On the other side of that coin, what do you do if you ask for everything.....and get nothing.
Then you've lost nothing, and hopefully learned what to do in the future to ensure you get what you want... or you can let pessimism consume you and start stamping out others' optimism.
Only issue is how do you get traffic to the new Parkway without loads of traffic down School Lane? Not much room for a new dedicated access road from the A59.
A car park yes, but the ironic thing is Skem has the lowest car availability in West Lancashire, the bus network is mediocre, with local needs mostly met by longer interurban routes crossing town and no public buses at all go into the Pimbo industrial estate today, despite it being Skelmersdale's biggest employment destination. The only route with a a stop nearby is the hourly 312 from Rainford at Upholland station which then runs via Upholland (town) to Skem central before tracing a convoluted path through some housing estates and heading out to Ormskirk via Parbold and Burscough. Like many such routes it finishes for the night around 7pm so would be little use for returning home after working late in Liverpoool for instance and none whatsoever going out for the evening in the city. There are unserved stops in Pimbo Lancashire council database still records as 'active', so that suggests there was an estate bus in the fairly recent past. An interchange at Upholland with a new frequent and long hours bus service would doubly benefit Skem residents with new connections to their local major employment centre as well as access to rail travel elsewhere for work and leisure.
If you managed to cross School Lane and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal twice, it would be possible. However, I think a 3rd platform at Burscough Bridge and the curves with your Preston to Southport + Merseyrail to Burscough Bridge might be a cheaper option (with the same sizeable housing development for the Section 106 money to help fund).
Well said! The bus routes I mentioned earlier (the 312, 740, 742, 744, 746 and 769) in post #567 show decent local connections within Skem but then seem to be one an hour at best (the 312, like you said) but then as low as once per day according to bustimes.org. Either increasing some of these routes to 1 or 2 buses per hour or creating a new route with inspiration from them would not only be worthwhile, but I would argue necessary!
Agreed, although where do you think that platform would go? My first thought was on the curve to keep the main line free, but that produces accessibility concerns. Using the current south platform as an island platform would mean destroying the modern... (something?)* building.
There is minimal need or justification to change the current rail provision in the Aughton/Ormskirk/Burscough area, which is entirely within West Lancashire and thus outwith Merseyside. The proposals that several posters on this thread are making would destroy the through rail service from Ormskirk to Preston. Virtually no one is going to change trains at Burscough Bridge. There are adequate bus services from Ormskirk to Wigan and to Southport, together with an express bus (X2) from Southport to Preston. There aren't enough battery/electric class 777 trains to serve both the Ormskirk and Kirkby lines to allow Merseyrail extensions beyond the end of the 3rd rail electrification at Ormskirk.
Would you say that the "Concourse" area is where most bus services use in Skelmersdale. I have not been there for quite a long time, but it seemed the stop where the majority of services called at, where interchange could be made.
Glad to see that you made that particular point.
More could be converted if desired (at a cost clearly). The design has space and weight budget to accommodate either a bank of 'line haul' traction batteries or a 25kV transformer for dual voltage working in the same space but not both. Units without batteries today have a ballast weight so vehicle dynamics would be unchanged if a battery or transformer was fitted in the future. All units already have a small traction battery for depot shunting and emergency movements.
Looking at bustimes.org, it looks like all regular public routes go to the concourse bus station, where interchange between services is possible. There might be infrequent extra school services and similar that avoid the concourse, but I haven't found any.
Idea: overhead electrification. You know, like the rest of the country... No, the rest of the world!
Do you mean 20m down the line towards Southport? If so, would that mean the Merseyrail service would join the Southport-Wigan line and then spur off it for a 3rd platform, or would a third set of tracks run alongside the Southport-Wigan line and then split into two, one set going to the Merseyrail platform and the other joining the Southport-Wigan line (similar to Hunts Cross, sans third rail)?
You know, it's hilarious to me that this is the grand "Interchange" Burscough gets, but all they have is one single bus stop and at most 30 parking spaces, serving an infrequent and unelectrified line. This country is a laughing stock.
I doubt the 3rd rail would be replaced, especially since 777s can have a pantograph fitted (except the battery units, there's not enough space for both) and just become dual voltage.
The building was opened in 2005 as a ticket office. It closed in 2016. The building was leased by Lancashire County Council from Network Rail on a 50 year lease. Burscough Town Council have taken over the remainder of the lease and now use it as their offices.
Yeah, that's exactly what I meant!
I disagree!
That's fine, for now. Just nominate a station where the changeover happens, one north and one south of the city centre (for the Northern line, anyway).
If you want to stay in the past and never ever expand beyond the state of the network today? Sure.
Would the ORR accept this, given their prohibition on conductor rails?
Fair!
I mean institutionally depending on it. Obviously I believe the dual system of both third rail and OLE is fitting here, at least in the short term, or third rail for just the underground sections. That's not what I'm opposing.
There is no prohibition or de-facto prohibition on conductor rails as such.
A bay platform on the site of the building/parking at Burscough Bridge Interchange would be perfect. You could fund a multistorey on the site of the adjacent Tesco car park for both shoppers and rail users to replace the parking.
Destroying the interchange at Ormskirk is irrelevant.
I think the reason that the overhead option isn't being used is that means Network Rail having to do some work to install catenary and power supplies, whereas the battery option transfers most of the cost and risk to the train operator. So either DfT or NR (whoever is really making the decision) does just that. This is why bi-mode trains are appearing so widely. It's just shifting the risk - to the wrong place, in my opinion. Electrify the lines and every train can be single power supply electric, relatively simple designs. Don't electrify and every train on a route has to be bi-mode or diesel, not the best long term solution.
Economies of scale might make each track kilometre cheaper but they won't make the scheme cheaper!
How many low bridges would you run into?
Move the bowls club and put the platform there. They have an access arch under the road that can be used for passengers to get to the current station.
Quite! To be honest I had no idea that the discussion on naming Baltic had resurfaced. If I were benign dictator for a day, I'd stick with the old St James name, and rename James Street to something along the lines of Liverpool Waterfront... after I'd changed the Elizabeth Line to "Crossrail Line 1" and used the Elizabeth Line name for the Jubilee, which as it stands is named for a now insignificant milestone... but that is very much off topic so I'll leave it at that!
For a bit of blue-sky thinking, how about extending from Headbolt to Skelmersdale as per the previous scheme, but continuing on a new alignment to the old station in the area now known as "Old Skem". Then picking up the (AIUI mostly intact old formation to Ormskirk via Westhead.
"Interchange" is often used as a window-dressing buzzword, particularly by PTEs. For every sensible use (Bradford, Barnsley, Meadowhall) there are some downright absurd ones too. Prime examples both from WYPTE being Denby Dale Interchange (name only used officially with buses) which is a bus shelter at a turning circle about 50m from a single platform station with an hourly service. Even worse is Waterloo Interchange in Huddersfield, which was nothing more than a collection of bus stops around a busy road junction, with a couple of additional (and outdated) information posters!
I suppose so... maybe I'd need a month's dictatorship rather than just a day!
My suggestion on another thread was for TfW to acquire some bi-mode 777s with long-life batteries and extend the Borderlands line to Birkenhead North, but I was informed that a turn-back there would require resignalling and that running round the loop was preferable. This would allow batteries to be recharged. There is a depot at BKN and when I passed it last week it contained a 230 so I assume there is an arrangement for TfW to use it. Bidston is generally agreed to be an awkward place to terminate. Not really "Merseyrail expansion" though unless the trains were jointly owned.......
