Manchester If Only

[John55]

Spend £16 billion on one line (the cost of Crossrail?) and anything can be done.

But nobody can give me a real reason why Manchester would justify that kind of investment (on top of all the other investment its had/ getting)
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You said it was impossible to fit new infrastructure under an established city I presume your answer actually agrees with me that you were talking nonsense.

Your other point is quite right. There is no need for the construction of expensive underground railways in Manchester now that the 2 busiest heavy rail lines have been down graded to Metrolink standards.

There is a much better case for some tunneling in Birmingham to remove the Cross City Line and Wolverhampton Coventry locals services from the current New St. level.

 

[tbtc]

You said it was impossible to fit new infrastructure under an established city I presume your answer actually agrees with me that you were talking nonsense.

Your other point is quite right. There is no need for the construction of expensive underground railways in Manchester now that the 2 busiest heavy rail lines have been down graded to Metrolink standards.

There is a much better case for some tunneling in Birmingham to remove the Cross City Line and Wolverhampton Coventry locals services from the current New St. level.

Of course nothing is impossible if you have tens of billions of pounds - you could make Accrington Stanley a Champions League side if you had enough cash.

 

[neilmc]

Of course nothing is impossible if you have tens of billions of pounds - you could make Accrington Stanley a Champions League side if you had enough cash.

But then you'd have to build an underground from Manchester to Accrington to cope with the rush of fans deserting Old Trafford for a more successful club.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Of course nothing is impossible if you have tens of billions of pounds - you could make Accrington Stanley a Champions League side if you had enough cash.

This, of course, is from "the silk purse out of a sow's ear" school of thinking...and do I note a surreptitious "out of the box" thought connecting this with the Todmorden Chord project ?

Does anyone remember the saga of Colne Dynamoes FC ?

 

[YorkshireBear]

Given it was decided that it was viable to keep it open for so long while in other places it wasn't viable to keep the old tramway open, the upgrade is long overdue.



Nottingham's tram gets daily ridership of 2874 for every mile of tram line, while Sheffield's tram gets daily ridership of 2778 for every mile of tram line.

So Sheffield's system is performing more poorly on average and Nottingham has less tram line - so it sounds very fair for Nottingham to get more tramlines ahead of Sheffield.



Even though services with rising passenger numbers have seen peak time service cuts because they aren't enough paths in and around Manchester?

The Northern Hub does now include electrification east of Guide Bridge - which is mostly in Yorkshire, as well as proposals for additional Halifax-Leeds, Leeds-Selby and Leeds-Huddersfield services.

The original plans included additional Manchester-Sheffield services and Calder Vale-Manchester Airport services.

My tram points were sarcastic. Doesn't come across well. He said london has underground why shouldn't we, i was making the point that that is not how it works.

Im talking only about northern Hub not TPE electrification which is seperate.
In the Northern Hub every improvement has Manchester in it. Not all have Leeds/Liverpool/Sheffield in them. Which is the other point i was making. Again, i don't think this is bad, just pointing that its not like manchester suffers!

 

[HSTEd]

But yes, a non road reliant public transport system that can be put to use on the busiest corridors would be nice, but since urban gondolas or funitels just get laughed at and underground railways are too expensive we won't get one.

(Note that the Metrolink could never be deployed in said Oxford Road corridor to the airport as the roads are far too crowded and no old heavy rail alignment exists, instead it will reach the Airport by a the Chorlton route.

Although an elevated route down Oxford Road could be interesting it would have to be rather high up and it would be difficult getting room for supports without completely blocking the road.)

 

[northwichcat]

Im talking only about northern Hub not TPE electrification which is seperate. In the Northern Hub every improvement has Manchester in it.

You're looking at a very out-of-date 'Northern Hub' plan then - possibly the original 'Manchester Hub' plans which were produced before Metro took a more active role in the proposals. Virtually every North West and Yorkshire improvement is now in the 'Northern Hub'.

Like I said Halifax-Leeds getting an additional train every hour is in the Northern Hub. This isn't likely to be a 4th Victoria-Leeds service because the new Manchester-Burnley service would provide an extra service on the Manchester end of the line, so the extra Halifax-Leeds is of 100% benefit to Yorkshire.
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The stats for Nottingham and Sheffield should actually be 3,037 and 2,267.

I used the stats I could most quickly find which weren't the latest ones. I didn't even know 2011 ones would be available given how long it takes for LENNON data to be released.

So Manchester gets fewer passengers per mile than Sheffield/ Nottingham, yet has had plenty of extensions?

TfGM's argument is conversion of well used heavy rail commuter lines is beneficial for various reasons. I, however, see numerous disadvantages with this, especially when they divert trains from outside Greater Manchester over a longer route and then truncate some of the services due to 'not enough paths' despite rising passenger numbers. Croydon is the only other area that has done this.

Remember, Sheffield has still got the same trams (no new ones in two decades) and the same track

Supertram have a tender out currently for a few additional trams. This is additional to the vehicles and work required for the Rotherham tram-train.

Either way, I look forward to the "daily ridership for every mile of track" as a reason why Northern England cannot justify any investment, since Southern England has many more passengers per mile of track...

I didn't say Sheffield couldn't justify more investment I said it wasn't unfair for Nottingham to get extra investment ahead of Sheffield.

Look at the figure you gave in your previous post. £16 billion for Crossrail is over 30 times more than the Northern Hub and that doesn't include the Thameslink bill. North West electrification is being used to help justify new rolling stock for Thameslink - if there weren't electrification projects then DfT couldn't justify the cost of replacing the 319s yet.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Main reason Manchester will struggle to become world class is because of its lack of underground train.

Go and have a walk around the so-called "Northern Quarter", especially north of Piccadilly Gardens. You will see sights there which will give you the reason why Manchester will never become the "world-class city" that you make mention of.

"Quaint and with shades of bohemianism"...is another way of stating "slum in the city". The Oldham Road and Rochdale Road trunk routes northwards contain other areas that Manchester should be ashamed of showing to its residents and to visitors.

 

[L&Y Robert]

But then you'd have to build an underground from Manchester to Accrington to cope with the rush of fans deserting Old Trafford for a more successful club.

There once was an Overground via Haslingden, Stubbins junction, Ramsbottom, Bury Bolton St., Clifton Junction, Salford and Manchester. I commuted along it from Burnley in the early 60s. Choice of steam or electrics from Bury. Odly enough the train used to fill to the roof at Bury with commuters who preferred "The Steamer" to the (then) old L&Y electric stock.

 

[kleb15]

Go and have a walk around the so-called "Northern Quarter", especially north of Piccadilly Gardens. You will see sights there which will give you the reason why Manchester will never become the "world-class city" that you make mention of.

"Quaint and with shades of bohemianism"...is another way of stating "slum in the city". The Oldham Road and Rochdale Road trunk routes northwards contain other areas that Manchester should be ashamed of showing to its residents and to visitors.

Thats harsh that. To be honest I like what Manchester does by converting all the old warehouses and mills into apartments or offices, good to see that we stay true to our heritage, we're a city built on industry, we were the worlds first industrial city, and Manchester along with other northern cities, and midlands cities is the only reason we can have 'Great' in our name, if it was left just to the south we'd just be called Britain.

And you can slag it off as much as you like, Manchester isn't a bad place, it is poor yes, but that's no fault of the citizens of the city, and at the end of the day great comes from poverty, look how many great people have come from these so called 'slums' people like Norman Foster etc, culturally Manchester and Liverpool have probably produced more over the past 100 years than any place in the country, and by coincidence they are also the two poorest cities in England.

Plus you clearly don't know the area tha well if you believe areas along Oldham Road and Rochdale Road are bad, my Gran and all her family grew up on Rochdale Rd in Blackley, they're all great people, just because an area might not look great doesn't mean all people there are scum, thats a very snobbish outlook.

By the way if you're wondering where i'm from I come from East Manchester, a town along Manchester/Hyde Road (A57) about 3.5-4 miles from the centre, so I know a bit about the city

 

[telstarbox]

Go and have a walk around the so-called "Northern Quarter", especially north of Piccadilly Gardens. You will see sights there which will give you the reason why Manchester will never become the "world-class city" that you make mention of.

Too many twee tea shops? A surplus of Mac laptops?

 

[W230]

Thats harsh that. To be honest I like what Manchester does by converting all the old warehouses and mills into apartments or offices, good to see that we stay true to our heritage, we're a city built on industry, we were the worlds first industrial city, and Manchester along with other northern cities, and midlands cities is the only reason we can have 'Great' in our name, if it was left just to the south we'd just be called Britain.

Oh dear. We're back to the North versus South arguments again. Objective arguments out of the window...

 

[kleb15]

Oh dear. We're back to the North versus South arguments again. Objective arguments out of the window...

Thats just a fact mate, Lonndon is a great city i'll admit that but i've spent a lot of time down there, cos of relationships etc, and the south is such a sterile place on the whole, full of uninspiring towns like Milton Keynes and Basingstoke, also i know you have other cities down there apart from London, but apart from Bristol they're just large towns, places like Norwich and Southampton, shouldn't really be classified as cities. And again though it shows, the amount of creative people and culturally important people that have come from England have 9/10 come from the North, look at the olympics that have just passed, and not the best example as they're terrible, but the English national football team, even a lot of the rugby union team that won the world cup, and we hardly play that here, we play rugby league.

 

[Waverley125]

At some point, it may be necessary to construct additional cross-city routes for the metrolink underground. That is not, however, the case at the moment.

Personally I think there are plenty of lines that could be re-opened as, or converted to, Metrolink, for instance

Eccles to Wigan
Eccles to Bolton
Eccles to Leigh
Radcliffe to Bolton
Oldham to Delph
Stalybridge (Ashton under Lyne) to Diggle via Lower Arthurs
Ashton under Lyne to Oldham
Rochdale to Bacup
Victoria to Rochdale
St Werburgh's Road to Fallowfield

if these lines were open, there might well be need for a 'tram tube' in the city centre.

 

[John55]

Thats harsh that. To be honest I like what Manchester does by converting all the old warehouses and mills into apartments or offices, good to see that we stay true to our heritage, we're a city built on industry, we were the worlds first industrial city, and Manchester along with other northern cities, and midlands cities is the only reason we can have 'Great' in our name, if it was left just to the south we'd just be called Britain.

And you can slag it off as much as you like, Manchester isn't a bad place, it is poor yes, but that's no fault of the citizens of the city, and at the end of the day great comes from poverty, look how many great people have come from these so called 'slums' people like Norman Foster etc, culturally Manchester and Liverpool have probably produced more over the past 100 years than any place in the country, and by coincidence they are also the two poorest cities in England.

Plus you clearly don't know the area tha well if you believe areas along Oldham Road and Rochdale Road are bad, my Gran and all her family grew up on Rochdale Rd in Blackley, they're all great people, just because an area might not look great doesn't mean all people there are scum, thats a very snobbish outlook.

By the way if you're wondering where i'm from I come from East Manchester, a town along Manchester/Hyde Road (A57) about 3.5-4 miles from the centre, so I know a bit about the city

Great Britain is the largest of the British Isles. It is a geographical description nothing else.

Get the chip off your shoulder or you will never be able to walk straight.

 

[tbtc]

the south is such a sterile place on the whole, full of uninspiring towns like Milton Keynes and Basingstoke, also i know you have other cities down there apart from London, but apart from Bristol they're just large towns, places like Norwich and Southampton, shouldn't really be classified as cities

Yeah, these places aren't real cities like, erm, Salford...

 

[W230]

the south is such a sterile place on the whole,

This thread starts as a "London's got an underground so Manchester should have one".

I'm far from anti northern having spent the last 14 years happily enjoying the north of England, though I have just moved down south. There are nice and not so nice areas in both the south and north though I wouldn't go as far as to say one half is full of all the best bits of anything.

More on topic, from what I have noticed, the sheer volume of commuting in and around London and its nearby towns has the railway network bursting at the seams. It's appears much more desperate for urgent infrastructure improvement than I saw commuting in my time up north. Either way, at the end of the day, money will be spent (or certainly should be spent) where it is needed.

 

[Train jaune]

take it you just love those cattle trucks coming in from Bolton. "It's just what those kind of people deserve, they are just so horribly "common"" seems to be the message there.

 

[kleb15]

Great Britain is the largest of the British Isles. It is a geographical description nothing else.

Get the chip off your shoulder or you will never be able to walk straight.

I don't have a chip, the fact that you responded like that hints that you do if anything.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Plus you clearly don't know the area tha well if you believe areas along Oldham Road and Rochdale Road are bad, my Gran and all her family grew up on Rochdale Rd in Blackley, they're all great people, just because an area might not look great doesn't mean all people there are scum, thats a very snobbish outlook.

By the way if you're wondering where I'm from I come from East Manchester, a town along Manchester/Hyde Road (A57) about 3.5-4 miles from the centre, so I know a bit about the city

You have fallen into the usual trap of assumption-making here in the part of your posting that I have reproduced above, as you are obviously not familiar with my upbringing as many on this forum are. You make reference to your Gran and her family growing up on Rochdale Road in Blackley, which shows that you hark back to a time well before your own time.

I am 67 years of age and was born in New Allen Street, where the viaduct was which led outwards from Oldham Road goods depot towards Collyhurst. I remember the goods carts leaving that depot drawn by horses as well as the Scammel motorised tractors. The viaduct on New Allen Street had occupied arches, with many of these being occupied by merchants such as Cocozza Wood, from the wholesale greenfruit market that once was on Withy Grove.

The inner ring districts in the Rochdale Road and Oldham Road area immediately north of the city centre that once were filled with densely-packed streets of terraced houses were in the districts of Ancoats, Collyhurst and Miles Platting. To us in those days, Blackley seemed eons away to the north.

Very near to where I lived was the MCTD Rochdale Road depot with its trolleybuses and if you crossed Rochdale Road and went down the steep banking, you came to Collyhurst Road and an area called "Barneys" which had the Red Bank carriage sidings. I remember the days when coke wagons were brought in and out of the Gould Street gas depot across Rochdale Road from Oldham Road goods depot drawn by a small tank locomotive which had a flagman with two red flags and two other staff ensuring the road traffic was halted during the time of such movements.

Do not be deceived by the area of my current abode in the magic triangle of Prestbury, Wilmslow and Alderley Edge as being one from which I sprang from. I passed the eleven-plus examination (the only one in my school year who did) and attended a grammar school in Whalley Range from which years of hard study saw me pass my GCE (as they were in those days) examinations with 13 "O" level and 5 "A" level passes. The grades in those days were Distinction, Credit and Pass, of which I had many of the highest level in my subjects. I attended Manchester University from 1962-1966 where I obtained a First in Mathematics. My whole business career at home and abroad was with well-known British companies and I retired in 2010 as the senior of the management team in our Consultancy.

When I speak of what is now referred to as the Northern Quarter, I do so from the intimate knowledge of the 1950 period onwards from personal experience, not from the memories of others that have been passed down to me.

 

[90019]

Manchester along with other northern cities, and midlands cities is the only reason we can have 'Great' in our name, if it was left just to the south we'd just be called Britain.

:roll:


Are you aware that the 'Great' in Great Britain is just a contraction of 'Greater'?

 

[billio]

What Manchester city centre largely lacks is any grade separation at all (except heavy/proper rail); only a few bits and bobs around Mancunian Way are grade separated for roads (with the exception of the occasional footbridge/pedestrian subway) and IIRC from having gone to Uni there, there is none at all for the Metrolink system between Piccadilly, Victoria and (almost) Deansgate-Castlefield. The potential for gridlock is obvious

In some continental cities that I have visited - I am thinking of Brussels, the Hague, Frankfurt - the trams run on the surface in the suburbs and dive into tunnels or run on dedicated viaducts in the city centre, even sometimes passing through buildings.

In the case of the Hague, the trams are quicker and a major shopping street has become pedestrian and bikes only. As an occasional visitor, it would seem to me that Central Manchester would definitely benefit from an approach like this.

 

[snail]

:roll:


Are you aware that the 'Great' in Great Britain is just a contraction of 'Greater'?

Now, now, you are just letting the truth get in the way of an argument.

 

[stanley T]

This forum seems to have evolved its own version of Godwin's Law . Any discussion continued long enough becomes North v South.

Any northerners with chips on shoulders should spend some time in beautiful parts of the rich capital such as Peckham, Dagenham or Harlesden (safest in daylight, though).

Any southerners with noses stuck in the air should spend time in north Cheshire, as posh and sterile as anywhere in Surrey. It even has the equivalent of Kew and Richmond - overpriced houses deafened by aircraft noise, that is Knutsford.

 

[kleb15]

This forum seems to have evolved its own version of Godwin's Law . Any discussion continued long enough becomes North v South.

Any northerners with chips on shoulders should spend some time in beautiful parts of the rich capital such as Peckham, Dagenham or Harlesden (safest in daylight, though).

Any southerners with noses stuck in the air should spend time in north Cheshire, as posh and sterile as anywhere in Surrey. It even has the equivalent of Kew and Richmond - overpriced houses deafened by aircraft noise, that is Knutsford.

Just to confirm I actually said London is a great place didn't mention anything about it being posh, cos there are areas that aren't, i said that basically every place other than London is completely sterile and is just one of them places you look at and think 'what is the point in this town'

 

[tbtc]

every place other than London is completely sterile and is just one of them places you look at and think 'what is the point in this town'

True.

The sooner we shut down the rest of the UK and all move to Manchester the better. What a great way to back up your argument.

 

[HSTEd]

True.

The sooner we shut down the rest of the UK and all move to Manchester the better. What a great way to back up your argument.

Well concentrating everyone into a giant megacity would probably be more efficient......

 

[kleb15]

True.

The sooner we shut down the rest of the UK and all move to Manchester the better. What a great way to back up your argument.

Again never said anything along those lines. If you feel the need to be childish and immature then fair enough, but what i said doesn't even come close to that.

 

[Rational Plan]

Again never said anything along those lines. If you feel the need to be childish and immature then fair enough, but what i said doesn't even come close to that.

Hold on you said every town and city in the South is Sterile (apart from London).

Also that only the reason Britain is great is because of great Northern cities!

 

[IanXC]

My vote goes to this scheme

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emperordalek/4045353945/