Potential ways round the Castlefield problem

[Manutd1999]

How about a 4ph "Airport Express" type service from Airport to Victoria, maybe continuing to Stalybridge for convenience?

That would give West Yorkshire an easy connection at Victoria with minimal waiting time. The TPE services could terminate at Victoria, using the existing siding to the west of the station to layover.

The long-distance services from Bolton can continue via Castlefield, primarily as there is nowhere else for them to go. Same for the Liverpool-Sheffield services.

Castlefield ends up looking something like this:
4ph Airport Express
2ph Scotland/Lake District - Airport
2ph Blackpool - Hazel Grove
1ph Liverpool - Sheffield
1ph freight
2ph Liverpool/Warrington - Oxford Road

 

[GJMarshy]

How about a 4ph "Airport Express" type service from Airport to Victoria, maybe continuing to Stalybridge for convenience?

That would give West Yorkshire an easy connection at Victoria with minimal waiting time. The TPE services could terminate at Victoria, using the existing siding to the west of the station to layover.

The long-distance services from Bolton can continue via Castlefield, primarily as there is nowhere else for them to go. Same for the Liverpool-Sheffield services.

Castlefield ends up looking something like this:
4ph Airport Express
2ph Scotland/Lake District - Airport
2ph Blackpool - Hazel Grove
1ph Liverpool - Sheffield
1ph freight
2ph Liverpool/Warrington - Oxford Road

Definitely on the right lines but shouldn’t be running express airport services at all. An all stop service adds a minimum amount of journey time. 5mins? We need to draw people off the roads and onto rail in south Manchester and that will take high frequencies (and possibly some station alterations)

You’re effectively trying to capture the same market Heathrow express does with such a service, that doesn’t really exist in Manchester since most airport users are leisure not business (who can afford the premium fares) Even in London most business travelers prefer the Elizabeth line over express now anyway since it’s better connected.

I agree with locking Styal/Airport to the Chord and CLC (to Warrington) That will make things much more reliable in the medium-term.

Perhaps: (All stops)

4tph Airport-Warrington Central
2tph Airport-Rochdale
2tph Airport-Blackburn via Burnley
2tph Airport-Bradford
2tph Airport-Leeds via Brighouse

That gives the right level of frequency for the areas served, as well as retaining a “direct” train to the Airport from Leeds (albeit in the form of a stopper)

Then you can start running those east-west fast/semi-fast trains through Victoria without hindering airport connectivity, since there’s a train every 7.5mins from Vic-Airport.

Long-term you’ll want to re-instate a more “tree-like” network of stopper “GM Rail” services from the airport to destinations like Southport, Blackpool, Preston, Bolton etc in so doing serving the employment area of Oxford Road. Obviously for that you’ll need NPR so you don’t have conflicting moves over the Windsor Link.

 

[PTR 444]

How about a 4ph "Airport Express" type service from Airport to Victoria, maybe continuing to Stalybridge for convenience?

That would give West Yorkshire an easy connection at Victoria with minimal waiting time. The TPE services could terminate at Victoria, using the existing siding to the west of the station to layover.

The long-distance services from Bolton can continue via Castlefield, primarily as there is nowhere else for them to go. Same for the Liverpool-Sheffield services.

Castlefield ends up looking something like this:
4ph Airport Express
2ph Scotland/Lake District - Airport
2ph Blackpool - Hazel Grove
1ph Liverpool - Sheffield
1ph freight
2ph Liverpool/Warrington - Oxford Road

That would give too few trains to the airport though. Ideally I would send all Blackpool and Cumbria/Scotland trains to the Airport, with nothing crossing the station throat at Piccadilly apart from freight and the Liverpool - Sheffield trains.

4tph across the Ordsall Chord is fine but at that frequency it might be better to send them onwards to the North East. 2tph to Leeds via Huddersfield (and beyond) and 2tph to Stalybridge or Rochdale could work.

 

[The Planner]

What is actually crossing the throat at Picc? The Norwich Liverpool doesnt, freight don't. Slade Lane is the issue as the line pairings swap and you have the Styals joining.

 

[PTR 444]

What is actually crossing the throat at Picc? The Norwich Liverpool doesnt, freight don't. Slade Lane is the issue as the line pairings swap and you have the Styals joining.

I meant as in crossing from Castlefield to the Stockport lines. You could have a scenario where everything from Castlefield goes to Styal and everything from Stockport goes to Piccadilly trainshed, but that prevents direct Liverpool - Sheffield trains from operating.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That would give too few trains to the airport though. Ideally I would send all Blackpool and Cumbria/Scotland trains to the Airport, with nothing crossing the station throat at Piccadilly apart from freight and the Liverpool - Sheffield trains.

4tph across the Ordsall Chord is fine but at that frequency it might be better to send them onwards to the North East. 2tph to Leeds via Huddersfield (and beyond) and 2tph to Stalybridge or Rochdale could work.

The reason not to send them too far is to keep things punctual. Merseyrail works because nothing goes very far or interacts with much outside.

 

[PTR 444]

I honestly believe the best short-term solution for Manchester without building any new infrastructure is to implement Option C of the Manchester Recovery Taskforce, but with a few amendments as follows:

• Stalybridge - Wigan trains no longer run through to Southport, allowing these to be run with Class 331 units pending completion of the Bolton - Wigan wiring project
• Southport - Manchester split into two separate services: 1tph running through to the Airport and Crewe via Golborne and Castlefield. 1tph as an extension of the Wigan - Leeds via Brighouse train
• CLC to have 2 stopping services and 1 fast per hour rather than the other way round. All trains operate the full length from Liverpool to Oxford Road, with the fast continuing to Nottingham via its usual route. Cleethorpes service to start from Piccadilly Trainshed
• Liverpool - Oxford Road via Chat Moss extended to Crewe via Airport
• All Cumbria trains run to Windermere rather than alternating with Barrow. This improves the likelihood of the service (and Castlefield overall) going fully electric since Windermere is much easier to wire than Barrow, the latter of which can be served by an hourly diesel shuttle from Preston
• No trains from the Styal line terminate in the trainshed at Piccadilly

This gives you the following service provision within Manchester:

Castlefield
2tph Airport - Leeds/North East
2tph Airport - Windermere/Scotland
2tph Airport - Blackpool
2tph Crewe - Airport - Liverpool/Southport via Chat Moss
2tph Liverpool - Oxford Road via CLC
1tph Liverpool - Nottingham via CLC
1tph Piccadilly (trainshed) - Cleethorpes
1tph freight

Victoria
2tph Liverpool - Leeds/North East
2tph Chester - Bradford/Leeds
2tph Wigan - Bolton - Stalybridge
2tph Clitheroe/Blackburn - Bolton - Rochdale
1tph Southport - Atherton - Brighouse - Leeds
1tph Kirkby - Atherton - Burnley - Blackburn

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Sep 2023 ==

The reason not to send them too far is to keep things punctual. Merseyrail works because nothing goes very far or interacts with much outside.

Even if you did have a Merseyrail style S-Bahn in Manchester, you still have to terminate and reverse the long distance trains somewhere. Until NPR or some other solution is built, it makes sense to run the Scotland trains to the Airport or Stalybridge to avoid eating up paths at Piccadilly and Victoria respectively.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

What is actually crossing the throat at Picc? The Norwich Liverpool doesnt, freight don't. Slade Lane is the issue as the line pairings swap and you have the Styals joining.

I sometimes think that there's only you and me on here that understand this. What's more if there is a return to significant growth in passenger numbers it won't be long before the junctions at Edgeley also become an issue especially if HS2 gets any further delayed. It's interesting to see that whatever people's preferred way forward may be additional trackage seems to be a necessary part of the solution. We need more than just HSR.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

What exactly is the Castlefield problem? My reflex idea is a Manchester subway (duh) but I don’t actually know if that would work given the seeming complexities of the problem at hand

 

[GJMarshy]

What exactly is the Castlefield problem? My reflex idea is a Manchester subway (duh) but I don’t actually know if that would work given the seeming complexities of the problem at hand

In short, there’s only one twin-track railway connecting Piccadilly to anywhere but the south. Victoria has much poorer connections, and so as many trains as possible are routed through the corridor to connect with Piccadilly, involving multiple conflicting moves across flat junctions with no space for grade-separation.

*Piccadilly in red*

 

[Meerkat]

The reason not to send them too far is to keep things punctual. Merseyrail works because nothing goes very far or interacts with much outside.

Merseyrail works because it’s largely segregated and doesn’t have to deal with through trains due to Liverpool’s geography.

 

[Krokodil]

Merseyrail works because it’s largely segregated and doesn’t have to deal with through trains due to Liverpool’s geography.

Isn't that basically what he said?

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Merseyrail works because it’s largely segregated and doesn’t have to deal with through trains due to Liverpool’s geography.

Isn't that basically what he said?

I think what @Meerkat is saying is that the decision not to have Merseyrail services extending very far from Liverpool's urban core is less of a conscious decision and more a reflection of geography which has shaped the wider railway network and thus helped to create some of the operational limits to the Merseyrail network.

Beyond that there is a certain amount of local/regional politics involved as illustrated by the occasional outbursts of good old fashioned parochialism during discussions here.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think what @Meerkat is saying is that the decision not to have Merseyrail services extending very far from Liverpool's urban core is less of a conscious decision and more a reflection of geography which has shaped the wider railway network and thus helped to create some of the operational limits to the Merseyrail network.

I don't think that's true, because you absolutely could run through services off all the northern and eastern branches. Liverpool Central to Blackpool North would be entirely possible, for instance, as would say Southport to Manchester Oxford Road via Liverpool and Warrington.

Liverpool is a bit constrained by location, but there are still lots of possibilities in a north east direction which haven't been taken (and shouldn't be).