That is my thinking. 25 mins all-stops to Alty flies by. Not to mention average wait and one-seat ride to more parts of Manchester. Cornbrook connectivity also for MediaCity and the South Manchester lines.
This all day long. The notion of not converting lines across the various city regions (especially if political boundaries are given as a reason for saying no) purely holds back the economic development of a given city.
I see, fair enough.
How about a T-68 vs a 350?
That is true from Deansgate to Altrincham, although the tram journey from Piccadilly to Deansgate is a crawl taking about 10 minutes.
Unfortunately, there aren't a large number of existing heavy rail lines that can be converted, as they are often also used by fast or freight trains. Many of the potential lines not only serve urban areas, but extend into surrounding countryside serving smaller villages where 1-2 tph may suffice. Examples include all the ex-LNW lines south from Piccadilly.
WCML is obviously out of the question. Glossop, Hadfield, Rose Hill, Atherton are all fair game for conversion to metrolink. After that there isnt much else to go at, apart from extending existing lines.
The Styal and CLC lines only merit higher frequencies for stopping trains within the metropolitan areas, which within Greater Manchester means as far west as Irlam on the CLC line to Liverpool and between Piccadilly and the Airport on the "Styal" line.
Which is why the former belongs on Metrolink. Far greater numbers than Warrington (who are served) and the main Liverpool-Manchester route has changed, crucially - so the CLC is not what it once was.
Well then I'd probably choose the 350 if the frequency is the same. But you aren't getting anything remotely close in quality or quantity to five 350s an hour to Rose Hill on heavy rail. If they were still in service, five T68s an hour would be an entirely realistic prospect.
See, the entire Sprinter vs M5000 argument is just a bunch of whataboutism and you admit it yourself via this post. As I and @Bletchleyite said before, if given the choice between LRV or train for a metro service, from a passenger standpoint, any sane person is picking the train.
You haven't paid attention to the rest of the post, have you...
I did. In a straight up head to head of 5tph, LRV vs train, you're picking the train.
But there will never be a choice of 5tph LRV vs train on the routes being discussed here.
And so, when engineering works are on, there would be no services between Manchester and Liverpool, that's completely unacceptable in my view and is why the CLC should not be converted at all in my view, and if you are desperate to convert it, then wait until an alternative Mancherster - Liverpool route through NPR is built.
I am answering the original question which was;
The question and thread title don't fully line up with what's on the poll. Ideally, it should be; "Do you prefer Trains or LRVs?" and "Would you rather have 2tph or 5tph?". If it was split like that, it would be trains and 5tph. As I said in my original post, most people would go for the greater frequency, however, would also prefer a train over an LRV.
Well this thread never said what train or LRV would be up against each other, again showing every POV will wind up being different.
I'm talking from a nationwide standpoint here, and it's you who keeps pulling this "every Northern service will be an awful Sprinter" nonsense out every time someone brings up alternatives to trams. My T-68 vs 350 was simply pointing out that your fallback of Sprinter vs M5000 argument can be turned around to make the tram look bad. Both have their strengths and weaknesses but remember that the other side also has gold standards, hence the 350. If we pick and choose, we can make anything look good or bad.
That is not wholly correct, in 2 respects:
My argument, though, is that it is inherently more expensive to provide heavy rail than light rail services, and as such it is necessary to adjust the expectations of each to allow for that if we want a realistic comparison.
You may be the exception rather than the rule. Whenever a low frequency train has been replaced by higher frequency tram, passenger numbers have gone up, often very significantly.
None of the printed literature that I have ever seen before for the Picc-Vic proposals (and I have an original copy of the publicity leaflet for the proposed scheme from the early 1970s) made any mention of services to Buxton or Oldham/Rochdale.
Yes, the metropolitan area. It’s also worth noting that metropolitan and urban areas can extend beyond the political boundaries, but that is (or should) be an irrelevant point.
All no doubt true. However I dont understand why some effort cant be made to get the heavy rail costs down towards light rail. For example on lines only carrying a local passenger service, trains stopping at every station (and thus arriving /departing at low speed), why does heavy rail in the UK we need to provide/footbridges and lifts rather than a simple barrow crossing? Light rail passengers happily cross busy roads. Similarly why do such lines need heavy signalling costs rather than line of sight driving (no doubt with beefed up brakes)?
Glossop and Hadfield are in a peculiar situation. The remain in Derbyshire from a local government administrative perspective, but from other angles (e.g. health and transport) for logistical reasons they have been regarded as part of the Greater Manchester conurbation, e.g. from the days of SELNEC in the case of transport, and from the mid 1970s for health - the commissioning body is the NHS Tameside and Glossop CCG.
