Metrolink orbital

[adamedwards]

One of the big advantages of the Manchester Metrolink is the ability to combine on street and old railway routes. So how about an orbital something like this?

Bolton town centre, Bolton station on road then the old railway to Radcliffe going on road where bits of the route are missing .
Existing route to Bury, reverse, parallel to East Lancs Railway to Heywood, but then on road into the town and on to Rochdale. Existing route to Oldham. Old railway to Ashton with bits on road. Existing route to Fairfield area and then on road to join the Fallowfield loop, then old railway with on road bits and then join the airport route then on railway and/or road to Altrincham.
Yes lots to build and expensive, but fills gaps in the rail network at lower cost. Enjoy crayoning.

 

[edwin_m]

TfGM were looking at something like this a few years ago.

 

[Journeyman]

Orbital routes potentially have a lot of disadvantages, though. People are always banging on about reopening the South Sub in Edinburgh, but it offers very uncompetitive journey times to the city centre, and there isn't any great demand for extra capacity between the localities it serves around the edges.

 

[edwin_m]

Orbital routes potentially have a lot of disadvantages, though. People are always banging on about reopening the South Sub in Edinburgh, but it offers very uncompetitive journey times to the city centre, and there isn't any great demand for extra capacity between the localities it serves around the edges.

It's potentially a bit different here (which isn't to say whether it's different enough to be worth doing!). The main purpose of a South Sub service would be to take people into the centre of Edinburgh by a rather indirect route. An orbital Metrolink would be much further out, linking the ring of towns that surrounds Manchester at a radius of about 10 miles, none of which are connected by direct rail service except Oldham-Rochdale and Stockport-Altrincham (plus Stockport-Stalybridge once a week!). Passenger numbers travelling between them might be enough to justify some form of fixed link.

 

[Journeyman]

Passenger numbers travelling between them might be enough to justify some form of fixed link.

That's what you'd need to be sure of, also that you can offer a journey time that's competitive. If it's quicker to go through the centre of Manchester, it won't be worth it.

 

[HSTEd]

A chord between the Bury and Rochdale lines would allow trams to run between Oldham and Bury in times that are competitive with cars, and avoid changing.
But its not really oging to be that useful.

 

[SeanG]

A chord between the Bury and Rochdale lines would allow trams to run between Oldham and Bury in times that are competitive with cars, and avoid changing.
But its not really oging to be that useful.

It may be easier to instigate services from Castleton to Bury via Heywood on the ELR

 

[NorthOxonian]

If I'm being cynical, the new zonal system will probably mean this never happens. If you could make a journey from Bury to Rochdale or Manchester Airport without going through Zones 1/2, it would reduce revenue on that route

 

[edwin_m]

If I'm being cynical, the new zonal system will probably mean this never happens. If you could make a journey from Bury to Rochdale or Manchester Airport without going through Zones 1/2, it would reduce revenue on that route

On TfL a short orbital journey is cheaper by validating on a pink Oyster which shows you took a route avoiding Zone 1. This is entirely reasonable from TfL's point of view, as it removes a passenger from where the network is most crowded. However long orbital journeys are the same fare as going via central London and the same would probably apply to any route in Manchester.

 

[158756]

If I'm being cynical, the new zonal system will probably mean this never happens. If you could make a journey from Bury to Rochdale or Manchester Airport without going through Zones 1/2, it would reduce revenue on that route

Bury to Rochdale wouldn't hurt existing revenues because you would never use the tram for that journey via the existing routes. Bury to the Airport on the other hand, an orbital route would probably be too slow for. TfGM have I think shown some interest in Stockport-Altrincham in the past, but in general radial routes will tend to have more potential passengers and offer bigger advantages over road transport.

 

[johnnychips]

Gosh, anybody remember a bus called, I think, the Trans Lancs Express run by GMT, which may have been numbered 400? It ran from Bolton to Stockport via Bury, Oldham and Ashton. Presumably it didn’t cut the mustard with the economics as it doesn’t run now.

Note: this is open to correcting as I was rather younger then, and have probably got a lot of details wrong!

 

[adamedwards]

I can remember the 400. It was possible in the 1970s to do the whole journey for 2p which was the GM flat fare for children.

 

[Sweetjesus]

I remember one of important people from a major bus company explaining that orbital routes in cities other than London was popular back then due to the fact there was a lot of places of employment outside city centre.

Nowadays, major centres of employment have been since moved out from the suburbs to business parks outside city or moved into city centre.

Also there was a lot of places of activities for people to go - e.g. shopping centre/entrainment complexes (think Star City in Birmingham, Parrs Wood in Manchester) in suburbs. They all since have became less popular as more people now go to city centre instead or entertain themselves at home. Major exception being Trafford centre of course.

I would also say orbital routes is something if you do it, you have to do it all the way. If there's half measures with this idea, it'll be doomed to fail from the start as a lot of people would rather to go to city centre and change there if their orbital route is a couple stops too short of wherever they planned on going to as there is often no good alternative public transport for their last leg of a journey - i.e. why wait for a half-hourly bus for your last leg of the journey when you can catch a frequent public transport for both of your legs of journey when going via the city centre instead even if it's slower?

 

[Bevan Price]

Bolton to Bury, Bury to Rochdale, Oldham to Ashton, Ashton to Hyde & Stockport all have well-used, frequent bus services between those towns, so Metrolink services between the individual towns ought to be able to attract good loads. However, I doubt that there would be lots of traffic travelling across several town centres.

But the trouble with having to use sections of public roads between some towns is that trams, like buses, with have to endure a plague of traffic lights, and the consequential traffic jams -- and hence might be as painfully slow as the current route through Manchester City Centre.

 

[HSTEd]

You might be able to manage something using the remaining unrebuilt portions of the Fallowfield loop line.

 

[edwin_m]

Bolton to Bury, Bury to Rochdale, Oldham to Ashton, Ashton to Hyde & Stockport all have well-used, frequent bus services between those towns, so Metrolink services between the individual towns ought to be able to attract good loads. However, I doubt that there would be lots of traffic travelling across several town centres.

But the trouble with having to use sections of public roads between some towns is that trams, like buses, with have to endure a plague of traffic lights, and the consequential traffic jams -- and hence might be as painfully slow as the current route through Manchester City Centre.

They can get away with running slowly through the centre as most passengers are travelling to/from there rather than through, and a slow tram is still quicker than the alternatives.

I agree an on-street alignment between the outlying towns would be pretty pointless. There's quite a bit of disused orbital rail alignment, or operating but less-used railways if running a tram-train.

 

[Jocques]

I think the Metrolink is in danger of overexpansion. It's getting too far away from the suburbs, which is where a tram should be. It's meant to replace rail over a short distance, so Bury is obviously a good route as it lacks a train station (excluding ELR). It dovetails nicely with the Airport line because there's usually a problem on either the tram or train track most days, so the other picks up the slack.

But going out towards Bolton and Stockport is just getting a little silly. The 192 runs practically every minute and there are many trains that stop there. Joining the existing stations in an orbital fashion may be wise, so as to avoid the city centre, but more spokes of the wheel isn't something I feel would work.

 

[apk55]

Some of the suggestions make sense
The suggested link from Bury or Radcliff to Bolton would serve a lot of newly built homes in places such as Darcy Lever and Bradley Fold that are poorly served by bus and could be a large traffic source in their own right if a good service to Manchester is offered.
The same would probably apply to extending the line from East Didsbury to Stockport