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It depends - the county of Flintshire and the county borough of Wrexham have a total population of nearly 300,000 (of which over 50% of the population is within 5 miles of stations on the line).
Coupled with a lot of congested roads in the area (the A55 N Wales Expressway, the A494) and the significant barrier of the Mersey for travel north, a parkway in Deeside Industrial Park would attract a significant amount of custom, justifying the frequent service into Liverpool (additionally, you'd see more interurban traffic between Deeside/West Wirral/Wrexham communities as the bus alternative is circuitous and the roads not always direct.
You have lost me there with your mention of congestion. If this is a valid point, why has that matter not already been addressed by the transport area authority in where those ratepayers live?
You have lost me there with your mention of congestion. If this is a valid point, why has that matter not already been addressed by the transport area authority in where those ratepayers live?
It was a general point. If you have three authorities A, B and C with a large traffic flow from A to C (or vice versa) which totally clogs the road through B, it might well be worth B contributing to the costs of opening a station in A to enable people to commute directly to C. Unfortunately,LAs here seem to work on the principal that success means “I get everything I want and you get nothing” rather than “I get 70% of what I want and so do you, so we both win”. As an example of the other approach, Hamburg paid for the extension of the underground into the neighbouring district of Norderstedt. What did Hamburg get? Land for, and the removal of opposition to, the lengthening of the airport runway. Tgat was 40 odd years ago. In this country they’d still be at daggers drawn.
It was a general point. If you have three authorities A, B and C with a large traffic flow from A to C (or vice versa) which totally clogs the road through B, it might well be worth B contributing to the costs of opening a station in A to enable people to commute directly to C. Unfortunately,LAs here seem to work on the principal that success means “I get everything I want and you get nothing” rather than “I get 70% of what I want and so do you, so we both win”. As an example of the other approach, Hamburg paid for the extension of the underground into the neighbouring district of Norderstedt. What did Hamburg get? Land for, and the removal of opposition to, the lengthening of the airport runway. That was 40 odd years ago. In this country they’d still be at daggers drawn.
Try telling that to the ratepayers when they see their local councils spend some of their local authority finance on areas outwith their jurisdiction. Ratepayers are notorious for not seeing "the big picture.
It depends - the county of Flintshire and the county borough of Wrexham have a total population of nearly 300,000 (of which over 50% of the population is within 5 miles of stations on the line).
Coupled with a lot of congested roads in the area (the A55 N Wales Expressway, the A494) and the significant barrier of the Mersey for travel north, a parkway in Deeside Industrial Park would attract a significant amount of custom, justifying the frequent service into Liverpool (additionally, you'd see more interurban traffic between Deeside/West Wirral/Wrexham communities as the bus alternative is circuitous and the roads not always direct.
The counties of Flint and Wrexham are located well outside Merseyside in another country and are not contiguous with it. Merseyrail should focus on developing services within the Liverpool City Region. An extension from Hunt's Cross to Gateacre would be a much more appropriate use of limited development resources.
Try telling that to the ratepayers when they see their local councils spend some of their local authority finance on areas outwith their jurisdiction. Ratepayers are notorious for not seeing "the big picture.
Ratepayers (more accurately, now, council tax payers) have faced increasing burdens since central government started reducing funds to local authorities. Council tax is essentially unfair as the supposed value of a house often bears no relationship to current income and ability to pay. For those of us now retired, council tax normally takes a much higher percentage of our "income" than when we were working.
The counties of Flint and Wrexham are located well outside Merseyside in another country and are not contiguous with it. Merseyrail should focus on developing services within the Liverpool City Region. An extension from Hunt's Cross to Gateacre would be a much more appropriate use of limited development resources.
Boundaries are entirely irrelevant here - if the service is profitable for Merseyrail, it would be sensible for them to introduce the service.
Will a measly one stop Hunts Cross to Gateacre extension come close to making the investment cost back quickly? No - you'd have more of a point if you said an extension as far as Aintree would be more suitable.
Rail services should be organised by operation and customer flows, not by a dotted line on a map that dictates the day of the week that your recycling is collected.
Rail services should be organised by operation and customer flows, not by a dotted line on a map that dictates the day of the week that your recycling is collected.
Boundaries are entirely irrelevant here - if the service is profitable for Merseyrail, it would be sensible for them to introduce the service.
Will a measly one stop Hunts Cross to Gateacre extension come close to making the investment cost back quickly? No - you'd have more of a point if you said an extension as far as Aintree would be more suitable.
The Bidston-Wrexham passenger rail service is hardly profitable, and predominantly outwith England, so the largest portion of the funding for enhancing it would need to come from the Welsh Government (Llywodraeth Cymru). Increasingly since devolution in the late 1990s, the border has become somewhat more than a dotted line on a map, with the focus on internal rather than cross-border development/provision.
An extension from Hunts Cross to Gateacre, which was originally envisaged when this line closed in 1972, would enhance connectivity to Liverpool city centre; there is probably scope/demand to justify an intermediate station because of housing development in the last 50 years. Rebuilding the CLC line north of Gateacre would be of much less benefit, as the areas potentially served already have quicker connections to the main destination of Liverpool city centre. Heavy rail can rarely be justified for purely orbital urban services, except in very large metropolitan conurbations much bigger than Merseyside.
Rail services should be organised by operation and customer flows, not by a dotted line on a map that dictates the day of the week that your recycling is collected.
Boundaries are entirely irrelevant here - if the service is profitable for Merseyrail, it would be sensible for them to introduce the service.
Will a measly one stop Hunts Cross to Gateacre extension come close to making the investment cost back quickly? No - you'd have more of a point if you said an extension as far as Aintree would be more suitable.
No services are profitable in a crude P+L sense. The benefits are predominantly social in nature. A longer extension does not necessarily provide more benefits than a shorter one.
Boundaries are entirely irrelevant here - if the service is profitable for Merseyrail, it would be sensible for them to introduce the service.
Will a measly one stop Hunts Cross to Gateacre extension come close to making the investment cost back quickly? No - you'd have more of a point if you said an extension as far as Aintree would be more suitable.
Precisely. I've had it up to here with the piecemeal nature of Merseyrail's "expansions". One station here and there every decade is not enough.
Merseyrail, being a privately-operated enterprise, want to make money. If they want money, they should get more passengers and run more services. You'd think it was that simple, eh? I'd explain why that is but the forum's censors would get me.
Given the (in my opinion, silly) battery trains Merseyrail now have, one would think they would utilise them in being able to cascade electrification and offset infrastructural costs: i.e. build the tracks and stations in a cascading fashion, running battery trains to the furthest constructed station at any one time; then once the line extension is finished or is too long for battery trains to run, put up OLE and run OLE trains on there, then move the battery trains to a new project of cascading P-way then cascading electrification elsewhere.
Instead, we have the battery trains running an "incredible" 1.3km extension from Kirkby to Tower Hill Headbolt Lane. Battery rolling stock? More like laughing stock.
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The worst part is, the train enthusiast / advocate community (and Britain at large) are so beaten down and meek, that these methods of minimal expansion (decades too late, mind you) and avoidance of electrification are celebrated instead of criticised, even by members of this very forum who, one would hope, would champion the cause of greater railways rather than celebrate its slow and painful demise.
Merseyrail, being a privately-operated enterprise, want to make money. If they want money, they should get more passengers and run more services. You'd think it was that simple, eh?
Let's try: Merseyrail, being a privately-operated enterprise, want to make money. As their contract is to operate the trains on behalf of Merseytravel, the obvious way to make money is to minimise the cost of the operation and so maximise the gap between <money received from Merseytravel> and <money spent on fulfilling contract>.
The Bidston-Wrexham passenger rail service is hardly profitable, and predominantly outwith England, so the largest portion of the funding for enhancing it would need to come from the Welsh Government (Llywodraeth Cymru). Increasingly since devolution in the late 1990s, the border has become somewhat more than a dotted line on a map, with the focus on internal rather than cross-border development/provision.
An extension from Hunts Cross to Gateacre, which was originally envisaged when this line closed in 1972, would enhance connectivity to Liverpool city centre; there is probably scope/demand to justify an intermediate station because of housing development in the last 50 years. Rebuilding the CLC line north of Gateacre would be of much less benefit, as the areas potentially served already have quicker connections to the main destination of Liverpool city centre. Heavy rail can rarely be justified for purely orbital urban services, except in very large metropolitan conurbations much bigger than Merseyside.
The Bidston to Wrexham service is hardly profitable now, because of the extremely poor service provided for a population of several hundred thousand plus.
Some funding would need to come from the Welsh government, sure, but with increased UK government spending, the WG could well see some significant Barnett consequential money coming.
While an extension to Gateacre would increase connectivity to Liverpool city centre for one area, the complexity of the extension (demolition and relocating Hunts Cross signal box, a period of disruption to the CLC and existing Northern Line service) would mean the benefit of the shorter extension would be difficult to justify.
The other areas having good preexisting connections to Liverpool city centre is also a fallacy - Norris Green, West Derby, Clubmoor and Knotty Ash all rely on unreliable bus connections that are very susceptible to congestion,
Plus east Liverpool in particular (and the surrounding areas across the border in Knowsley) is an area with a lot of deprivation, where a lot of residents do not own a car (in contrast to most of south Liverpool, the wealthiest part of the city by a country mile), so transport interventions should be targeted to improve access to a lot of those areas.
Unfortunately, the Merseytram system (which would have passed through a lot of the most deprived sections) was cancelled, but the extension would go part of the way to resolve the poor access to public transport that plagues the area.
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No services are profitable in a crude P+L sense. The benefits are predominantly social in nature. A longer extension does not necessarily provide more benefits than a shorter one.
A longer extension serving more people in areas that have poor job opportunities (such as large areas of North East Wales) a reliable public transport option into a major city is going to provide more social benefit than a shorter extension into Gateacre (which is one of the least deprived areas of Liverpool - 58th highest out of 64 wards for fuel poverty on Liverpool City Council's website; for contrast, Norris Green up the road is 7th highest).
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Precisely. I've had it up to here with the piecemeal nature of Merseyrail's "expansions". One station here and there every decade is not enough.
Merseyrail, being a privately-operated enterprise, want to make money. If they want money, they should get more passengers and run more services. You'd think it was that simple, eh? I'd explain why that is but the forum's censors would get me.
Given the (in my opinion, silly) battery trains Merseyrail now have, one would think they would utilise them in being able to cascade electrification and offset infrastructural costs: i.e. build the tracks and stations in a cascading fashion, running battery trains to the furthest constructed station at any one time; then once the line extension is finished or is too long for battery trains to run, put up OLE and run OLE trains on there, then move the battery trains to a new project of cascading P-way then cascading electrification elsewhere.
Instead, we have the battery trains running an "incredible" 1.3km extension from Kirkby to Tower Hill Headbolt Lane. Battery rolling stock? More like laughing stock.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
The worst part is, the train enthusiast / advocate community (and Britain at large) are so beaten down and meek, that these methods of minimal expansion (decades too late, mind you) and avoidance of electrification are celebrated instead of criticised, even by members of this very forum who, one would hope, would champion the cause of greater railways rather than celebrate its slow and painful demise.
Well, my view is that if a battery unit facilitates longer extensions without the need for a lot of upfront capital funding (living in the broken world of a severe scarcity of investment in public transport to fulfill a social need), then it it is a positive.
I agree that lines like the Borderlands and Hunts Cross to Aintree could later justify OHLE electrification, but, in the interim, if it gets more lines onto Merseyrail and their higher standards of service, then we should campaign in support.
When...or if...was the last official statement made by the Welsh Government that they would welcome any currently operated TfW rail line operations in North Wales to move out of their jurisdiction and be handed over to an English transport organisation?
When...or if...was the last official statement made by the Welsh Government that they would welcome any currently operated TfW rail line operations in North Wales to move out of their jurisdiction and be handed over to an English transport organisation?
Working very closely with services using Class 777/1 stock into Liverpool.
The only plausible mechanism for such services is that services are run by Merseyrail.
Whether Merseyrail do it under a contract agreed with TfW is a different question - but there is no sensible way for TfW to operate such trains directly.
It doesn't fit with Merseyrail anyway. It's too long and too rural. I don't think there's actually that much scope to expand Merseyrail at this point. The only stubbs are Headbolt Lane and Hunts Cross. An extension of the former to Skelmersdale and/or Wigan would make sense. The latter should ideally go to Gateacre but I don't see that ever happening, sadly. Ellesmere Port to Helsby (but absolutely not beyond there) could work out if there's latent demand for it and there isn't too much interaction with the freight lines around the oil refinery. The Ormskirk line could be extended to Burscough (but no further than that), although that would be at the expense of any prospective direct Ormskirk-Southport services.
It'd be nice if the Borderlands line was put under a condominium transit authority containing TfW and Mereytravel members. At least, I think it's distinct enough to be a separate brand within TfW. The line itself should ideally be 2tph, get the Deeside station and possibly Woodchurch station built and re-extend to Birkenhead North. Preferably, they'd tri-track the line between Bidston & Birkenhead North so the Borderlands and Merseyrail services can remain separate.
It'd also be nice if they could come up with a better name than Borderlands Line. It gives me the impression of wastelands and lawlessness. It's better than Mid Wirral Line though.
It doesn't fit with Merseyrail anyway. It's too long and too rural. I don't think there's actually that much scope to expand Merseyrail at this point. The only stubbs are Headbolt Lane and Hunts Cross. An extension of the former to Skelmersdale and/or Wigan would make sense. The latter should ideally go to Gateacre but I don't see that ever happening, sadly. Ellesmere Port to Helsby (but absolutely not beyond there) could work out if there's latent demand for it and there isn't too much interaction with the freight lines around the oil refinery. The Ormskirk line could be extended to Burscough (but no further than that), although that would be at the expense of any prospective direct Ormskirk-Southport services.
I agree broadly. Extensions from Headbolt Lane to Wigan Wallgate and from Hunt's Cross to Gateacre, using the battery electric class 777 multiple units, are the only realistic/sensible extensions that can reasonably be considered. Many of the other proposals/suggestions in this thread are outwith Merseyside, and the former GCR/LNER line to Wrexham Central is partly (about 50%) in another country with its own government. Extending Merseyrail from Ormskirk to Burscough would destroy the Ormskirk-Preston service, and would require a lot more battery electric class 777 multiple units.
If you're going to keep dual voltage anyway, just keep the bits that already have it and don't throw money at something that doesn't need to be replaced.
Every track km of OLE done over third rail (except at the changeover point obviously) means somewhere else diesels are running that don't have to.
Until most of the country is electrified I think replacing 3rd rail is a waste of money.
Minor point - stuff doesn't last forever. At some point renewals need to happen, and that is your opportunity to decide if you spend your budget on replacing like for like or with something better. I can eventually see isolated 3rd rail conversions being considered at renewal time once there's a bit more AC around them.
If the ideal situation was ever reached where the surface sections were all upgraded to OHLE and the tunnels were the last remaining 3rd rail due to the clearances, could it then be viable to use battery+OHLE units to rip out the last of the third rail entirely to improve safety? The batteries would have plenty of time to charge up on the surface sections...
I don't see why Merseyrail has to be AC anyway. If it absolutely has to be converted from third rail, DC overhead should be considered. This might be allowed a lesser clearance in the tunnel sections than 25kv AC.
There's even less DC overhead stock available in the market than there is 3rd rail, so the costs would be grossly disproportional to sticking to much more standardised technology used everywhere else.
If the ideal situation was ever reached where the surface sections were all upgraded to OHLE and the tunnels were the last remaining 3rd rail due to the clearances, could it then be viable to use battery+OHLE units to rip out the last of the third rail entirely to improve safety? The batteries would have plenty of time to charge up on the surface sections...
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Battery rolling stock? More like laughing stock.
