly on cost grounds and mostly because it was required to go on normal roads that were already busy at certain points (namely in Luton town centre and Dunstable town centre :roll.

But, to be completely honest, I wouldn't be half as against the bus scheme, if there were actually useful stops on the route, like Dallow Road and the L&D which were both on the original plans for all four ideas (and perhaps even Kenilworth Road).

 

[yorksrob]

Of course, all of this talk pre supposes that the majority of travel requirements from Leigh are towards Manchester. I would argue that Leigh also connects into Warrington and Wigan. I do disagree however with the assumption by most people on here that heavy rail coming back to Leigh will be the panacea for all of it's travel problems. It won't be but at least the Busway will be more inclusive.

You make a worthwhile point, that in most proposals the Leigh line won't add to transport opportunities West of the Town. However, neither will the busway as this is only going as far as Leigh.

Also, no-ones saying that the rail link will be a panacea for all the town's problems. Only a mixed transport network including rail, bus and motor provision can provide that, but the busway certainly won't. I'm also not convinced that the busway is so much more inclusive. Whenever I travel in the area the bas always seems to be vastly overpriced compared to the train anyway. True the train probably wouldn't stop every few metres, but usn't that wat classic buses are for anyway !

 

[tbtc]

You make a worthwhile point, that in most proposals the Leigh line won't add to transport opportunities West of the Town. However, neither will the busway as this is only going as far as Leigh

The busway will surely have normal buses on it which can run beyond the Guided sections, meaning that they could run Wigan/Newton le Willows - Leigh - Manchester (beyond).

 

[WatcherZero]

One of the proposed bus routes is creating a low frequency link between Wigan and the Manchester Hospitals using the non-guided section of the bus route from Manchester until the guided section begins in Tydlsley then using the Atherton Rd/Manchester Rd/Wigan Rd/Tydsley Rd (aka A577) and bypassing central Leigh.

 

[yorksrob]

The busway will surely have normal buses on it which can run beyond the Guided sections, meaning that they could run Wigan/Newton le Willows - Leigh - Manchester (beyond).

That would create some new through journeys for some journeys starting or finishing along the busway admittedly, but for people living in places such as Newton or Wigan, getting the bus via the busway to Manchester and beyond would still be slower than the existing train service and those travelling to Leigh itself would still be on the same congested road network as before.

 

[WatcherZero]

Yes but thats always been the difference between Rail and Bus transport modes, bus is door step-to-door step while rail is centre-to-centre. Many people prefer the conveniance of making the whole journey, never having to make a connection.

You could get a train then switch to the bus and maybe save 15 minutes, but if your elderly, infirm or in a wheelchair then making the hospital trip in one go becomes very attractive.