Plans for Castlefield Corridor

[Chester1]

I suppose you could build a cut down underground alignment in Manchester that had only one running line and one platform per station.

That would let you use the surface Castlefield route in only one direction, eliminating most of the issues with the flat junctions.

That would undoubtedly be cheaper than a bidirectional underground solution, but I don't know how much cheaper.

The height differences would make any junctions unworkable. The only viable exit points for tunnels would be south of Piccadilly, east of Victoria, and near Cornbrook or Salford Crescent.

The biggest issue with any proposal is too many lines feeding into one or both city centre routes. There isn’t one clear project and thats why none have succeeded in getting funding. Phase one of Metrolink was excellent for cross city links. There are two obvious tunnel routes of Piccadilly to Victoria or Salford Crescent but neither divert a large proportion of services.

The future development of the city is a big wild card. There is already serious development away from current heavy and light rail links. 3300 apartments are being built on half of Regent retail park which is 3/4 of a mile from both Salford Central and Deansgate stations. To put this into perspective the largest tower will be the third tallest skyscraper in the UK (knocking Canary Wharf into fourth spot). The current thinking of small improvements like Salford Crescent's third platform and the budget rebuild of Oxford Road and longer trains, seems to be the best way forward until there future demand for any new line becomes clear.

 

[HSTEd]

The height differences would make any junctions unworkable. The only viable exit points for tunnels would be south of Piccadilly, east of Victoria, and near Cornbrook or Salford Crescent.

Well yes, if you are doing this its going to be several kilometres of tunnels.
You'd have to have a single track portal in each direction to be connected.
You can probably climb out of a tunnel near the Windsor Link junction (Ordsall Lane junction), that you gets multiple lines in one, although you might ned a bifurcated trench to hold the gradients down.

The junctions necessary would not be too much difficulty for a single track solution, or for a twin track solution using double deck tunnels.

Also, I suppose an all axles motored EMU opreating out of the weather (so no leaf fall or wet rail) can climb some fairly impressive gradients if it comes to it.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Are there currently any plans to help with Capacity on the Corridor, apart from an underground system.

There is a PWI lecture on details to electrify the CLC. It is at SOBC stage - Strategic Outline Business Case. I will try and post a link later. That will help SLIGHTLY with capacity issues.

 

[tbtc]

Its better than it used to be. Certainly. But far from perfect. As I've said before, Thameslink/ Crossrail have significantly higher frequencies on two track lines by having a fairly simple service (Thameslink 's southern branches notwithstanding), so that a large number of the waiting passengers will board the next service meaning you don't have congested platforms like you would when people are hanging around 13/14 with it's messy combination of routes. Crossrail seems to cope with a train every couple of minutes, but Castlefield creaks as it tries to deal with a train every ten minutes or so. So I'd focus on what works, rather than what might eventually be built with unlimited crayons

My thoughts are as follows (based on no new infrastructure, because new infrastructure is a whole other debate):

Certainly I'd want to restrict 13/14 to only Airport services and any CLC services towards Stockport (i.e. the current Sheffield services). No plans for a return to things like Liverpool - Scarborough or Glasgow - Birmingham or Bolton - London running though Castlefield !

Personally, I think any airport services should be all stops south/east of Deansgate, providing a Metro frequency. There's clear over-provision of capacity on airport trains, so they could soak up any local passengers, a 'fast' service from Piccadilly wouldn't be able to overtake a stopper anyway so there seems no point skipping any. Daft to have lots of lightly loaded trains running non-stop though suburban stations whilst traffic continues to be bad on the A34 etc. Trains like 397s/802s obviously aren't built to accommodate 'Metro' operations but I think we have to recognize that the imperfect nature of Manchester 's railway geography requires some compromises. Whilst many of these services are very busy north of Manchester, there doesn't seem to be any problem with capacity on trains from the city centre to the airport (maybe passenger numbers would only justify a train every fifteen/twenty minutes from the airport to the city centre but I think that the politics of it all mean that we have to offer at least eight trains an hour because the fuss from people hundreds of miles away would be too much, even though places like Sheffield have lost their airport service without catastrophe)

I'd also want to consider stopping every Castlefield/Airport train that passes though Salford Crescent at that station, given the connections available. If you had a minimum fifteen minute service from Salford Crescent to Pic/Vic/ Oxford Road/ Deansgate etc then the arguments about why someone's local station 'deserves' a direct service to a certain place might just calm down. Maybe not entirely though.

The problem with stopping everything in Salford is that the Airport trains already need to have restrictions at Bolton to stop them being flooded with local passengers, so I don't know how you square the circle of "Scottish services need to run to Piccadilly/Airport" plus "Scottish services can't cope with local passengers in Greater Manchester" and "a simple service pattern/ Metro frequency for stations inside Greater Manchester"

Ordsall happened. It wasn't ideal but realistically we can't mothball a scheme that cost best part of a hundred million pounds in recent memory, certainly not if we want to expect politicians to find the next infrastructure project for Greater Manchester. "You want us to commit billions of funding to your proposed tunnel under the city centre to link Piccadilly to Victoria but you're not using the last route that taxpayers funded that was meant to solve this problem?"

I don't know about the CLC. It's funny to read the enthusiasm for giving it to Metrolink/Merseyrail (with an obvious split at Warrington) from people who still moan about the equivalent buffers at Kirkby/ Ormskirk apparently causing all sorts of problems. A tram could at least stand a chance of providing a Central - Bank Quay link but you wouldn't get Burnham paying for expensive infrastructure outside Greater Manchester so I don't know how you'd fund/resource it. Plus, given the need to fit into existing Metrolink service patterns, would the frequency be five an hour (barely a change from the current four trains, so a capacity decrease for Warrington passengers when the short nature of trams and slower journey times are considered) or ten an hour (which might seem overkill)? So I've ignored this in my plans

With this in mind, I'll suggest a simple pattern of eight an hour from the Airport - all stops to Piccadilly - Oxford Road - Deansgate, of which you have

- Two an hour from the Airport to Liverpool (taking over the semi fast CLC paths currently provided by Sheffield trains - those Sheffield services to now terminate in the main shed)

- Two an hour from Crewe to York (and beyond) via the Airport/ Piccadilly/ Ordsall/ Victoria/ Leeds

- Two an hour from the Airport to Blackpool (following current service patterns)

- Two an hour from the Airport to Lancaster (extending every couple of hours to Barrow/ Windermere/ Glasgow/ Edinburgh), maybe with the Scottish services running fast from Salford to Preston?

- Two an hour from Oxford Road to Lime Street, stopping at most stations



Eight an hour though Castlefield would provide a simple 'turn up an go' arrangement in/around Central Manchester, with gaps big enough to accommodate irregular freight services and/or delays caused by problems hundreds of miles away. Liverpool and Warrington would retain an airport service, with the existing Lime Street and Llandudno services being diverted to Victoria in line with the TPE services from Liverpool and the Northern train from Chester. Castlefield would then be operationally separate from all other passenger services at Piccadilly, so delays wouldn't cross-pollute

Try where possible to keep services through Victoria running as simple, Salford trains towards Rochdale, Eccles trains towards Ashton, terminating any additional trains from the west at Rochdale/ Stalybridge/ lay over at Newton Heath (surely that'd be great for getting trains out of the way?)

Yes, it'll annoy the kind of people who want to link every combination of towns either side of Manchester together with hourly services, but these kind of wishlist are the reason we ended up with a messy combination of hourly services that mean you could have ten Airport trains an hour yet a seventeen minute wait before three in ten minutes

 

[daodao]

@tbtc

Thank you for these detailed, well thought out and pragmatic suggestions, with which I largely agree. The nonsense of 1tph from Southport to the Castlefield line and similar disruptive routes need to be removed to have any realistic prospect of improving the services via Castlefield.

 

[PTR 444]

- Two an hour from Oxford Road to Lime Street, stopping at most stations

Is this with both trains going via the CLC, or one via the CLC and the other via Chat Moss?

 

[Topological]

Certainly I'd want to restrict 13/14 to only Airport services and any CLC services towards Stockport (i.e. the current Sheffield services). No plans for a return to things like Liverpool - Scarborough or Glasgow - Birmingham or Bolton - London running though Castlefield !

Personally, I think any airport services should be all stops south/east of Deansgate, providing a Metro frequency. There's clear over-provision of capacity on airport trains, so they could soak up any local passengers, a 'fast' service from Piccadilly wouldn't be able to overtake a stopper anyway so there seems no point skipping any. Daft to have lots of lightly loaded trains running non-stop though suburban stations whilst traffic continues to be bad on the A34 etc. Trains like 397s/802s obviously aren't built to accommodate 'Metro' operations but I think we have to recognize that the imperfect nature of Manchester 's railway geography requires some compromises. Whilst many of these services are very busy north of Manchester, there doesn't seem to be any problem with capacity on trains from the city centre to the airport (maybe passenger numbers would only justify a train every fifteen/twenty minutes from the airport to the city centre but I think that the politics of it all mean that we have to offer at least eight trains an hour because the fuss from people hundreds of miles away would be too much, even though places like Sheffield have lost their airport service without catastrophe)

I'd also want to consider stopping every Castlefield/Airport train that passes though Salford Crescent at that station, given the connections available. If you had a minimum fifteen minute service from Salford Crescent to Pic/Vic/ Oxford Road/ Deansgate etc then the arguments about why someone's local station 'deserves' a direct service to a certain place might just calm down. Maybe not entirely though.

The problem with stopping everything in Salford is that the Airport trains already need to have restrictions at Bolton to stop them being flooded with local passengers, so I don't know how you square the circle of "Scottish services need to run to Piccadilly/Airport" plus "Scottish services can't cope with local passengers in Greater Manchester" and "a simple service pattern/ Metro frequency for stations inside Greater Manchester"

This is a very good post. The only thing I would say is that you could have the Scotland train running without stopping (apart from Piccadilly/Oxford Road), but timed to stop. So don't let it cause problems to the scheduling by needing a clear line in front of it, but do not have it flooded by local passengers. It may be a focal point service for passengers who do not like stopping, but it should become clear qucikly that it has the same journey time as all the others which do stop.

You have removed the TfW from the Castlefield Corridor, but I do believe that would be a reasonable sacrifice. You also removed the Airport - Liverpool via Chat Moss. So there are three services missing from the plan.

My solution to that involved removing the Blackpool North trains and then inserting more Ordsall Chord trains such that Salford Central becomes an interchange with a regular (4 local + 2 from York*) service to Oxford Road/Piccadilly/Airport). That way everyone can change without too much delay. (Note this does need the other platforms at Salford Central, but they are needed anyway given building in that area).

 

[Manutd1999]

This is a very good post. The only thing I would say is that you could have the Scotland train running without stopping (apart from Piccadilly/Oxford Road), but timed to stop. So don't let it cause problems to the scheduling by needing a clear line in front of it, but do not have it flooded by local passengers. It may be a focal point service for passengers who do not like stopping, but it should become clear qucikly that it has the same journey time as all the others which do stop.

I like this idea as a compromise between allowing long-distance trains to terminate at the Airport and maximising capacity (i.e
not requiring huge gaps after local stopping services). The TPE rolling stock isn't suited to suburban style 30-60s dwell times along the Styal Line, so turning them into all-station stoppers would probably increase performance risk, whereas running slowly with lots of pathing time is probably quite reliable?

To go further, maybe TPE could be pick-up/set-down only at Piccadilly? It wouldn't be enforced strictly and maybe some savvy commuters would still board, but removing the trains from the screens/apps could still help reduce overcrowding on platform 13/14?

 

[HSTEd]

I like this idea as a compromise between allowing long-distance trains to terminate at the Airport and maximising capacity (i.e
not requiring huge gaps after local stopping services). The TPE rolling stock isn't suited to suburban style 30-60s dwell times along the Styal Line, so turning them into all-station stoppers would probably increase performance risk, whereas running slowly with lots of pathing time is probably quite reliable?

To go further, maybe TPE could be pick-up/set-down only at Piccadilly? It wouldn't be enforced strictly and maybe some savvy commuters would still board, but removing the trains from the screens/apps could still help reduce overcrowding on platform 13/14?

In the short term, I think the Class 397s have enough doors to manage the load at the intermediate stations, despite having single leafs.

In the longer term, if it becomes an issue we should just obtain more suitable rolling stock.
Even if it was bought new it would still be one of the cheapest interventions available.

I don't think removing the trains from boards will achieve much - everyone will still know the trains exist and commuters will still show up and board them.

And the sighte of empty trains sitting static in station platforms, whilst people are forbidden from boarding then in the name of "performance risk", probably won't do the railway any good in the long run.

 

[Chester1]

Well yes, if you are doing this its going to be several kilometres of tunnels.
You'd have to have a single track portal in each direction to be connected.
You can probably climb out of a tunnel near the Windsor Link junction (Ordsall Lane junction), that you gets multiple lines in one, although you might ned a bifurcated trench to hold the gradients down.

The junctions necessary would not be too much difficulty for a single track solution, or for a twin track solution using double deck tunnels.

Also, I suppose an all axles motored EMU opreating out of the weather (so no leaf fall or wet rail) can climb some fairly impressive gradients if it comes to it.

There will be real difficulty finding land for a tunnel portal around Ordsall Lane Junction soon. Its an area that is seeing major development. Its next to the Regent retail park I mentioned in my last post that has just had planning permission granted for a skyscrapper taller than Canary Wharf. The best infrastructure in that area would be grade seperation and all the necessary land is already owned by the railway. There is a shift underway towards Salford because Manchester City Council is fairly strict in enforcing a 15 floor limit outside of the ring road, while Salford City Council doesn’t have a height policy.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is this with both trains going via the CLC, or one via the CLC and the other via Chat Moss?

The Chat Moss stopper should go back to Vic. It was a Vic service for years, moving it to Castlefield was nuts.

 

[PTR 444]

The Chat Moss stopper should go back to Vic. It was a Vic service for years, moving it to Castlefield was nuts.

In my ideal world, all services on the Chat Moss would go to Victoria, and everything on the CLC would terminate at Oxford Road. Liverpool - Manchester Airport should eventually be catered for by a dedicated Northern Powerhouse Line.

But I guess this is crossing the line into fantasy territory now…

 

[Kite159]

The Chat Moss stopper should go back to Vic. It was a Vic service for years, moving it to Castlefield was nuts.

Especially when the numbers remaining on board cross Manchester would be small compared to changeover of passengers. See similar to the EMR & TPE services, best thing would be to remove those long distance trains from Castlefield and terminate them into the trainshed at Piccadilly (with Northern running more services via Warrington Central instead)

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I wonder if the removal of most of the TOC-only tickets & removal of Advance on the Day between Piccadilly & Airport will assist at the likes of Piccadilly for Airport travellers, no longer needing to wait for their booked train for the 10-mile journey to the Airport.

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8tph all stops from the Airport to Piccadilly, surely that would be overkill for some of those smaller stations on the Airport line where 2tph is more than enough?

 

[HSTEd]

8tph all stops from the Airport to Piccadilly, surely that would be overkill for some of those smaller stations on the Airport line where 2tph is more than enough?

In an urban environment like the Styal Line 2tph is of very limited use. That's why the stations are so poorly used. On Merseyrail they'd all have passenger counts in the millions

As it is you just take the bus instead.

 

[Rail Quest]

Especially when the numbers remaining on board cross Manchester would be small compared to changeover of passengers.

I'm not sure this is entirely true. I travel on the Airport-bound chat moss services frequently and there seems to be a lot of people who use it to get to the Airport. Sure, more people will probably get off at Oxford Rd or Piccadilly in total, but the number of Airport passengers is big enough that it probably still justifies at least one of those services going through Castlefield. It would make particular sense to keep the TfW service going through to the Airport, given it's quicker and provides connections for Chester and North Wales.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

The 'budget' - well cheaper - option if we can't afford a cross-city tunnel is to further expand Metrolink by converting more heavy rail lines, either as pure tram or tram-train operation. You could have a surface E-W Metrolink line from Piccadilly to Orsdsall Lane / Salford Crescent via Whitworth Street, Princess Street, Bridge Street, The Crescent. Obvious candidates to feed into it are the Atherton and CLC lines in the west and Glossop / Hadfield and Marple Bridge / Rose Hill in the east. If necessary, Ardwick Jcn to Hyde Jcn was originally quadruple so you could have independent Metrolink lines there - the formation is clear apart from the M60 overbridge at Audenshaw.

This frees up capacity on the Castlefield Corridor and at Piccadilly and Victoria for long-distance regional services. (Liverpool to Norwich would run via Chat Moss rather than Warrington). I am not in favour of the Airport just having a shuttle to Piccadilly - just observe on any day the number passengers with masses of luggage originating outside Manchester on the current through services.

 

[Bantamzen]

In my opinion the proposed re-design of Oxford Road misses an opportunity to make ease congestion in the corridor. Rather than reducing the number of through platforms down to 2, and move the terminating on in-between, I would have thought it better to lose P5 altogether, then extend P1-4 as well as making P1 fully accessible. That way there would be two platforms in each direction, meaning as 1 service is unloading / loading, a following service could approach the station in the second platform. Additionally this setup would be able to cope where a unit gets stuck waiting on a crew change or is just extremely busy. The current proposal feels like a cheaper sticking plaster solution, that will just see even more congestion, especially if crew changes cause delays. Yes it would mean that CLCs would have to run through elsewhere, not being able to terminate at Oxford Road, but a bit of reworking of other routes could see the stoppers run through to the airport or beyond.

I also think that the time has come to kill off Deansgate altogether, it's close enough to Oxford Road that losing it wouldn't be a massive issue. The only one to tackle would be how to make it easy to move from heavy rail to Metrolink, perhaps a raised walkway towards Deansgate or just improve pedestrian access along either Whitworth Street or Oxford Street to one of the Metrolink stations (longer term I'd like to see a new city crossing that would serve Oxford Road, but that's for another thread). Also relocating the freight terminal so that it doesn't need to trundle along the corridor would make a heck of a difference. The number of times I've been at Cornbrook and watch that pass slowly, usually with a CLC service chasing directly behind makes me think it really is a problem. Castlefield needs to be for passenger only traffic, long, slow moving freight services just cause additional headaches.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In my opinion the proposed re-design of Oxford Road misses an opportunity to make ease congestion in the corridor. Rather than reducing the number of through platforms down to 2, and move the terminating on in-between, I would have thought it better to lose P5 altogether, then extend P1-4 as well as making P1 fully accessible. That way there would be two platforms in each direction, meaning as 1 service is unloading / loading, a following service could approach the station in the second platform.

The dash over the bridge would be dangerous - you could only do that if you made it two islands.

 

[HSTEd]

There will be real difficulty finding land for a tunnel portal around Ordsall Lane Junction soon. Its an area that is seeing major development. Its next to the Regent retail park I mentioned in my last post that has just had planning permission granted for a skyscrapper taller than Canary Wharf. The best infrastructure in that area would be grade seperation and all the necessary land is already owned by the railway. There is a shift underway towards Salford because Manchester City Council is fairly strict in enforcing a 15 floor limit outside of the ring road, while Salford City Council doesn’t have a height policy.

If you could dig the tunnel from the opposite end, you can probably get away with a small portal structure.

Given we would have control of the rolling stock to be used, we can relax the normal gradient limitations quite a bit. That would shorten the length required.

The segment out to Ordsall Lane junction would just have to be at the far end of a TBM drive.

 

[biggerisbetter]

Whilst many of these services are very busy north of Manchester, there doesn't seem to be any problem with capacity on trains from the city centre to the airport (maybe passenger numbers would only justify a train every fifteen/twenty minutes from the airport to the city centre

I appreciate this is a point you made incidentally and the service pattern you suggested is much greater but the view that many have that the airport trains ‘carry fresh air’ is hugely frustrating. The 5 stations from Mauldeth Road to the Airport have a combined usage of over 7.1m a year which works out at roughly 1,000 per hour over a 20 hour day. Where else can you find somewhere less than 30 minutes to the south of Manchester able to turn trains from the Castlefield corridor with such high demand? The airport deserves a level of service way above a train every 20 minutes even before the benefits of turning services there and the benefits of providing a link to an major international airport for large parts of the north.

 

[Chester1]

In my opinion the proposed re-design of Oxford Road misses an opportunity to make ease congestion in the corridor. Rather than reducing the number of through platforms down to 2, and move the terminating on in-between, I would have thought it better to lose P5 altogether, then extend P1-4 as well as making P1 fully accessible. That way there would be two platforms in each direction, meaning as 1 service is unloading / loading, a following service could approach the station in the second platform. Additionally this setup would be able to cope where a unit gets stuck waiting on a crew change or is just extremely busy. The current proposal feels like a cheaper sticking plaster solution, that will just see even more congestion, especially if crew changes cause delays. Yes it would mean that CLCs would have to run through elsewhere, not being able to terminate at Oxford Road, but a bit of reworking of other routes could see the stoppers run through to the airport or beyond.

I also think that the time has come to kill off Deansgate altogether, it's close enough to Oxford Road that losing it wouldn't be a massive issue. The only one to tackle would be how to make it easy to move from heavy rail to Metrolink, perhaps a raised walkway towards Deansgate or just improve pedestrian access along either Whitworth Street or Oxford Street to one of the Metrolink stations (longer term I'd like to see a new city crossing that would serve Oxford Road, but that's for another thread). Also relocating the freight terminal so that it doesn't need to trundle along the corridor would make a heck of a difference. The number of times I've been at Cornbrook and watch that pass slowly, usually with a CLC service chasing directly behind makes me think it really is a problem. Castlefield needs to be for passenger only traffic, long, slow moving freight services just cause additional headaches.

The Oxford Road redevelopment as four platforms was dropped because it was going to cost a small fortune. The viaduct is not in a great state and the plan required significant land purchases and demolition. Northern hub wasn’t completed because it was eventually realised that DfT would end up forking out the best part of a billion pounds to move the bottleneck to the southern approaches of Piccadilly. The budget redesign of Oxford Road stays within the existing foot print. It will probably enable 1tph extra through Castlefield but crucially alows longer trains.

If you could dig the tunnel from the opposite end, you can probably get away with a small portal structure.

Given we would have control of the rolling stock to be used, we can relax the normal gradient limitations quite a bit. That would shorten the length required.

The segment out to Ordsall Lane junction would just have to be at the far end of a TBM drive.

If the stock was comparable with the South Wales Metro tram trains that would probably work and would give the option of combining it with Metrolink. The route is certainly a big problem though. There isn't one axis that justifies multi billion spending. Once Oxford Road redevelopment is completed around 2029-30 serious planning needs to start on a tunnel of some sort. The current projects of Salford Crescent, Oxford Road and Brewery Lane turnback, combined with improvements to Victoria will do until about 2040. There are other incremental improvements available but the crunch will come around 2045 to 2050 where a massive project will become necessary. Greater Manchester Combined Authority does its spatial planning about 15 years in advance with the current plan ending in 2039. They won't determine overall demand but they will have significant influence over where in Manchester and Salford the future demand is highest. Its entirely plausible that the next spatial plan will zone a new business district to meet demand from 2039 onwards.

 

[The Planner]

The Oxford Road redevelopment as four platforms was dropped because it was going to cost a small fortune. The viaduct is not in a great state and the plan required significant land purchases and demolition. Northern hub wasn’t completed because it was eventually realised that DfT would end up forking out the best part of a billion pounds to move the bottleneck to the southern approaches of Piccadilly. The budget redesign of Oxford Road stays within the existing foot print. It will probably enable 1tph extra through Castlefield but crucially alows longer trains.



If the stock was comparable with the South Wales Metro tram trains that would probably work and would give the option of combining it with Metrolink. The route is certainly a big problem though. There isn't one axis that justifies multi billion spending. Once Oxford Road redevelopment is completed around 2029-30 serious planning needs to start on a tunnel of some sort. The current projects of Salford Crescent, Oxford Road and Brewery Lane turnback, combined with improvements to Victoria will do until about 2040. There are other incremental improvements available but the crunch will come around 2045 to 2050 where a massive project will become necessary. Greater Manchester Combined Authority does its spatial planning about 15 years in advance with the current plan ending in 2039. They won't determine overall demand but they will have significant influence over where in Manchester and Salford the future demand is highest. Its entirely plausible that the next spatial plan will zone a new business district to meet demand from 2039 onwards.

Oxford Road won't be finished by 2030.

 

[Park47515]

Oxford Road won't be finished by 2030.

Will it even have started by then, at this rate?

 

[The Planner]

Will it even have started by then, at this rate?

Still discussions going on about the layout. I'll be surprised if the proposed central bay doesn't end up as a through line.

 

[Chester1]

Oxford Road won't be finished by 2030.

Still discussions going on about the layout. I'll be surprised if the proposed central bay doesn't end up as a through line.

Blimey, nothing gets done fast! A bi directional through platform would be better but they need to get on with it.

 

[Manutd1999]

Blimey, nothing gets done fast! A bi directional through platform would be better but they need to get on with it.

It's a chronic problem of our railway (and country more generally) - everything takes far too long.... This should be a relatively quick/simple upgrade, not a 5+ year project.

 

[Chester1]

It's a chronic problem of our railway (and country more generally) - everything takes far too long.... This should be a relatively quick/simple upgrade, not a 5+ year project.

The third platform at Salford Crescent was announced May 2023. It won't be finished until the summer and the timetable won't be amended to make proper use of it until December 2026. That is 3 and a half years for something very simple. The other view is look what a disaster the Ordsal Chord and 2018 timetable change was. Getting the right project and right specification matters. I think dropping most of Northern Hub was a blessing in disguise because it would have just pushed the botteneck to south of Piccadilly. The budget Oxford Road rebuild and resignalling combined with 3rd platform at Salford Crescent will do that and Northern hub would have added another 4 services. My preferred solution would be 6 tracking the Slade Lane Junction to Longsight TMD bottleneck through widening the viaduct for an 800 metre stretch. That would enable 2 dedicated tracks between platform 13 and 14 and the airport line and make them operationally independent of the WCML with the exception of the 2 Sheffield services.

 

[The Planner]

Blimey, nothing gets done fast! A bi directional through platform would be better but they need to get on with it.

It's a chronic problem of our railway (and country more generally) - everything takes far too long.... This should be a relatively quick/simple upgrade, not a 5+ year project.

You can't build something that hasn't been agreed. Its going to need a DCO I expect and arranging blockades etc. You aren't going to get a spade in the ground before 2028 I reckon.

 

[Chester1]

You can't build something that hasn't been agreed. Its going to need a DCO I expect and arranging blockades etc. You aren't going to get a spade in the ground before 2028 I reckon.

That will be 5 years from announcement to spades in the ground?

 

[cle]

If the Big Bang projects aren’t done (p13/14, / full Salford Central - solves for terminating trains either side of Victoria…) - then pairing and limiting / simplifying seems to be the best option for the interim.

With the Wigan wiring and Salford Crescent third platform, we do have some incremental infrastructure. What’s next? Rochdale wires?


I do like the idea of all Airport line services being all-stations - and encouraging a ton of development along those lines. Manchester itself has a lot more potential for intra rail commuting - as seen by the Met - and Airport to inter-regional fast demand isn’t that high.

East Didsbury specifically could end up as a big future transport hub, but also for employment. There are already a lot of jobs there (Towers… Siemens not so far) - but largely driven to. Has high potential.