Merseyside: New stations planned

[fowler9]

The houses at the end of Brodie Ave were to be demolished and the dual carriageway continued through the large houses owned by the very wealthy (the owners of the Titanic lived there). onto Sefton Park. Trams were to be run down the centre of all duel carriageways. Kings Ave in Woolton is a duel carriageway that was supposed to have trams. The road looks out of place where it is. Many had trams, Menlove Ave, Aigburth Rd, etc.

Hunts Cross Ave was supposed to continue over the golf course and into Speke Rd and onto Woodend Ave. The other end was to continue into Woolton Rd. All with trams running in them.

The city was laid out to hold over 2 million and has a larger footprint than Paris.

Wow, cheers for the info mate. They are much more dramatic plans than I would have imagined. Carrying on at the city end of Brodie Ave would involve some serious knocking down of old expensive houses.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The line is nearly equally split between England and Wales with the English section being 50mph and the Welsh section a pathetic 40mph. If the Welsh Assembly paid for relaying a bit of the Welsh section to 75mph then 5 minutes could be cut off allowing both a better Merseyside terminus and 3 minutes catchup time (same as Merseyrail services to Chester). Much cheaper than any kind of electrification and as Merseyrail is all 75mph track it would cut the cost of any future intergration.

What's punctuality like there (and on the Merseyrail Chester services)? 3 minutes seems completely inadequate to me. 5 minutes in the hour layover is a sensible minimum, 10 better.

I'd imagine the improved connection would make little difference - but a bi-mode service into Liverpool would be used a lot more heavily I think.

Neil

 

[UrbanWorld]

Bingo!

The whole debate is irrelevant in the context of Merseyside. I have argued this before and will argue it again: the only realistic + cost effective solution to improving the Borderlands line is to increase line speeds and run trains into Birkenhead North to double the number of connecting Merseyrail services to Liverpool from 4 to 8

The Welsh Assembly want from Wrexham:

1. Direct services into Liverpool's centre which accesses the business and shopping quarters. People from North Wales can commute, easily do business and shop at Liverpool.
   
   
2. A direct service to the airport (currently South Parkway). The airport is accessed via the Halton Curve near Runcorn or extending the Borderlands line into the Liverpool underground section and onwards to the airport via the Northern Line. The latter requires the single track shunting tunnel from James St to Central to be double track as it once was and used for passengers. Using the Halton Curve is by far the fastest route from Wrexham and Chester.

Assume battery/supercap or full electric trains are used. The lines speed does need to increase greatly and one new station added at Woodchurch, which was planned about 20 years ago when Conway Park underground station at Birkenhead was built. Electric Merseyrail was to be extended from Bidston to Woodchurch with Woodchurch being the terminus for the diesel Borderlands line.

The Borderlands line is very relevant to Merseyside, or more accurately the Liverpool City Region which is larger than the miniscule Merseyside. Merseyside was originally to be about twice the size of its current footprint. It was to take in Chester and Cheshire to the east of Chester and was to be about the same size as Greater Manchester. The Tory government in the early 1970s cut its size. Merseyside does not even cover all the banks of the Mersey estuary. The Liverpool City Region has emerged which covers much of the old planned Merseyside, proving the decision to chop Merseyside was totally wrong. It could be argued that parts of North Wales are in the Liverpool City Region and a fully functioning Borderlands line and direct airport access would ensure that.

Modernising the Borderlands line will attract more passengers for sure, mainly on the section in Wales and around Birkenhead/Liverpool, being used as a metro with closely spaces stations. The odd express with few stops can run from Wrexham to Liverpool, say one per hour. Also with an express to the airport via Chester through the Halton Curve at Runcorn.

It has been argued that Runcorn should be brought onto Merseyrail, which makes sense at Merseyrail terminates at Chester. Then it become a true Liverpool City Region network and should change its name.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Wow, cheers for the info mate. They are much more dramatic plans than I would have imagined. Carrying on at the city end of Brodie Ave would involve some serious knocking down of old expensive houses.

I should assume even in those days that proposals such as this would have met strenuous opposition with litigation forthcoming.

 

[UrbanWorld]

Wow, cheers for the info mate. They are much more dramatic plans than I would have imagined. Carrying on at the city end of Brodie Ave would involve some serious knocking down of old expensive houses.

The houses were not so old in those days. Digging into my memory, Brodie was to parallel the now WCML spur line into Greenbank Park and run onto Smithdown Road.

Kings Drive Woolton was supposed to extend to Belle Vale and onto Childwall Valley Road and I think a Y across the then fields to Bowring Park and the other fork turning back to Childwall Fiveways and down Childwall Rd to Wavertree. That would have been a continuous tram line along boulevards from Bowring Park-Childwall-Woolton-Garston. Horrocks Ave in Garston has a wide reservation boulevard.

It was all in a master plan for the city to greatly expand. Unfortunately the city fathers never carried out the full plan - typical inept Liverpool councils after the enlightened men in the late 1800s/early 1900s. They were pandering to the motor car and now we are coming full circle with eco aspects and top quality rail transport coming to the fore.

No city in the UK has such ease of expansion as Liverpool does. None. As I have stated, the city has a larger footprint than Paris. The prime infrastructure is there laid down 100 years ago. No city can expand its transport networks with such ease as Liverpool can. Merseyrail can be 50% larger without any major upheaval - just by completing the original 1970s plan. With some proper thinking a comprehensive tram-train network can be meshed into Merseyrail (run as one network) using the main boulevards. Many of these boulevards can have tunnels just underneath the surface in cut and cover, like Paris and Budapest did. Just a few steps down to the stations.

If a plan was devised to merge tram-trains with the existing Merseyrail metro, giving a seamless rail network, Liverpool's transportation would be unequalled in the UK. Then add the Borderlands line, services to Skem, St.Helens and Wigan into Merseyrail and tram-trains into Wirral Waters and Liverpool Waters and nothing can touch it. WE have north-south crossrail right now from Hunts Cross to Southport. Finishing the Wapping tunnel would give an east-west crossrail from Wigan to West Kirby. It will be even better than London when taking into account the serviced population. It needs a proper plan that must be kept to over the decades. Not some quarter-baked nonsense like the stand alone Merseytram.

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I should assume even in those days that proposals such as this would have met strenuous opposition with litigation forthcoming.

Which it did. I believe the Ismay family, who owned the Titanic, decamped to the Wirral because of the threat of Brodie Ave being extended. There was strong opposition to take Hunts Cross Ave through to Woolton Rd demolishing some old buildings. Today, Hunts Cross Ave is a dead end very wide road.

John Brodie who laid out the boulevards in Liverpool, was commissioned to lay them out in New Deli.

 

[Wavertreelad]

The houses at the end of Brodie Ave were to be demolished and the dual carriageway continued through the large houses owned by the very wealthy (the owners of the Titanic lived there). onto Sefton Park. Trams were to be run down the centre of all duel carriageways. Kings Ave in Woolton is a duel carriageway that was supposed to have trams. The road looks out of place where it is. Many had trams, Menlove Ave, Aigburth Rd, etc.

Hunts Cross Ave was supposed to continue over the golf course and into Speke Rd and onto Woodend Ave. The other end was to continue into Woolton Rd. All with trams running in them.

The city was laid out to hold over 2 million and has a larger footprint than Paris.

With exception of the stretch between Aigburgh and Allerton Maize, Queens Drive forms almost a dividing line between the older parts of Liverpool and the new. Within the dividing the roads are mainly single carriageway in each direction, with some main routes a double carriageway in direction. Outside, the main radial routes are all spacious dual carriageways which allowed the City to develop a large tram network to serve the outskirts. However, the trams did not always run in the central reservation, Knotty Ash being one example and the East Lancashire Road being another. The last tram in 1957 ran from Bowring Park to the City Centre, but within 20 years Bowring Park Road was reduced to a single carriageway in each direction in order to construct the M62 from Huyton to the Rocket and reduction of the Chat Moss route from four tracks to two through Broadgreen.

 

[UrbanWorld]

The problem is the mains power circuits provided at diesel stations would simply not be up to the job of recharging the train in the 90 seconds or less it might actually stand in the station.

Supecap banks can be on the trackside and charge from the mains and discharge quickly into the supercaps in the train while at a station.

Supercap tram....
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...w/guangzhou-supercapacitor-tram-unveiled.html

Supercap train...
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...upercapacitor-light-metro-train-unveiled.html

http://www.sh-jinpei.com/news/china-produces-super-capacitor-light-rail-train/

"This new type of electric locomotive can be fully charged within 30 seconds during its station stops, as it features a box-type super capacitor on the roof and charge spots at the foot of every compartment,

The train, which can hold a maximum of 320 passengers, does not need a traditional pantograph installed on the roof to get electricity from the high-tension lines along the track."​

A little Googling would have saved you typing in all that irrelevant stuff.

This technology can be easily applied to Merseyrail and any of its proposed extensions. Add tram-trains to the Merseyrail network and it will shine. I loath overhead wires of any kinds in urban environments. The above is only supercapacitors. A combination of supercaps and batteries will make matters even more feasible. Then apply graphine supercaps and the possibilities are enormous.

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With exception of the stretch between Aigburgh and Allerton Maize, Queens Drive forms almost a dividing line between the older parts of Liverpool and the new. Within the dividing the roads are mainly single carriageway in each direction, with some main routes a double carriageway in direction. Outside, the main radial routes are all spacious dual carriageways which allowed the City to develop a large tram network to serve the outskirts.

That is true. Queens Drive semi-circular ring road was a sort of divide from the old city layout to the new city layout. However as the city was to engage in slum clearances inside the ring any new roads would be wider to meet with the newer roads built on virgin land at the outers. Scotland Rd ended up a duel carriageway. I have not seen or read any overall strategic plans for the inner city, as I assume it was to be perceived as a piecemeal affair but merging onto the wide boulevards on the outers when developments occurred.

WW1 stopped a lot of slum clearance, then the depression of 1929 slowed it up and then WW2 put an end to the master plan as the city economically declined. The post war city leaders of any colour largely lost the plot. The Shankland plan for the city was just plain crazy. The only good thing they came out with was the idea of merging the unconnected dispersed rail networks around Liverpool and its outers into one metro network called Merseyrail. But that was only prompted by the Beeching Cuts which wanted to cut the well used Liverpool to Southport electric line. There was a plan to make a full city rail loop in the 1940s. The Liverpool Overhead railway would form the western section and the proposed eastern section of the Merseyrail Outer Loop the other. Nothing was done.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

But that was only prompted by the Beeching Cuts which wanted to cut the well used Liverpool to Southport electric line. There was a plan to make a full city rail loop in the 1940s. The Liverpool Overhead railway would form the western section and the proposed eastern section of the Merseyrail Outer Loop the other. Nothing was done.

Incidentally, what raison d'etre was given for the proposed termination of the electric Liverpool to Southport railway line in those days?

 

[HSTEd]

Supecap banks can be on the trackside and charge from the mains and discharge quickly into the supercaps in the train while at a station.

Yes, you can do that, but it has its own problems.

Not only do you need the giant rectifier and current handling systems at the station (as using 25kV with capacitors is hopelessly impractical), and enormously uprated collection gear on the trainset itself. But now you are paying for multiple sets of supercapacitors.

You will need capacitor banks something like 2.2 x the size of those on the train (as you might need to charge two trains in rapid succession) and you have to account for resistive losses in the enormous current spikes you are pushing.
This is going to start costing serious money.

Supercap tram....
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...w/guangzhou-supercapacitor-tram-unveiled.html

Supercap train...
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...upercapacitor-light-metro-train-unveiled.html

http://www.sh-jinpei.com/news/china-produces-super-capacitor-light-rail-train/

A tiny 50mph tram train is hardly comparable toa six car Class 377, which is the closest analogue of the stock that will end up operating on the line.
That tram would not be suitable for use through the core of Merseyrail.

A little Googling would have saved you typing in all that irrelevant stuff.

Its hardly irrelevant, the economics for this concept look terrible, you have traded in a few kilometres of aluminium/steel bar for a huuuge set of capacitor banks and all the problems that come with that.
You will still need all the 750V station switchgear to avoid the whole thing blowing up if the rail in the station is shorted out.

And in return for this very dodgy sounding 'saving' in capital costs you prevent the use of the normal Merseyrail stock.

This technology can be easily applied to Merseyrail and any of its proposed extensions. Add tram-trains to the Merseyrail network and it will shine. I loath overhead wires of any kinds in urban environments. The above is only supercapacitors. A combination of supercaps and batteries will make matters even more feasible. Then apply graphine supercaps and the possibilities are enormous.

So we are expending ridiculous resources simply because you think overhead wiring is ugly?
This sounds like a very dodgy business case.

EDIT:
And just to show how absurd this is, I will now demonstrate how low the power demand on this route is.
With any reasonable timetable there will never be more than one train in each station-gap on the same line at once.
If we assume the two running lines are not paralleled together as that will require additional isolators (and would mean that we would have to count for trains passing and this is a simple conservative analysis) the highest resistance position is half way between two stations.
That means half the train's power will be delivered down each of two 1350m long circuits, using a single rail and the running rails as the conductors - we will not assume any assisting copper cables have been attached.

According to the old BR standards for third rail (which are what I have available) the resistance of the running rails is 19milliohm per single track kilometre, while the resistivity of an aluminium/steel conductor rail is 7 milliohm/km, giving us a loop resistance of 26 milliohm/km.
1350m means it is 35.1 milliohm per circuit.

800kW (half the train power) delivered with a 650V at-train voltage would give us a current of 1230A, which with the known resistance figure gives a voltage drop of only 43V - making the substation voltage only 693V with an efficiency of 94%.
If we use some of that headroom and set the substation voltage at roughly 750V we end up with an at-train voltage of something like 720V, reducing the traction current to 1110A, cutting the voltage drop to 39V, with a substation voltage of 759V and an efficiency of ~95%, and there is still plenty of headroom for regeneration currents and further reduction in the traction current, as as well as events like rectifiers being out of service.

The efficiency is almost certainly higher than any reasonable supercap arrangement will be - and pretty much the only real extra cost is the conductor rail between the stations which is going to be a few extra million pounds over the entire route. Hardly anything compared to all this bespoke technology.

This is also the reason I think that the 25kV/750V argument is misleading, while 25kV might be cheaper in high demand areas, on the lines like those that surround merseyrail I think third rail likely gives a better business case as the power demands are nothing like they are on the Southern Region.

 

[UrbanWorld]

Incidentally, what raison d'etre was given for the proposed termination of the electric Liverpool to Southport railway line in those days?

None. Beeching cut for the sake of it. It made no sense to cut the Southport line. It was well used from Crosby, Bootle, etc into Liverpool. Marples the Transport Minister at the time who was pulling Beeching's strings was as bent as a nine bob note. He beat it to France as the law was after him. The history of Liverpool is that Tory governments have always chiselled at the Liverpool mountain every time they could. Merseyrail was taken up by the Labour government from 1964 onwards. I doubt the Tories if they had been in power at the time would have accepted Merseyrail. The plan was too far advanced in 1970 when Heath got in to drop it. So they cut Merseyside in half instead. Latterly they have shunned the city over HS2 and HS3, despite overwhelming evidence the city needs the links more than an other city.

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Its hardly irrelevant, the economics for this concept look terrible,
..
..
And just to show how absurd this is,

I hope you have written to the French, German, Chinese and Japanese who run supercap buses, trams and trains, to how they are hopelessly wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor#Transport

Yes we must stick to technology which is well over a 120 years old. And we must have a high-speed network that will be 70 year old French technology when it is operational. We can't have anything new and clean can we? This is Britain for God's sake! New things! We discarded tilting trains because they were new. We should dismiss such new nonsense without even looking at it. We should go back to steam trains with real men shovelling filthy coal into them.

 

[HowardGWR]

None. Beeching cut for the sake of it. It made no sense to cut the Southport line. It was well used from Crosby, Bootle, etc into Liverpool. Marples the Transport Minister at the time who was pulling Beeching's strings was as bent as a nine bob note. He beat it to France as the law was after him. The history of Liverpool is that Tory governments have always chiselled at the Liverpool mountain every time they could. Merseyrail was taken up by the Labour government from 1964 onwards. I doubt the Tories if they had been in power at the time would have accepted Merseyrail. The plan was too far advanced in 1970 when Heath got in to drop it. So they cut Merseyside in half instead. Latterly they have shunned the city over HS2 and HS3, despite overwhelming evidence the city needs the links more than an other city.

Just querying your incorrect use of simile here.

 

[UrbanWorld]

Just querying your incorrect use of simile here.

Nine bob notes were around in the 1960s.

 

[HowardGWR]

Nine bob notes were around in the 1960s.

I did not mean 'politically' incorrect. I meant that the expression does not imply dishonesty, which was your context regarding Marples, at least, where I come from.

 

[HSTEd]

I hope you have written to the French, German, Chinese and Japanese who run supercap buses, trams and trains, to how they are hopelessly wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor#Transport

All those applications are a result of historical concerns meaning that no overhead wiring is permitted, no matter what.
This does not mean they are actually economic.
Just as there is no economic or engineering reason for there to be any tunnels outside of London on HS2 - it could easily just climb over the top of the Chilterns on a series of bridges and embankments and with modern earth moving equipment it would be far far cheaper.
HSLs in Germany ascend 4% slopes.

Yes we must stick to technology which is well over a 120 years old. And we must have a high-speed network that will be 70 year old French technology when it is operational. We can't have anything new and clean can we? This is Britain for God's sake! New things! We discarded tilting trains because they were new. We should dismiss such new nonsense without even looking at it. We should go back to steam trains with real men shovelling filthy coal into them.

You must, above all else, avoid the trap of falling in with the idea that something must be superior just because it is new. The short story "Superiority" demonstrates the dangers of doing so.

There are fewer forms of traction energy cheaper than grid electricity, and the low capital costs of a third rail system in a low peak power situation such as this seem likely to overcome the supposed benefits of this supercapacitor system.

Supposedly (according to that wiki article) the SC bank for a tram vehicle cost €270k, which is an awful lot and will get even worse when you consider that the energy demands of a heavy rail trainset will be far greater.

 

[UrbanWorld]

I did not mean 'politically' incorrect. I meant that the expression does not imply dishonesty, which was your context regarding Marples, at least, where I come from.

Do you think a nine bob note is not bent?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

All those applications are a result of historical concerns meaning that no overhead wiring is permitted, no matter what.
This does not mean they are actually economic.

It does not mean they are not economic either.

You must, above all else, avoid the trap of falling in with the idea that something must be superior just because it is new.

You must not fall into the trap that longevity and proven to minimally do the job is the best. And stop digging yourself into a hole. This is the view in keeping the filthy internal combustion engine - 80% of the energy in the tank is wasted. But we continued to pollute the air we breath in massive volume, running people's lungs, and depleted a valuable natural finite resource because fuel is cheap. It is also prevalent in Rolex watches and such like. Outdated technology with limited usage today still being made and glorified as the best.

The electricity in supercaps comes from the grid. Supercaps take in electrical energy, store it as electrical energy, and release it as electrical energy - very quickly. While a battery takes in electrical energy, stores it as chemical energy, and release it as electrical energy - very slowly. The state change loss in a chemical battery is high, while in supercaps it is very low.

BTW, the estimate for wires on the 27 mile Borderlands line was far less than third rail.

 

[Wavertreelad]

It's interesting reading this thread again that the debate of which lines should be reopened and all the reasons why they will and won't, so let's look at the facts.

1. The Merseytravel long term plan covers "a wish list" or projects that may or may not eventually come to fruition.
2. So far only one project has been given the go-ahead and that is the upgrade of the Halton curve, but again it should be emphasised that no commitment from Merseytravel has been made for any new services to operate over it. Liverpool City Council is anxious to improve connectivity to parts of the UK that currently can only be reached using indirect routing such as South and North Wales as well as the South Coast and South West.
3. Maghull North on the Ormskirk line and St James to the south of Central look like two of projects that seem to leading contenders for early starts. As for the other twenty plus projects, it's a question of waiting and waiting and waiting, which is perhaps understandable after the criticism taken after their last big attempt at extending public transport on Merseyside in the form of Merseytram. It's also perhaps noticeable that an announcement on the replacement or otherwise of the 507/508 fleet is still outstanding which of course could be related to decisions on which extensions to the Merseyrail are to proceed. Finally, another spanner in the works could be the impeding General Election and the need by the next Parliament to reduce public spending that has been acknowledged by both of the major parties. It's unlikely the present Tory lead Government will commit funds until the Budget and their manifesto is launched, whilst the Labour Party may have priorities elsewhere in what is already a largely safe Labour area.
4. Whilst I agree reopening the Outer loop would offer some advantages, the facts are that it does not make the 30 year long term plan so at least for the time being it must be considered as a none starter.

I'd agree electrifying the Bootle branch with OHLE would make sense in the longer term although I suspect it may not be an early starter until the volumes and type of freight moving to and from the Port of Liverpool are a little clearer. Changing the type of fuel burnt by power stations from coal to wood pellets will inevitably increase the number of trains because the volume of the pellets is about three times that of coal, so the individual weight of each train will correspondingly decrease and perhaps make them suitable for Class 88 haulage thus solving the final mile issue.

The question of intermodal trains to and from the Port of Liverpool is to my mind a big unknown as potentially it could be huge increase, but it really does depend on the mix of services and destination served. To explain, at the moment the throughput at Seaforth is about 750,000 teu, (TEU - Twenty foot equivalent units) although a large proportion will be 40ft (FEU - Forty foot equivalent units) because of the ports leading role in trade with the USA and Canada in which the 40ft is regard more of the standard than a 20ft unit. The leading role in these markets, means that the Port of Liverpool handles about 40% of the UK's seaborne trade with these countries. The other traditional trades are to and from the Mediterranean and Iberian peninsular, but in recent years Peel through it's wholly owned Rotterdam based feeder line BG Freight Line has developed a service that operates up to three times a week from Rotterdam to Liverpool, Dublin and Belfast although the latter two are not featured on each voyage. Thus combined with it's other owned Irish Sea subsidiary, Coastal Container Line, it can offer a daily service to Belfast and Dublin, as well as up to three sailings a week to Irlam on the Manchester Ship Canal. In addition the CMA-CGM operated but branded Macandrews services from Iberia add calls at Bristol (Portbury) and Greenock as well as fourth service from Rotterdam, whilst X-press Container Line provide a weekly service from Southampton. There is a certain amount of "slot chartering" between all the operators to cater in particular for empty box movements and to avoid unprofitable duplications. Aside from the MSC and CMA-CGM/Macandrews own services, the feeder operators carry cargo for (in no particular order), APL, OOCL, Hapag Lloyd, NYK, Evergreen Group, China Shipping, Maersk, Hamburg Sud, and Zim. At the moment some of these Carriers do not promote their Liverpool service for their own confidential reasons, whilst some do so because of customer demand. OOCL and Hapag operate a joint service with MSC to and from Montreal, whilst Hapag Lloyd has a historic agreement with ACL to take slots on their Con/ro service from Liverpool to the USA/East Coast of Canada and USA, whilst allows ACL to take slots on the Hapag services to the same region from Southampton and London Gateway. In all these carriers represent about 85% to 95% of the main deep sea carriers calling in the UK, whilst the balance also operate services with some of these carriers. There is therefore no single carrier consortium that is not represented, and this is what makes predicting the potential intermodal volume so difficult to estimate, as these consortiums can comprise several different services (ie port combinations) within their usual weekly product.

When Liverpool2 opens the capacity will be approx. 500,000 teu but the terminal will be capable of further expansion should it be required, and some services will continue to use Seaforth which will also undergo an upgrade, so the total throughput will rise to approx. 1,3 million teu, which will make it roughly half the size of the Felixstowe. The difference is that Felixstowe and Southampton both are a greater distance from the industrial base of the UK so it makes economic sense to move containers inland by rail because of the distance, this fact is reversed in Liverpool's case and hence the traditional use of road transport. However, it is acknowledged by all sides that the potential additional road volume would not be beneficial to the region, and probably could not be sustained, so hence the need to develop alternative distribution strategies. As I have already explained Peel have the mechanism to service the entire Irish Sea Ports with daily services to Dublin, Belfast, and potentially Greenock, Bristol and perhaps even Cork, something that no other European Port can achieve. With the Irish market now improving it is anticipated that some Carriers will switch some of their UK services to Liverpool so that they can readily supply two markets with one call and reduce their distribution costs. It should also be noted that the Irish Sea remains outside the area that requires the carrier to burn low sulphur fuel, ie the same legislation that has lead to issues for diesel locomotives operators in this country from lst Jan 2015. Thus the difference in cost of low sulphur fuel, will help offset the deviation to Liverpool from the Bay of Biscay and English Channel, although a vessel sailing from the East Coast of North of America and Canada north about Ireland to Liverpool will gain the shorter route and lower coast. These costs plus the lower UK distribution costs because until UK export loads from the north will no longer have to be subsidised by the Carrier together with more efficient use of empty equipment are likely to become a powerful incentive to Carriers to switch some of their services to the new terminal.

Having fully explained the reason why intermodal container movements might increase and getting back on topic, what are the implications for rail? As already stated I would expect the Bootle Branch to be electrified with OHLE, at some point and allowing the return of passengers services although the exact pattern of services will likely depend on when and if other routes on the Merseyrail network are reopened, ie the North Liverpool Line, and the Ormskirk to Preston Line being electrified. Should either or both of these happen, and rail freight from the Port of Liverpool expand greatly there could be capacity issues especially if more passenger services are operated across the Chat Moss route. At this point, I don't think we are looking at immediate problem, but perhaps in five years to ten years time we could be looking for an alternative direct rail route to the WCML. I will return to this point later.

I'd broadly agree that the return of the container Carrier's will bring work back to Liverpool, but I doubt this will be thousand's or even hundreds of jobs as technology in the industry allows the job to be done almost anywhere. ACL Liverpool for example completes all the documentation for it's services for the whole of North Europe and North America, as well as that of parent Grimaldi, and works shift's to 2200hrs Monday to Friday so that the office maintains Eastern Standard time. Maersk does most of it's documentation in India, and it's accounts in the Philippines although the UK head office in Liverpool does handle some customer services. CMA-CGM has it's head office in Liverpool, but handles a vast amount of back room functions in Mumbai, whilst OOCL are located in Levington (Suffolk) and all their backroom and much of their customer service is based in Shanghai using extensive electronic functions. There is also a continuing consolidation process on going in the container industry, to demonstrate Hapag Lloyd has just recently completed the purchase, although it is called a merger officially of CSAV a Chilean based carrier. CSAV Liverpool is the UK head office and handles all traffic in and out of the UK, and Ireland, whilst Hapag has a large Liverpool office handling mainly exports and customer service. The two operations will start to be merged in the second quarter of 2015 and inevitably there will be job losses. The new jobs created are therefore likely to be created in support industries which tend not be located in the central commercial area, but more within the dock estate or surrounding area where there is a need for a physical intervention with the ship or cargo. It is difficult to see a sector in which Liverpool could gain significant numbers of clerical jobs, with the constant downsizing of public services and banking or financial services already concentrated in other parts of the country.

The Liverpool Enterprise Partnership report highlighted a shortage of modern quality warehousing in the region in order to handle the devanning and loading of containers. Whilst Peel is creating a small number of these facilities within the port boundaries, a Peel subsidiary has acquired a site on Kirkby Industrial Estate now known as Knowsley 700. This site is adjacent to the existing Potter Distribution railhead, and could potentially be linked to the rail network through the Kirkby to Wigan line, which is due to be cleared for container operations in the near future and which offers a north and south connection to the WCML at Wigan. What is interesting about this development is that Merseytravel 30 year plan includes a new station at Headbolt Lane which is beyond the existing Kirkby station terminal, as well as possibly extending the service to Wigan and even Skelmersdale. The Potter railhead connection to the Wigan line faces Liverpool a short distance beyond the proposed station but offers no access to the rest of the main railwork in this direction, nor the Port of Liverpool system and thus requires locomotives to run around their train to reach Wigan. The exact role of Knowsley 700 is yet to be fully revealed by Peel but it is anticipated that it will be developed as a high quality freight village where goods will be transferred to and from containers to domestic distribution networks. The distance by road to Seaforth gate is about 9.5 miles so the site would likely use shunt vehicles overnight to position containers from Liverpool2 and Seaforth for devanning/loading during the working day. This raises an interesting issue about the electrification of the Kirkby to Wigan line as clearly to for Merseyrail trains to reach Headbolt Lane the existing 3rd rail would have to be extended possibly as far as Wigan if the full Merseytravel proposals are to be implemented. However, the route is also due to be cleared for containers to enable a Potter contract to be fulfilled which could then allow the route to be electrified with OHLE. Potentially this would offer several advantages such as allowing through electric services for both passenger and freight operators in the longer term, rather than a "closed" Merseyrail service and perhaps a long term requirement for the freight operator to use diesel transaction.

Assuming the Wigan line is wired, there then could be a good case for constructing a link to the south of Kirkdale Station with the Bootle Branch and restoring the four track line through the cutting to Walton Junction which would then allow trains to reach the Port of Liverpool from the WCML as alternative to the potentially congested Chat Moss route. This would probably considerably cheaper than trying to build an alternative route from the Port of Liverpool using the Ormskirk to Preston route which would be the only other real alternative.

Merseytravel 30 year plan proposes the reopening of the North Liverpool line between Aintree and Bootle Oriel Road including some new or reopened stations on the line. Assuming this were to happen and the route from Preston to Ormskirk was also electrified it would allow a variety of options, including running services from Preston and beyond via Ormskirk, the North Liverpool Branch to Liverpool Central and beyond. Both schemes have their individual merits especially if Lancashire County Council is willing to contribute to the scheme. Whilst the Preston to Ormskirk section is largely rural, there are numerous residential developments along the route as well as small amount of light industry that all could benefit from better local transport links which an electrified Ormskirk to Preston service could provide.

One of the big problems in adding additional services or lines to the Merseyrail network on the Liverpool side of the Mersey is the capacity at Central. At the moment the network is not particularly well balanced which results in services having to be turned at Central which takes up vital capacity. I'd therefore agree completing the Edge Hill spur, whilst costly could have huge benefits for the network. It would for example allow some services from the north of the city to be routed to Runcorn and then around the Halton curve to Chester, thus eliminating the need to turn services at Central and also providing what would otherwise be two end to end services. A new station in the Smithdown Road area has been proposed by Merseytravel on this route, and with all the developments near Widnes a reopening at Ditton could be another option, thus potentially greater demand to the south of city centre. Another option would be to extend the Merseyrail network to terminate at Gateacre rather than Hunts Cross although the chances of it actually happening are probably quite remote.

As already suggested the Edge Hill spur would allow services from the City Line to and from the east to run through Central and possibly via the James Street Junction to the Wirral, which would also have the beneficial effect of diverting some local services from Lime Street as well as integrating both the Merseyrail and replacement Northern franchise services.

At this stage, I think the is little prospect of a link to Liverpool Airport from any direction, largely because many of the other schemes offer greater potential, but also the huge cost of building a dedicated spur from LSPW and / or the Ditton area. However, should Freightliner decide to vacate their Garston Terminal, I envisage the Merseyrail could reach the airport by restoring the route from Cressington to the north side of terminal and then following the route under Speke Road and around the back of the retail park before burrowing back under Speke Road to the airport.

Moving to the Wirral, the only real expansion could be the Borderlands line from Bidston to Wrexham and perhaps the construction of a couple of new stations on the route. Apart from the question of who pays, the next big debate would be 3rd rail or OHLE, with perhaps the latter eventually winning the debate. The Welsh Government seems keen for an upgrade to take place the big unknown is the cost and whether a business case exists for an upgrade to electric traction which in the longer term would likely offer the lower costs.

Whilst much of the Merseytravel 30 year plan dates from schemes dating back to the 1970's it could be questioned why are they being repeated 40 years later? The simple answer is that then the local economy was in downturn and there was little will from successive Governments to invest in local infrastructure projects in the area. Today, the picture is a lot different, especially with organisations like Peel investing heavily in the area. Having tried pumping millions of pounds of Government funds into the local economy with mixed results, the policy of both main parties is to invest in infrastructure projects in the hope that the projects will help the private sector generate greater wealth, and thus reduce the drain on the public purse. If Merseytravel can get their sums right then now might just be the right time to get at least some of their schemes off the ground, so to speak.

 

[HSTEd]

It does not mean they are not economic either.

It does if, as in the vast majority of such schemes, the majority of the routes established use the existing technologies as opposed to these new fangled supercap systems, even though the routes are mostly newbuild.

You must not fall into the trap that longevity and proven to minimally do the job is the best. And stop digging yourself into a hole. This was the view in keeping the filthy internal combustion engine - 80% of the energy in the tank is wasted.

You are the one suggesting the minimally do the job scheme, the proposal I making would support London Overground frequencies without much difficulty or indeed any significant upgrades.
(Since all that would happen is the duty factor of the extant substations would increase as more trains were moving on the route).

But we continued to pollute the air we breath in massive volume, running people's lungs, and depleted a valuable natural finite resource because fuel is cheap. It is also prevalent in Rolex watches and such like. Outdated technology with limited usage today still being made and glorified as the best.

Uh? What bearing does this even have?

The electricity in supercaps comes from the grid. Supercaps take in electrical energy, store it as electrical energy, and release it as electrical energy - very quickly. While a battery takes in electrical energy, stores it as chemical energy, and release it as electrical energy - very slowly. The state change loss in a chemical battery is high, while in supercaps it is very low.

Now what about all the extra equipment compared to a third rail solution?
You can use the same rectifiers that would be used for third rail with the same losses but then you have state changes in two separate supercap banks (one on the trackside and one on the train), resistive losses from the huge peak currents flowing through the charging infrastructure to the train stopped in the station, and the losses in the switching converter necessary to allow one bank to completely discharge into another.

Unless you want to oversize the bank on the trackside so that such a converter is not necessarily (to correct for voltage drops).

You will be lucky to beat the end to end efficiency of the third rail.

BTW, the estimate for wires on the 27 mile Borderlands line was far less than third rail.

Yes, but as we have found out on the GWML the overhead wiring estimates are complete junk.
You can't believe any of them.
Network Rail set out to demonstrate that third rail is worthless and should be obliterated and nothing anyone else says will change that.
They almost certainly overspecced the third rail solution to drive the price up - probably assuming electric freight (as if any would run with a 25kV solution either). And the 25kV estimates aren't worth the paper they are written on.

 

[Wavertreelad]

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

That is true. Queens Drive semi-circular ring road was a sort of divide from the old city layout to the new city layout. However as the city was to engage in slum clearances inside the ring any new roads would be wider to meet with the newer roads built on virgin land at the outers. Scotland Rd ended up a duel carriageway. I have not seen or read any overall strategic plans for the inner city, as I assume it was to be perceived as a piecemeal affair but merging onto the wide boulevards on the outers when developments occurred.

WW1 stopped a lot of slum clearance, then the depression of 1929 slowed it up and then WW2 put an end to the master plan as the city economically declined. The post war city leaders of any colour largely lost the plot. The Shankland plan for the city was just plain crazy. The only good thing they came out with was the idea of merging the unconnected dispersed rail networks around Liverpool and its outers into one metro network called Merseyrail. But that was only prompted by the Beeching Cuts which wanted to cut the well used Liverpool to Southport electric line. There was a plan to make a full city rail loop in the 1940s. The Liverpool Overhead railway would form the western section and the proposed eastern section of the Merseyrail Outer Loop the other. Nothing was done.

I don't know then whether you have seen this article that confirms some of your comments and also explains the crazy tale of why the M62 today has no junctions 1 - 3.

http://www.cbrd.co.uk/articles/liverpool-inner-motorway/


It may also be of interest to know the three plans for the M62 into Liverpool were still very much alive up to 1968 as I can remember attending a public meeting at the Mabel Fletcher Technology College in Sandown Road, since demolished, in which the plans were fully displayed. I can still remember the city official trying to justify to me why somebody from say the Childwall area would travel 1/2 a mile from Wavertree High Street/Picton Road to a new intersection of the M62 on the Rathbone Road, where the Gridiron crossed it, to reach the a point about half a mile from the city centre, ie the bottom of Parliament Street when they want to get to the main shopping or commercial area. Interestingly at the time of the public meeting it was being suggested that the M62 would like to a bridge crossing the River Mersey from Parliament Street to link with the New Ferry Bye-Pass. Needless to say this was dropped as well.

 

[UrbanWorld]

Thank God these inner motorways never happened. Well one section was built which should be built on. The section of the Dock Rod to Parliament St. It curves into Parliament St as per the plan. It acts as barrier between the docks and the city centre. It must be removed to merge it all together.

The Mancunian Way did wonders for Manchester didn't it. Yerrr As did the A40(M) elevated section cutting right through west London. Who thinks of this nonsense?

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Mancunian Way did wonders for Manchester didn't it.

I don't, to be fair, think it does a massive amount of harm. It sort of blends into the cityscape.

Neil

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The Mancunian Way did wonders for Manchester didn't it. Yerrr As did the A40(M) elevated section cutting right through west London. Who thinks of this nonsense?

We're back to Mr. Marples again...

 

[Bevan Price]

Incidentally, what raison d'etre was given for the proposed termination of the electric Liverpool to Southport railway line in those days?

Beeching thought that it was losing money. The same reason as why he proposed to close both routes between Wigan & Liverpool, and to close most stations between Liverpool, Earlestown & Manchester Victoria, retaining only St. Helens Junction & Newton Le Willows for "express" services.

 

[Wavertreelad]

Thank God these inner motorways never happened. Well one section was built which should be built on. The section of the Dock Rod to Parliament St. It curves into Parliament St as per the plan. It acts as barrier between the docks and the city centre. It must be removed to merge it all together.

The Mancunian Way did wonders for Manchester didn't it. Yerrr As did the A40(M) elevated section cutting right through west London. Who thinks of this nonsense?

I for one as a resident of Liverpool am very glad that none of the elevated sections of the inter motorways were built as they would have seriously damaged the surrounding areas. The section on the Dock Road to Parliament Street is really only the original road scheme made wider because the overhead railway used to run parallel to it and the Three Graces. I did read somewhere there was a recent plan to construct a flyover from the eastern end of Leeds Street over Byrom Street but where exactly it would "touch down" is a bit of mystery.

What is clear however from these motorway plans is the difficulty the City Planners had trying to find a suitable route in to the City centre. 50 or 60 years later the same difficulties would arise for any dedicated HS2 or HS3 railway line from the east to Lime Street or elsewhere.

 

[UrbanWorld]

I don't, to be fair, think it does a massive amount of harm. It sort of blends into the cityscape.

Neil

it depends on what sort of city it is enhancing.

 

[pablo]

I went to a presentation by Shankland of the 1962 report on the city's inner ring road proposal and argued vociferously against it. It was like talking to a brick wall. They knew what was best for us. A few years later I gave up and pushed off.

 

[UrbanWorld]

What is clear however from these motorway plans is the difficulty the City Planners had trying to find a suitable route in to the City centre. 50 or 60 years later the same difficulties would arise for any dedicated HS2 or HS3 railway line from the east to Lime Street or elsewhere.

I can't see any real difficulties, just a dive under tunnel under Queens Drive for local routes and some 4 tracking here and there. Manchester is having a 7.5 mile tunnel planned right under the approaches to the city.

We're back to Mr. Marples again...

Yep that bent B'stard.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Beeching thought that it was losing money. The same reason as why he proposed to close both routes between Wigan & Liverpool, and to close most stations between Liverpool, Earlestown & Manchester Victoria, retaining only St. Helens Junction & Newton Le Willows for "express" services.

He was using an 18th century accounting system - they mostly do. Few lines make money on ticket sales. The lines assist in creating economic growth. The growth has to be reclaimed and fed back into the economic circle to maintain the mechanism that assists in creating the growth. Look at the Bishops Castle Railway that ran under the receivers for about 50-60 years.

 

[flypie]

What is clear however from these motorway plans is the difficulty the City Planners had trying to find a suitable route in to the City centre. 50 or 60 years later the same difficulties would arise for any dedicated HS2 or HS3 railway line from the east to Lime Street or elsewhere.

Not the last few miles can be done on existing lines, the lowest height for GC is lower the the required minimum height on the WCML, so provided you don't have any stations or have quad lines and can expand the fast track line platforms to GC it's not a problem.

You could even use the Victoria Tunnel as as single track platform or drop the floor by 2m and construct a new station under lime street or run down to near the old Exchange.

See http://peterirate.blogspot.com/2013/12/hs2-phase-2-liverpool.html

 

[Wavertreelad]

I can't see any real difficulties, just a dive under tunnel under Queens Drive for local routes and some 4 tracking here and there. Manchester is having a 7.5 mile tunnel planned right under the approaches to the city.

Perhaps easier said than done. You could in theory restore four tracking through Broadgreen and Olive Mount Cutting assuming you can get a separate HS2 alignment to that point, but the likely disruption to the M62 and rail traffic on the Chat Moss route would be immense. The next problem is find a route through Edge Hill and into the city centre after you have decided where the terminus is going to constructed. Lime Street would be very disruptive and expensive. My person preference is use the old Exchange Station site and the Outer loop line from Gateacre, with a dedicated HS2/3 line approaching Liverpool for the Warrington area. This route would require the minimum amount of tunnelling and whilst not the most direct, it could also be constructed with the minimum amount of disruption thus keeping the costs down, which is essential if Liverpool to have a direct HS2/3 connection.

 

[UrbanWorld]

Perhaps easier said than done. You could in theory restore four tracking through Broadgreen and Olive Mount Cutting assuming you can get a separate HS2 alignment to that point, but the likely disruption to the M62 and rail traffic on the Chat Moss route would be immense. The next problem is find a route through Edge Hill and into the city centre after you have decided where the terminus is going to constructed. Lime Street would be very disruptive and expensive. My person preference is use the old Exchange Station site and the Outer loop line from Gateacre, with a dedicated HS2/3 line approaching Liverpool for the Warrington area. This route would require the minimum amount of tunnelling and whilst not the most direct, it could also be constructed with the minimum amount of disruption thus keeping the costs down, which is essential if Liverpool to have a direct HS2/3 connection.

Through Queens Drive in the 1970s the 4 track was reduced to 2 by that daft bridge. This can be reinstated by a dive-under tunnel for local traffic leaving the level tracks for HS2/HS3. Divert all local service into the underground section by reinstating the Wapping Tunnel (Edge Hill Spur project) releasing platform space at Lime St. The long high-speed HS2 trains can be cut in half and use two platforms. HS3 will be shorter using one platform. This is better for passengers as they do not have to walk an eternity to the end of a super long train. A high-speed line can come in via Bowring Park and merge before the Queens Drive flyover.

To use the old Exchange site the Outer Loop line trackbed has to be used. This is best reserved for local use where it adds far more value to the city. We can have both, high-speed rail and a comprehensive metro.

 

[Bletchleyite]

it depends on what sort of city it is enhancing.

Erm, the one Manchester is?

I suspect relatively few people would want to live in a city that was completely anti-car.

Neil