One type of much longer train, which is specifically designed for quick loading. 13 & 14 have to deal with everything from 2 carr Pacers to 9 Carr Pendolinos, all with different door arrangements, including end doors, which are slower to load.
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Platform 15 and 16 project at Manchester Piccadilly.
- Thread starter Xenophon PCDGS
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One type of much longer train, which is specifically designed for quick loading. 13 & 14 have to deal with everything from 2 carr Pacers to 9 Carr Pendolinos, all with different door arrangements, including end doors, which are slower to load.
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a_c_skinner
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I appreciate all that. However for the bulk of the time there are not trains standing loading and unloading which suggests to me that isn't the whole explanation, the bulk of the time seems to be headway not loading. I suppose there are loads of things that add up.
I'm trying to produce some objective figures for a couple of sample hours in the Piccadilly rush. I am fairly confident (based on the first hour surveyed) that the outcome will be to demonstrate that there is no one magic solution to the problem.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
Tony Miles has a piece in November Modern Railways (p14) about the Castlefield corridor performance, after an interview with Chris Grayling.
It seems he's waiting for Network Rail to tell him what improvements he will get for various interventions and spend.
Not helped by NR getting it wrong about the cost/benefits/capacity of the Ordsall Curve project (and much else).
The current DfT view is that the P15/16 new platforms plan at Piccadilly gives few benefits for the money and will take a long time to deliver.
The piece also suggests that the franchise commitments for new services are all up for review from the deliverability point of view, pending some solution to the performance problems.
And some people still seem to think that building an Oxford Road platform at Salford Central is a good thing!
It seems he's waiting for Network Rail to tell him what improvements he will get for various interventions and spend.
Not helped by NR getting it wrong about the cost/benefits/capacity of the Ordsall Curve project (and much else).
The current DfT view is that the P15/16 new platforms plan at Piccadilly gives few benefits for the money and will take a long time to deliver.
The piece also suggests that the franchise commitments for new services are all up for review from the deliverability point of view, pending some solution to the performance problems.
And some people still seem to think that building an Oxford Road platform at Salford Central is a good thing!
I think the platforms at Salford Central would be a great thing. But as part of the whole network/plan - and P15/16 and Oxford Road works are clearly the next things.
But even beyond Spinningfields and Middlewood Locks, the WPP and Booking.com news (plus more to come I'm sure as Manchester isn booming) - will only add demand to that NW corner of the city centre, for which Salford Central makes the most sense. And adding TPE and airport services will be a big win.
Long story short, it might actually help mitigate Oxford Road by spreading demand a little more evenly, although I suspect it will be mainly growth in addition to re-allocation.
Haven't followed this thread consistently, so apologies for any repetition, but
- would it be possible to build a new Westbound P14 cantilevered from the viaduct, using the existing track, and make the existing island Eastbound only? This would relieve the pressure of passenger numbers and make it easier to use both ends of each platform.
Not as effective as the 15/16 proposal, but maybe a lot cheaper?
I stress I've no idea whether this is possible in engineering terms.
- would it be possible to build a new Westbound P14 cantilevered from the viaduct, using the existing track, and make the existing island Eastbound only? This would relieve the pressure of passenger numbers and make it easier to use both ends of each platform.
Not as effective as the 15/16 proposal, but maybe a lot cheaper?
I stress I've no idea whether this is possible in engineering terms.
The edge is already somewhat cantilevered:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.4...=203&h=100&yaw=185.73633&pitch=0&thumbfov=100
I'm not an engineer but I imagine your proposal would require closing P14 for months, if it was possible at all. I imagine the official proposal could mostly be built with the present 13-14 operational, with major disruption only in the later phases.
a_c_skinner
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At risk of returning to my hypothesis it strikes me the only practical thing that could be done and might work is considerably longer trains.
I found that to be a good old Chris Grayling interview:
"Something needs to be done, why hasn't it been done"
"Well minister you have been siting on a solution for a long while"
"That's an option but something needs to be done"
"Why don't you give it planning permission?"
"It's only an option - what we need is to look for a solution" (continues in circles forever)
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Yes, this.
So Network Rail now thinks the 15 + 16 and Oxford Road works will take to long? Iirc wouldn’t it have almost been finished by now if it had been started when initially suggested? I seem to remember 2019 been mentioned with the initial proposals.
What solution could be implemented faster exactly?
What solution could be implemented faster exactly?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
One that could, but won't, would be a substantial additional DMU order for Northern, extending all the 2-car Class 195s to 4-car and building a substantial number of new units so as to be able to ensure that no train using Platforms 13 or 14 is shorter than an absolute minimum of 4 x 20m, portion working if necessary to free up paths, and that other than the new TPE stock no units with end doors is permitted to use those platforms unless to do otherwise would result in a cancellation.
Most of the cause of the excessive dwell times is overcrowding and end doored units.
That would be good # "Sorry Mr & Mrs hard pressed comuter, your service home tonight has been cancelled because your train has the wrong type of doors".
EE Andy b1
Established Member
So bring on TPEs new rolling stock.
How much dwell time will Mk5a/Class397/Class802 need going through Piccadilly?
Killingworth
Established Member
It may be interesting to view the performance of services stopping at both Piccadilly and Oxford Road.
Eastbound are far worse, probably because more are coming from further away and distant delays are amplified by queues. The following are for the most recent 4 weeks period, but they can be fine tuned how you like. Note the statistics provided by the Recent Trains website omit freight services.
Compare with westbound.
As the day progresses delayed trains become late on turn round, and problems compound.
Look at Realtime Trains schedule of passenger services heading both east and westbound on 13 and 14 and see dwell times against those planned (links previously posted removed as they don't allow sufficiently detailed historic enquiries)
No account is taken of booked, or run, freight services.
Eastbound are far worse, probably because more are coming from further away and distant delays are amplified by queues. The following are for the most recent 4 weeks period, but they can be fine tuned how you like. Note the statistics provided by the Recent Trains website omit freight services.
Compare with westbound.
As the day progresses delayed trains become late on turn round, and problems compound.
Look at Realtime Trains schedule of passenger services heading both east and westbound on 13 and 14 and see dwell times against those planned (links previously posted removed as they don't allow sufficiently detailed historic enquiries)
No account is taken of booked, or run, freight services.
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Greybeard33
Established Member
The first two links appear to be the wrong way round? The first is for eastbound, the second for westbound. And it is the eastbounds that mostly come from further away. The westbounds are mostly from the Airport.
Killingworth
Established Member
I hope they're now corrected. Exactly the point I was trying to make
If everything were on time it would work, but there's inadequate margin for any errors, anywhere.Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
They are the elephant in the room alongside the Ordsall Chord. Send them all via Vic or into the terminating platforms, and keep them off the Castlefield line.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
By the use of the terminating platforms at Manchester Piccadilly, will that reduce the number of services to places to be envisaged to be served?
185143
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Thameslink trains have at leaat 16 doors. And they're probably twice the size of the doorways on EMT 158s.
Thameslink trains have more space for people to board with luggage-due to the above reason.
Thameslink trains don't have passengers with seat reservations who will only board in that carriage and will refuse to move to another door even though that carriage is clearly full. Or doesn't exist.
Thameslink is a commuter network, as opposed to a commuter and long distance network rolled into one.
TL passengers know exactly where to stand on the platform as the trains are all the same and stop in the same positions. Piccadilly passengers have no idea due to the large variety of units used on those platforms.
Need I carry on?
Killingworth
Established Member
Need I carry on?
Please do, like imagining a Trafford Park 30 wagon container train rumbling through St Pancras - or are they longer? They seem to go on for ever.
Quite.
Whilst I'd love to see a p15/16 appear at some point, the ridiculous commitment to to provide direct airport services from just about everywhere in the north is the root of the problem.
A regular, reliable airport shuttle from p11/12, using dedicated stock with extra luggage space, would be significantly more effective than the current service.
Remember this would be supplemented by the existing Victoria to Airport tram service.
Pretty much what I was thinking, most short/medium haul flights have a recommended arrival time of two hours before departure, but long haul usually have 3. If they'd only given themselves an hour or so then they were asking for trouble, especially given the security queues at Manchester.
But one thing is clear, something needs to be done. It is not acceptable for the Minister to sit on proposals that could now have been built and in use, nor is it acceptable just to shift the problem from a to b. It is clear where people want to travel through Manchester, and the infrastructure needs to reflect this.
a_c_skinner
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Seat reservations is a reasonable point. Freights take up three passenger paths, apparently and are 1 per hour, so that doesn't wholly explain the disparity. Either way it looks as if the only way forward is to focus on throughput on existing infrastructure. Thameslink went for longer trains, single type of trains with wide doors, better signalling, shorter headways. What it does mean is tinkering won't help, it means a wholesale rearrangement - longer trains, reworking of diagrams for robustness, some stock no longer going through there too, perhaps losing some through destinations, perhaps shutting Deansgate or curtailing calls there. Now step back to the end of May 2018 - chaos. Who is going to grasp the nettle of doing all of that? It needs a serious re-working not piecemeal work.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I don't see why it would (other than a reduction of 2tph in through services to the Airport), they are not full.
Pretty much everything said on here about the effects of platforms 15 and 16 not being built, too-short trains with unsuitable door arrangements, and Northern / TPE's joint inability to effect the performance of a mass inebriation exercise in an ale.manufactury is correct.
However.
Is it time that we start to question the extent to which the problems are caused by the sacred cows that have been allowed to develop around transport in Manchester and the north more generally ?
Here are some examples:
1. Metrolink was an absolute unqualified stroke of brilliance, rather than a cheap alternative to replacing life-expired equipment
2. Because Metrolink is so great, Manchester has not suffered from not having a cdoss-city rail tunnel which would have removed much of the traffic currently bedevilling the Castlefield corridor
3. Because Metrolink is so great, there is no need to develop a proper suburban rail network for Manchester to move people around the conurbation nore efficiently and reliably
4. Because Manchester is so unquestionably the centre of the known universe (north of Milt9n Keynes), all long-distance trains everywhere in the north of England must run through it (without any attempt to develop alternative connections, let alone altwrnative services), regardless of the effects on service reliability elsewhere, and without developing adequate local and regional rail links to get people to and from the Manchester-focused long distance services properly
5. Because Manchester Airport (or a business park in a field a few miles west of it) is so unquestionably even more the centre of the known universe than Manchester city centre, it is vital that the whole long distance network north of Milton Keynes (ir at least Wolverhampton) must be redesigned around getting (very small numbers of) people to it from towns 150 miles away with 2 closer international airports, regardless of the effects of doing so on reliability and efficiency of the entire rail network, and the misdirection of investment into projects essentially benefitting nowhere except Manchester Airport
6. Because people who live in north Cheshire are gods who walk among us, their needs must be paramount when it comes to planning the national transport network, except when it comes to providing them.with a capacious and reliable railway service to theur nearest big city. After all, that biannual trip to head office im London is so much more important to national productivity than getting people to work every day
7. Because London is even more unquestionably the centre of the known universe than Manchester or Manchester Airport, the vast bulk of any spending on public transport in the near future in the city must go on HS2, rather than anything improving transport within Manchester, or rail connections across the north to which Manchester is currently pivotal
8. Allowing land capacity for enhancements to the railway network is much less.important thay building up to about 3 microns from the trackbed, so that foreign speculators can have more gimcrack apartments to leave empty, and so there are more office buildings present which could have gone anywhere but which nonetheless enable a certain type of person to boast about how many back office jobs the city now has
9. Manchester.City Council are Bismarckian geniuses, rather than some slightly more competent than usual.municipal chancers who were lucky enough to be picked by a national government with whom they are ideological bedfellows to provide a giant Potemkin village to distract.away from.the ongoing national projecy of concentrating virtually all investment and development in the south east
10. Ordinary Greater Mancunians, such as Mrs B&I, should.doff their cloth caps gratefully to be allowed to make their daily journeys for the foresesable future on clapped out and overcrowded trains (if they run at all), the Black Hole of Calcutta on rails that is peak-hour Metrolink, bus services which are as bad as every other British city's, or (far more likely) rattling around Britain's second most congested urban road network.
No doubt this will be misrepresented as a pop at Manchester and Mancunians, though, as I hope 10. above shows, they suffer the most from the current set-up. What it is, is a pop at the complacency, incompetence and sheer wrong-headedness of the relevant local and national decision makes.
However.
Is it time that we start to question the extent to which the problems are caused by the sacred cows that have been allowed to develop around transport in Manchester and the north more generally ?
Here are some examples:
1. Metrolink was an absolute unqualified stroke of brilliance, rather than a cheap alternative to replacing life-expired equipment
2. Because Metrolink is so great, Manchester has not suffered from not having a cdoss-city rail tunnel which would have removed much of the traffic currently bedevilling the Castlefield corridor
3. Because Metrolink is so great, there is no need to develop a proper suburban rail network for Manchester to move people around the conurbation nore efficiently and reliably
4. Because Manchester is so unquestionably the centre of the known universe (north of Milt9n Keynes), all long-distance trains everywhere in the north of England must run through it (without any attempt to develop alternative connections, let alone altwrnative services), regardless of the effects on service reliability elsewhere, and without developing adequate local and regional rail links to get people to and from the Manchester-focused long distance services properly
5. Because Manchester Airport (or a business park in a field a few miles west of it) is so unquestionably even more the centre of the known universe than Manchester city centre, it is vital that the whole long distance network north of Milton Keynes (ir at least Wolverhampton) must be redesigned around getting (very small numbers of) people to it from towns 150 miles away with 2 closer international airports, regardless of the effects of doing so on reliability and efficiency of the entire rail network, and the misdirection of investment into projects essentially benefitting nowhere except Manchester Airport
6. Because people who live in north Cheshire are gods who walk among us, their needs must be paramount when it comes to planning the national transport network, except when it comes to providing them.with a capacious and reliable railway service to theur nearest big city. After all, that biannual trip to head office im London is so much more important to national productivity than getting people to work every day
7. Because London is even more unquestionably the centre of the known universe than Manchester or Manchester Airport, the vast bulk of any spending on public transport in the near future in the city must go on HS2, rather than anything improving transport within Manchester, or rail connections across the north to which Manchester is currently pivotal
8. Allowing land capacity for enhancements to the railway network is much less.important thay building up to about 3 microns from the trackbed, so that foreign speculators can have more gimcrack apartments to leave empty, and so there are more office buildings present which could have gone anywhere but which nonetheless enable a certain type of person to boast about how many back office jobs the city now has
9. Manchester.City Council are Bismarckian geniuses, rather than some slightly more competent than usual.municipal chancers who were lucky enough to be picked by a national government with whom they are ideological bedfellows to provide a giant Potemkin village to distract.away from.the ongoing national projecy of concentrating virtually all investment and development in the south east
10. Ordinary Greater Mancunians, such as Mrs B&I, should.doff their cloth caps gratefully to be allowed to make their daily journeys for the foresesable future on clapped out and overcrowded trains (if they run at all), the Black Hole of Calcutta on rails that is peak-hour Metrolink, bus services which are as bad as every other British city's, or (far more likely) rattling around Britain's second most congested urban road network.
No doubt this will be misrepresented as a pop at Manchester and Mancunians, though, as I hope 10. above shows, they suffer the most from the current set-up. What it is, is a pop at the complacency, incompetence and sheer wrong-headedness of the relevant local and national decision makes.
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Altfish
Member
Metrolink was (as usual) a cheaper solution to the much promoted Picc-Vic line that was too expensive and funding was not forthcoming, despite much lobbying.
Tunnelling in Manchester is NOT easy the rock and the rivers make it expensive.
Metrolink has been a great success, as the 40+million riders will testify.
People living in north Cheshire do nothing but complain that TfGM does not take them into consideration. It is true too, that's why Metrolink will have some hurdles to jump through to get to Glossop or Knutsford.
Without going into too much detail, but tackling your point about Manchester being centre of the universe. How many west-east routes in the North of England don't pass through Manchester? Just asking for a friend...?
11. Because I am from Liverpool and have a hatred / jealousy of pretty much all things to do with Manchester.... if you want to be taken credibly then modify your language and some of your more pertinent points may be listened to by more than the few of your fellow chip on the shoulder travellers
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