Platform 15 and 16 project at Manchester Piccadilly.

[Bantamzen]

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

The next worst thing to mentioning people from not-Manchester wanting to get to Manchester Airport, is to mention that you are from Liverpool...

 

[B&I]

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

12. There is a certain type of Manchester-booster who is very sensitive to any suggestion that the land of milk and honey has not yet come to pass within the M60, particularly when it comes from someone connected with (if not actually from) the second biggest city in the north west, and this tends to send them into bunker mode in response.

As I pointed out, ordinary Manchester folk suffer as much from the gulf between their local overlords' imperialistic daydreams, and the poor provision of transport on an everyday basis.

 

[B&I]

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.

'For more information please reread'. I pointed out that more thought is being given on future to getting North East Cestrians to London than is being given to providing a proper commuter railway service to Manchester.

Metrolink is the best of a very very bad job. The Picc-Vic link was kibboshed not because it was fundamentally a bad idea (though it could have been cheaper and simpler, with a shorter and more direct tunnel and fewer stations, and served the city almost as well), but because the economy had been Horlicksed by national politicians, again.

If tunnelling under Manchester is so difficult, why are we seeing proposals not just for 7 miles of HS2 approach from the south, but also.a whacky banana-shaped fun tunnel under the city centre for NPR ?

 

[Meerkat]

As an outsider I have three questions.
1. Will NPR take a significant load off 13/14? I tend to think not, but if it would then no one is going to cough up until NPR is cancelled.
2. Is it ball breakingly expensive? If all the politicians line up and say “this is happening, deal with it” can you ‘simply’ plough a parallel, structurally separate, viaduct through some buildings you can legally demolish or will it have to keep changing sides to avoid undemolishable listed etc stuff?
3. Will it make a massive difference or will you get loads of crossing moves anyway that suck capacity?

 

[B&I]

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...?

That's kind of my point. It is difficult to avoid east-west routes across the north going through Manchester because of its relatively central geographic position, and the demand it generates itself (surpassing any practical alternative waypoint). The only way to do so would be if long-distance rail traffic grew to such extent that there was demand to justify Manchester-bypassing long distance routes. While I consider this desirable, I don't see it as likely any time soon.

(I should say that I think different considerations apply to other services, in particular provoding XC services to north west destinations other than Manchester).

However, the current network around central Manchester, in.partocular the Castlefield corridor, is woefully and obviously not up to the task of handling this role as a pivot in the long distance network. So much so that I would suggest that the only practical solution is building an east west tunnel for long distance trains under central Manchester, or at least moving all of them to a beefed-up route through Victoria, and turning Castlefield over to a Thameslink / Merseyrail type operation. However, this runs udder-first into some of the other sacred cows I mentioned, in particular the obsession with long-distance services to the airport, and the related lack of flexibility re the HS2 route.

 

[Greybeard33]

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.

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.

Overkill surely? P13/14 worked tolerably well under the old timetable, when they were serving 9tphpd. This despite the hourly freight, the mix of train lengths and door locations, the seat reservations, the calls at Deansgate, etc.

So all that is needed short term is to switch the Newcastle - Airport and Middlesbrough - Airport services back to the Guide Bridge route, reversing in the main shed as before. For good measure the Crewe - Liverpool service can be split back into separate Crewe - Piccadilly (main shed) and Victoria - Liverpool services. That will leave only 8tphpd calling at P13/14, one fewer than under the old timetable.

The Ordsall Chord can be mothballed, except for occasional ECS, freight and diversionary workings, until P15/16 are built.

Of course, this would mean TfN and DfT sacrificing their cherished shibboleth of a turn up and go frequency between Victoria and Leeds....

 

[CdBrux]

12. There is a certain type of Manchester-booster who is very sensitive to any suggestion that the land of milk and honey has not yet come to pass within the M60, particularly when it comes from someone connected with (if not actually from) the second biggest city in the north west, and this tends to send them into bunker mode in response.

As I pointed out, ordinary Manchester folk suffer as much from the gulf between their local overlords' imperialistic daydreams, and the poor provision of transport on an everyday basis.

Keep up the good work, it's good to have a laugh from time to time (that's at you of course). Whilst I sit in Munich, far from NW England.

I would like to see this project done, it seems required to deliver the timetable and maybe a little more. I just try not to use such deliberately inflammatory language. I would also like to see Edge Hill spur or something of that nature completed and through such schemes offer improved connections between the two cities and beyond and the two airports.

What needs to happen now if for either DfT to come clean about why this is not being approved (unless it really is the unproven digital technology) and Machester CC to be very clear about the nature of their apparent objection to the project. I suspect both are quite unlikely to happen. Finally to complete the unlikely triumvirate it would be nice for NR to do some root cause analysis of why these trains are late to see where the real problems actually are and if it's realistic to solve them. If most of those trains got to the Castlefield corridor on time would there still be an issue, particularly when the new rolling stock is in place in the coming year.

 

[B&I]

Keep up the good work, it's good to have a laugh from time to time (that's at you of course). Whilst I sit in Munich, far from NW England.

I would like to see this project done, it seems required to deliver the timetable and maybe a little more. I just try not to use such deliberately inflammatory language. I would also like to see Edge Hill spur or something of that nature completed and through such schemes offer improved connections between the two cities and beyond and the two airports.

What needs to happen now if for either DfT to come clean about why this is not being approved (unless it really is the unproven digital technology) and Machester CC to be very clear about the nature of their apparent objection to the project. I suspect both are quite unlikely to happen. Finally to complete the unlikely triumvirate it would be nice for NR to do some root cause analysis of why these trains are late to see where the real problems actually are and if it's realistic to solve them. If most of those trains got to the Castlefield corridor on time would there still be an issue, particularly when the new rolling stock is in place in the coming year.

Of course, it is not in the least inflammatory to talk about laughing at people, acvuse them of having chips on their shoulders, or attempt to write off everything they say because of your mistaken assumption that they are from Liverpool (I'm not even English), but I'm entirely used to this sort of patronising insecurity, so if that's what floats your boat, carry on.

If you read what I had actually written, you would realise that I am not opposed to investment in Manchester, in particular in relation to its railway network. However, I do think we need to re-appraise some of the assumptions which seem to underlie most of the investment decisions recently made or currently pushed for. Without doing so, we will continue to achieve minimum benefit (and that includes minimum benefit for actual Manchester people) for considerable outlay

 

[Altfish]

If tunnelling under Manchester is so difficult, why are we seeing proposals not just for 7 miles of HS2 approach from the south, but also.a whacky banana-shaped fun tunnel under the city centre for NPR ?

That avoids all the buried rivers and because of its length can dive deep if necessary.

 

[B&I]

That avoids all the buried rivers and because of its length can dive deep if necessary.

How deep is this tunnel going to be ? Why would a suburban rail tunnel have been at any different depth ? (It wasn't lack of engineering feasibility which killed Picc-Vic, it was lack of national government cash.) And if tunnelling under the city centre is such a problem, why not pick a different alignment for NPR and avoid the whole area ?

 

[Altfish]

..... actual Manchester people.......

Who are they?

 

[fowler9]

Who are they?

Bez from the Happy Monday's.

 

[Bantamzen]

As an outsider I have three questions.
1. Will NPR take a significant load off 13/14? I tend to think not, but if it would then no one is going to cough up until NPR is cancelled.
2. Is it ball breakingly expensive? If all the politicians line up and say “this is happening, deal with it” can you ‘simply’ plough a parallel, structurally separate, viaduct through some buildings you can legally demolish or will it have to keep changing sides to avoid undemolishable listed etc stuff?
3. Will it make a massive difference or will you get loads of crossing moves anyway that suck capacity?

To answer questions 1 & 2 in one go, NPR is unlikely to ever see the light of day. Getting a new alignment from the east of Manchester, through Bradford and onto Leeds is going to be blindingly expensive, with a considerable amount of tunnelling involved. To the west if HS2a goes ahead, this will solve part of the problem but you've then still got to get NPR to Liverpool. Finally you've got to get through Manchester, which will either involve some extensive engineering underground, where as previously mentioned you'll need to get a good 15-20 metres under the rivers / water tables, adding further to the cost.

That's kind of my point. It is difficult to avoid east-west routes across the north going through Manchester because of its relatively central geographic position, and the demand it generates itself (surpassing any practical alternative waypoint). The only way to do so would be if long-distance rail traffic grew to such extent that there was demand to justify Manchester-bypassing long distance routes. While I consider this desirable, I don't see it as likely any time soon.

(I should say that I think different considerations apply to other services, in particular provoding XC services to north west destinations other than Manchester).

However, the current network around central Manchester, in.partocular the Castlefield corridor, is woefully and obviously not up to the task of handling this role as a pivot in the long distance network. So much so that I would suggest that the only practical solution is building an east west tunnel for long distance trains under central Manchester, or at least moving all of them to a beefed-up route through Victoria, and turning Castlefield over to a Thameslink / Merseyrail type operation. However, this runs udder-first into some of the other sacred cows I mentioned, in particular the obsession with long-distance services to the airport, and the related lack of flexibility re the HS2 route.

A tunnel would be by far the best solution for the long distance services, but as above it comes at a significant amount of engineering. I'd love to see it happening, but frankly I cannot see this government ever even committing to a cross-Manchester tunnel let alone any wider schemes. After all P15/16 has sat in an in-tray for quite some time now.

Overkill surely? P13/14 worked tolerably well under the old timetable, when they were serving 9tphpd. This despite the hourly freight, the mix of train lengths and door locations, the seat reservations, the calls at Deansgate, etc.

So all that is needed short term is to switch the Newcastle - Airport and Middlesbrough - Airport services back to the Guide Bridge route, reversing in the main shed as before. For good measure the Crewe - Liverpool service can be split back into separate Crewe - Piccadilly (main shed) and Victoria - Liverpool services. That will leave only 8tphpd calling at P13/14, one fewer than under the old timetable.

The Ordsall Chord can be mothballed, except for occasional ECS, freight and diversionary workings, until P15/16 are built.

Of course, this would mean TfN and DfT sacrificing their cherished shibboleth of a turn up and go frequency between Victoria and Leeds....

Your suggestion of throwing away £700M pounds of project money for the occasional ECS movement would be the death sentence for any future project across the North of England! The current movements could be resolved if the government were ever to commit to the whole package, and not just some bits of it. This means P15/16 at Piccadilly, and wiring the North TP route. However in the meantime, a little bit of sensible tweaking, along with no longer needing to abandon services at Piccadilly and Oxford Road as well as removing the slow downs caused by crew changes at both will go a long way to helping.

 

[Meerkat]

My question 2 was whether quadrupling Castlefield was ball breakingly expensive rather than whether NPR was.
My question 1 is relevant because whilst NPR is theoretically on the table, however unlikely, they won’t want to pay for something NPR will fix (which would also damage the NPR business case)

 

[Bantamzen]

My question 2 was whether quadrupling Castlefield was ball breakingly expensive rather than whether NPR was.
My question 1 is relevant because whilst NPR is theoretically on the table, however unlikely, they won’t want to pay for something NPR will fix (which would also damage the NPR business case)

Ah right. But nonetheless, eventually NPR will find it's way onto the same shelf that P15/16 resides on, meaning that the no funding will go to either and that the problems will continue to exist. The worst of both worlds as it were.

 

[B&I]

Overkill surely? P13/14 worked tolerably well under the old timetable, when they were serving 9tphpd. This despite the hourly freight, the mix of train lengths and door locations, the seat reservations, the calls at Deansgate, etc.

So all that is needed short term is to switch the Newcastle - Airport and Middlesbrough - Airport services back to the Guide Bridge route, reversing in the main shed as before. For good measure the Crewe - Liverpool service can be split back into separate Crewe - Piccadilly (main shed) and Victoria - Liverpool services. That will leave only 8tphpd calling at P13/14, one fewer than under the old timetable.

The Ordsall Chord can be mothballed, except for occasional ECS, freight and diversionary workings, until P15/16 are built.

Of course, this would mean TfN and DfT sacrificing their cherished shibboleth of a turn up and go frequency between Victoria and Leeds....

Much as it would be enjoyable to see Manchester City Council and DafT both end up with egg on their faces, the Ordsall Chord would still have some (more ?) value even if the Transpennine services were taken off it, as part of a suburban system taking trains from the Piccadilly approaches to the eastern approaches to Victoria

 

[edwin_m]

Much as it would be enjoyable to see Manchester City Council and DafT both end up with egg on their faces, the Ordsall Chord would still have some (more ?) value even if the Transpennine services were taken off it, as part of a suburban system taking trains from the Piccadilly approaches to the eastern approaches to Victoria

Considering that it links the western ends of those stations, how can it achieve this?

 

[Chester1]

Considering that it links the western ends of those stations, how can it achieve this?

I think he means taking trains from south of Piccadilly, through Victoria and then eastwards. There would need to be a remapping of services through Victoria but it is a reasonable idea. Aside from the political implications, it doesn't make sense to stop services from Victoria to the Airport. Local services opperated by units with doors at thirds would be more suitable than TPE services. How many services use the Windsor link? 2tph now and 3tph next year? Its hardly a failure, and the Ordsall Chord should be treated similarly.

In the short term concentrating 185s on Airport services would help once there are enough to run them as doubles. Hull-Piccadilly is essentially becoming a fast service again so why not opperate them with Mark Vs or 802s once they are ready?

 

[185143]

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.

Knew I'd missed something! I shall count one this afternoon.

 

[B&I]

Considering that it links the western ends of those stations, how can it achieve this?

Train approaches Victoria from east, runs through Victoria ro west, joins Ordsall Chord

 

[B&I]

I think he means taking trains from south of Piccadilly, through Victoria and then eastwards. There would need to be a remapping of services through Victoria but it is a reasonable idea. Aside from the political implications, it doesn't make sense to stop services from Victoria to the Airport. Local services opperated by units with doors at thirds would be more suitable than TPE services. How many services use the Windsor link? 2tph now and 3tph next year? Its hardly a failure, and the Ordsall Chord should be treated similarly.

In the short term concentrating 185s on Airport services would help once there are enough to run them as doubles. Hull-Piccadilly is essentially becoming a fast service again so why not opperate them with Mark Vs or 802s once they are ready?

Spot on. What I would suggest is, while limited rail access through central Manchester to the airport is available, concentrating available capacity on relatively local services - in this case via Victoria to the Calder Valley, branching off to Stalybridge and on over Standedge, and with services along the Bolton Corridor and beyond, the CLC and Chat Moss joining at the relevant points. There would not of course be the capacity for everything entering Castlefield from the west to carry on to the Airport, but a suitable proportion of these crosstown suburban services could head off towards Stockport and (if an Ardwick viaduct was ever built) towards Guide Bridge.

I suppose what I'm increasingly thinking of, on the basis of starting from where we are now rather than where we were in 1973, is turning Castlefield into a crosstown line in lieu of Picc-Vic, and having a long distance east-west tunnel with (partially ?) underground stations at or near Piccadilly and Victoria, and HS2 services terminating at whichever of these is easiest (on the basis that a Manchester suburban network should permit equally good local connections at both). Heading west, this line would connect to the HS2 trunk somewhere south west of Manchester (with a spur crossing the mainline further north of that towards Liverpool).

If the airport still needs served by high speed rail (bearing in mind it would have as good local rail connections to high speed rail in central Manchester as London's airports have to its mainline termini), there could be a North East Cheshire Parkway on the HS2 mainline, probably at or close to where it crosses the Mid-Cheshire Line, which, if a western approach is added to the airport station, would probably compare favourably on travel time to the airport to the current HS2 station plan.

Looking back, I realise that the subject of platforms 15 and 16 is retreating into the distance, like the Earth seen by a departing astronaut.

 

[Mogster]

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.

44 Westbound through platform 2 just now...

 

[jonesy3001]

How come they don't redouble the track between guide bridge and stockport/ashton moss junction, could help if there's engineering works and the trains can divert via stockport and if needed have a reversal to manchester for the ones not going to the airport.

 

[snowball]

My question 2 was whether quadrupling Castlefield was ball breakingly expensive rather than whether NPR was.

When you say quadrupling Castlefield, what exactly do you mean? Quadrupling from where to where?

The proposal that Grayling has failed to approve or reject is merely to add two more through platforms at Piccadilly and alter the platforms at Oxford Road.

 

[Meerkat]

That was actually going to be my next question - what is the proposed project scope?
Just 15/16, through to Oxford road, or all the way to Castlefield?
Just 15/16 sounds very expensive for marginal capacity if there are other ways of speeding platform work and improving presentation

 

[Bletchleyite]

That was actually going to be my next question - what is the proposed project scope?
Just 15/16, through to Oxford road, or all the way to Castlefield?
Just 15/16 sounds very expensive for marginal capacity if there are other ways of speeding platform work and improving presentation

Just 15/16 is not marginal and would have a significant benefit on its own - you can run 30tphpd or more down a double track railway as long as you have enough capacity to allow the trains the required dwell time.

 

[Killingworth]

44 Westbound through platform 2 just now...

I demand a recount No wonder they take up 2 paths per train, or is it 3?

 

[Boysteve]

How deep is this tunnel going to be ? Why would a suburban rail tunnel have been at any different depth ?

Well a 2km (1.25 mile) tunnel Picc-Vic (as an example) can only have 1km downwards and 1km back up. At say maybe 1:80 gradient (if you want ability to move all types of trains through) then that only drops you 12.5 metres or 41 feet. Obviously a much longer tunnel gives you more freedom to burrow under stuff. You can increase that gradient obviously for electric passenger trains only but then the same argument still applies with HS2. There are some quite steep sections on the German high speed network I can tell you!

 

[Altfish]

Well a 2km (1.25 mile) tunnel Picc-Vic (as an example) can only have 1km downwards and 1km back up. At say maybe 1:80 gradient (if you want ability to move all types of trains through) then that only drops you 12.5 metres or 41 feet. Obviously a much longer tunnel gives you more freedom to burrow under stuff. You can increase that gradient obviously for electric passenger trains only but then the same argument still applies with HS2. There are some quite steep sections on the German high speed network I can tell you!

You would have to be a lot lower than that for a tunnel under a city.
Piles and building foundations are that deep, in Manchester there are two or three buried rivers that need to be navigated.
It was reasons like these that led to the huge cost of Pic-Vic line and the introduction of trams as a viable alternative.

 

[Greybeard33]

Your suggestion of throwing away £700M pounds of project money for the occasional ECS movement would be the death sentence for any future project across the North of England! The current movements could be resolved if the government were ever to commit to the whole package, and not just some bits of it. This means P15/16 at Piccadilly, and wiring the North TP route. However in the meantime, a little bit of sensible tweaking, along with no longer needing to abandon services at Piccadilly and Oxford Road as well as removing the slow downs caused by crew changes at both will go a long way to helping.

I did not suggest "throwing away" the investment in the Ordsall Chord, rather that the additional investment in the P15/16 project is necessary to realise the benefits of the Chord. The Northern Hub projects were an integrated package - the whole package gives much more benefit than the sum of the parts individually.

Currently the total number of services into Manchester from the west is constrained by the total west-facing platform capacity available at Victoria + Oxford Road + Piccadilly. P15/16 would alleviate that constraint.

The issue with the Chord is that it turns services from the east back to the east. So each Chord service takes up two paths, one into Victoria and the other into Oxford Road, which could otherwise be used for services from the west. That is why it was unwise, IMO, to build the Chord before P15/16.