Manchester - Stalybridge Electrification

[LNW-GW Joint]

I wonder of people would be happy about Vic being closed for "electrification" if they understood that only about 200 yards was being electrified..

It probably means for the Deal St-Salford Crescent wiring as well (1 mile).

 

[Railrover700]

I wonder of people would be happy about Vic being closed for "electrification" if they understood that only about 200 yards was being electrified..

Or, as previously mentioned in this thread, that in the provisional May timetable only 1 out of 25 departures per hour are electric services......

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced/MCV/2018/05/31/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

 

[childwallblues]

Is that the 0600 to Liverpool Lime Street?

 

[Geeves]

The 0600 is down as a 319 but it has no corresponding move that puts it in the reverse siding. You only can only guess it's going to work in from Oxford Rd or somewhere later after the peaks the previous day. So yes with no wires to Bolton, Vic will have the grand total of 1 electric departure per day.

 

[Railrover700]

The 0600 is down as a 319 but it has no corresponding move that puts it in the reverse siding. You only can only guess it's going to work in from Oxford Rd or somewhere later after the peaks the previous day. So yes with no wires to Bolton, Vic will have the grand total of 1 electric departure per day.

Thanks, I was referring to the hourly Preston 319 once the wires to Bolton are complete, but I hadn't spotted the 0600.

 

[Geeves]

A few more bits of OHLE bridge attachments were going up when I finished at 2330 last night around the red bank area/Collyhurst Road.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Is there any current news as to what will eventually happen to the viaduct that once led to the Red Bank carriage sidings?

 

[TBirdFrank]

Regarding my complaint about the destruction of the direct links between Tameside and the North East, I have received an email from TPE telling me there will be improvements that they cannot tell me about at an unspecified date sometime in the future.

I am understandably somewhat underwhelmed by this emphatic attempt at p.r. smoothing of troubled waters!

 

[Eccles1983]

The villages of Mossley, Greenfield, Marsden and Slaithwaite are getting a bum deal from TPE.

As much as its cool to bash Northern, the service levels provided are much better than TPE's offerings.

From May the line and stations are getting shafted quite frankly.

 

[faltskog36abba]

The villages of Mossley, Greenfield, Marsden and Slaithwaite are getting a bum deal from TPE.

As much as its cool to bash Northern, the service levels provided are much better than TPE's offerings.

From May the line and stations are getting shafted quite frankly.

I agree about those villages-I presume its all change at stalyvegas?. What about people travelling from those villages to do shopping in Ashton market? I know of a few elderly people who do and I cant see them changing trains. There is a late night service all stops from Trans pennine -ex Liverpool, and also one from Piccadilly via the Ordsall chord on Friday/Saturday - Well it was on real time trains last week .But not now.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I agree about those villages-I presume its all change at stalyvegas?. What about people travelling from those villages to do shopping in Ashton market? I know of a few elderly people who do and I cant see them changing trains. There is a late night service all stops from Trans pennine -ex Liverpool, and also one from Piccadilly via the Ordsall chord on Friday/Saturday - Well it was on real time trains last week .But not now.

Do people from Marsden and Slaithwaite, two of the four towns referred to in the posting by Eccles1983, actually shop at Ashton market....

 

[TBirdFrank]

It doesn't matter whether they do or not - what does matter is the cavalier attitude of public transport carriers on a busy route like this. People have built their lives and travelling habits on traditional stopping patterns but that doesn't matter to today's breed of transport planners who only see statistics and not need.

 

[keith1879]

It doesn't matter whether they do or not - what does matter is the cavalier attitude of public transport carriers on a busy route like this. People have built their lives and travelling habits on traditional stopping patterns but that doesn't matter to today's breed of transport planners who only see statistics and not need.

How do you measure "need" if not with statistics? No doubt the changed stopping patterns will inconvenience some people (change always does) but I suspect that it will meet with approval from others. It's the net effect that matters.

 

[TBirdFrank]

If your only train to work or college is summarily removed and there is no equivalent replacement they might as well have closed the line and ripped it up. People build their lives on service patterns, so the destruction of links in the fashion experienced during blockades or as a result of modification to service patterns like these is a public disgrace.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Referring back to the earlier posting of Mossley and Greenfield, the two towns on the western side of the Pennines, in relation to the stated "shopping in Ashton", is no one aware that Oldham has a very large sized shopping facility and a modern bus station in its town centre that can be seen as alternative to Ashton.

 

[Buspilot]

The problem is that they have chopped and keep chopping the bus services in the area.. There may be a modern bus station at Oldham and they are rebuilding the one at Ashton again, but if you don't have bus services for the people to use, what is the point?
It is an attack on public transport by rail and bus whatever way you look at it.

 

[edwin_m]

The problem is that they have chopped and keep chopping the bus services in the area.. There may be a modern bus station at Oldham and they are rebuilding the one at Ashton again, but if you don't have bus services for the people to use, what is the point?
It is an attack on public transport by rail and bus whatever way you look at it.

"They" in this case being the privatised and de-regulated bus operators, with the public sector having virtually no powers over commercial services. Perhaps GM's bus franchising proposals will sort this one out.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The villages of Mossley, Greenfield, Marsden and Slaithwaite are getting a bum deal from TPE.

As much as its cool to bash Northern, the service levels provided are much better than TPE's offerings.

From May the line and stations are getting shafted quite frankly.

It's not entirely TPE's fault. Isn't the whole 6tph thing a DfT-driven thing rather than the TOCs?

Agree that it sucks though. It isn't any better on the other side of Huddersfield, with our (Batley's) present evenly-spaced 2tph replaced with an uneven 2tph which will already be full of longer-distance passengers. Oh, and we lose our call on the Calder Valley service too!

 

[61653 HTAFC]

How do you measure "need" if not with statistics? No doubt the changed stopping patterns will inconvenience some people (change always does) but I suspect that it will meet with approval from others. It's the net effect that matters.

It'll meet with approval from well-paid people who can now travel direct to their jobs in Leeds rather than changing at Huddersfield. The problem being that those people will probably still change at Huddersfield if it means getting into Leeds 10 minutes or so sooner.

 

[ianhr]

Surely it's the result of a cheapskate method [i.e. without spending ANY money on infrastructure] of being seen to be doing something about the appalling Leeds-Manchester service. The consequence is that all intermediate communities except Huddersfield will suffer even though the smaller stations are busy and well used. WYPTE and TfGM should be intervening as they have a responsibility for local journeys. The only way to retain a reasonable service to the smaller stations AND speed up the longer distance trains would be to spend a lot of money on re-quadrupling where possible, passing loops and additional platform capacity, AND ELECTRIFICATION!

 

[faltskog36abba]

Referring back to the earlier posting of Mossley and Greenfield, the two towns on the western side of the Pennines, in relation to the stated "shopping in Ashton", is no one aware that Oldham has a very large sized shopping facility and a modern bus station in its town centre that can be seen as alternative to Ashton.

In reply to your post about Slaithwaite and Marsden ,I meant Mossley and Saddleworth for shopping. I know Oldham town centre isn't far away, But try telling that to people who have been using this route for many years. I'm in agreement here with another poster-The line needs passing loops, quadruple lines where possible.

 

[TBirdFrank]

Hear Hear!!!

If I got my crayons out I could go MCV/Middleton Jcn/Werneth/Mumps/ Lees/ Greenfield and leave that abortion Metrolink where it runs through Oldham.

That would put Oldham back on the Trans Pennine heavy rail map where it rightly belongs. If I had a real brain fart I could put rails back via Park Bridge and Ashton to Stalybridge too!

Please be aware too of Mayor Burnham and this :-

https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/info/20005/green_city_region/117/green_summit

It doesn't take place for a month yet but they have already shut down public participation - but you can always listen to a webcast - well goody goody!!!

 

[kevconnor]

Is there any current news as to what will eventually happen to the viaduct that once led to the Red Bank carriage sidings?

I am not aware of any specific plans but would imagine ownership would have been either be Network Rail or BRB Residual. If the former I can't imagine anything will happen as the arches are all rented out and earning their keep. If the latter it passed back to DaFT on the windup of BRB and I could imagine it being sold onto a developer.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Hear Hear!!! If I got my crayons out I could go MCV/Middleton Jcn/Werneth/Mumps/ Lees/ Greenfield and leave that abortion Metrolink where it runs through Oldham. That would put Oldham back on the Trans Pennine heavy rail map where it rightly belongs.

As soon as I saw Lees being mentioned, I immediately thought that you were proposing the return of "The Delph Donkey" as part of the route.

 

[B&I]

Hear Hear!!!

If I got my crayons out I could go MCV/Middleton Jcn/Werneth/Mumps/ Lees/ Greenfield and leave that abortion Metrolink where it runs through Oldham.

Hasn't one of Oldham's problems in railway terms always been that, despite being one of England's 20 biggest towns at the dawn of the railway age, no-one ever built a main transpennine route through it? Though if Metrolink was as transformative as everyone claims, there would be no reason not to use it to reinstate the lines from Oldham to Ashton and Diggle

 

[billh]

As soon as I saw Lees being mentioned, I immediately thought that you were proposing the return of "The Delph Donkey" as part of the route.

A friend used the Delph Donkey on a daily basis to go to school in Oldham, lived in Delph. We walked the section to Greenfield recently and it looked fairly easy to re-instate. Not so the route into Oldham though

Hasn't one of Oldham's problens in railway terms always been that, despite being one of England's 20 biggest towns at the dawn of the railway age, no-one ever built a main transpennine route through it? Though if Metrolink was as transformative as everyone claims, there would be no reason not to use it to reinstate the lines from Oldham to Ashton and Diggle

The biggest problem to railway builders in Victorian times was the fact that Oldham is on the top of a hill. Not so much a difficulty for Metrolink these days , but getting heavy freight up(and down) was fraught- see Werneth Incline!

 

[edwin_m]

With the benefit of hindsight, if the Ashton-Oldham-Greenfield route had been kept open it would have provided a valuable alternative to running via Stalybridge and allowed some TransPennine trains to provide a link between Oldham and Yorkshire. Unfortunately it was never really thought of as a long-distance or even a through route and no real attempt was made to change the pre-1923 service pattern up until closure in around 1955 (so Beeching can't be blamed for this one). I agree re-opening is now incredibly unlikely, with for example housing on the line east of Lydgate Tunnel and the cuttings used for landfill closer to Oldham.

The site of Delph station has been built over in recent years but the rest of the route is clear. However I can't see there ever being a case for re-opening it - buses are entirely adequate for the likely number of passengers and have the benefit of actually going into the village rather than finishing half a mile away (and similarly for the other Saddleworth villages).

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

For the delight and delectation of those like me with memories of long-closed Lancashire railway lines, I can do no more that to make reference to the poem by Stanley Accrington...."The last train to Dobcross".

There is a typical Oldham-accent rendition of it put to music and sung by The Oldham Tinkers, which was available on YouTube last time I looked.

 

[edwin_m]

The last train to Dobcross presumably continued to Delph. That was another place where the station was separated from the village by a steep hill.

Seem to remember the Tinkers singing something about the tram being on its journey from 'ollinwood to Mumps.

 

[billh]

Seem to remember the Tinkers singing something about the tram being on its journey from 'ollinwood to Mumps.

"the night was dark and stormy,the rain fell down in lumps
Tram were on its journey from 'Ollinwood to Mumps
A dog ran in the tram tracks, driver rang 'is bell
Dog didn't hear his signal so he's on his way to Hellifax
So we're off, we're off,we're off in a motor car
Fifty bobbies are after us and we don't know where we are"

(from memory of 45 years ago)