What projects of transport infrastructure improvement

[Red Rover]

Does your city need the most?
For instance I believe that in Liverpool we need a tram system to the airport from the city before any other major works take place.
In Manchester the doubling of track between Oxford Road and Piccadilly.

That sort of thing.

 

[nlogax]

Glasgow needs the Clyde Metro project quite badly, specifically the team / light metro element. Suburban heavy rail can be patchy and the local bus situation is pretty awful.

 

[Old Yard Dog]

Bradford needs ...

a fast spur to NPR, possibly via the old Spen valley route
a though station connecting the Interchange & Forster Square lines
through trains to Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester Airport
trams to some of its western suburbs, not just Leeds

Bradford doesn't need ...

a new "through" station halfway up Wakefield Road, in other words a Bradford avoiding line

 

[Nottingham59]

All the major cities in the UK are short of rail capacity from the edge of the conurbation to the centre, and need more station capacity at what the Germans call a Hauptbahnhof to provide a central transport interchange.

To see the difference, consider Cologne Hbf, which has six tracks to the East and eight tracks to the northwest, giving a total connectivity score of 14. Berlin Hbf has 4 north, 4 south, 4 east, 4 west for a score of 16. I'm counting tracks beyond any station throat, before lines start to diverge away from the station.

The major cities in Britain by contrast score as follows:

• Birmingham New St: 4 East; 4 West: Score = 8
• Manchester Piccadilly: 2 West; 2 East; 4 South. Score = 8.
• Leeds: 6 West; 2 East. Score = 8
• Sheffield: 2 North; 2 South. Score = 4
• Bristol: 3 South; 2 East; 4 North. Score = 9

Sheffield needs four tracks south to Dore junction and four north to Nunnery junction, thus doubling its connection score to 8.

Birmingham New St is the closest we have to a Hauptbahnhof, but it is now too small. I'd propose to use New St as a dedicated commuter station, and add more platforms and tracks to the Curzon St/Moor St complex (connectivity score = 7) to turn it into a proper Hauptbahnhof for long-distance traffic, able to service 400m length trains on the WCML via Stetchford and via Handsacre, and with connections to the cross county routes via Water Orton and via Camp Hill.

Leeds is at the northern edge of the West Yorkshire conurbation, the northen end of the Birmingham-Leeds corridor and the Eastern end of the Liverpool-Leeds corridor. So it needs bay platforms on the south side of the station with access to the south, west and east. I'd build the proposed HS2 station as a south-facing "T", with 6 or more bay platforms and four tracks to the south, following the route of HS2 East, with chords to access Manchester via Wakefield Westgate; a chord to access Doncaster and the ECML at New Crofton; and a chord to access the northbound HS2 towards York.

Manchester needs more connectivity at a single station, which I suggest should be Piccadilly. With HS2, its connectivity will rise to 10, which is not enough. Adding an NPR tunnel towards Marsden will only make 12.

Instead of NPR, I'd build an underground line in Manchester on an East-West alignment, like Thameslink, with a four-platform station below ground at Piccadilly. To the north-west, the tunnel would connect onto the Chat Moss line and the line to Preston. To the south east, I'd connect into a re-quadded line towards Guide Bridge, and to the Stockport line just beyond Slade Lane junction. This "Thameslink North" would be separate from HS2, would be cheaper than HS2 West, and could be built first. This would give a connectivity score, without HS2, of 12. With HS2 that becomes 14, which is about right for the main interchange for the whole of the north of England.

Castlefield would then be dedicated to a high-frequency local service, eventually targetting 16tph or more.

 

[Leaguer]

Bradford needs ...

a fast spur to NPR, possibly via the old Spen valley route
a though station connecting the Interchange & Forster Square lines
through trains to Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester Airport
trams to some of its western suburbs, not just Leeds

Bradford doesn't need ...

a new "through" station halfway up Wakefield Road, in other words a Bradford avoiding line

Spot on. That made me laugh. Bradford will get the station miles from the centre because that is what the politicians want

 

[Halifaxlad]

For Halifax the footbridge desperately needs repairing, after that a new lift is a must! It certainly could also do with the 3rd platform reinstalling.

Sowerby Bridge could do with a central passing loop and a stopping pattern the same as Hebden bridge. Ideally also accessible compliant ramps.

Todmorden could with a lift or two!

Rochdale could do with remodelling at the East end to facilitate moves into the Eastern bay without having to use the Leeds bound line.

Our services could also do with being 6 car trains!

 

[HSTEd]

To see the difference, consider Cologne Hbf, which has six tracks to the East and eight tracks to the northwest, giving a total connectivity score of 14. Berlin Hbf has 4 north, 4 south, 4 east, 4 west for a score of 16. I'm counting tracks beyond any station throat, before lines start to diverge away from the station.

I'm a little skeptical of the value of track numbers as a shorthand for capacity and connectivity.
We have demonstrated again and again that not all tracks are created equal.

For example, two tracks operated as a modern Shinkansen with 18-20 high speed trains per hour with 1300 seats each is worth a lot more than a line run by a short multiple units on a not particularly intensive timetable.

If we had, for example, a modern Birmingham-Wolverhampton-Stoke-Stafford-Manchester-Huddersfield-Leeds-York-Middlesborough-Newcastle line, it would meet a very large fraction of travel requiremens on that axis and would never increase your index by more than four. Inded in some cases the index might shrink because of the removal of surplus infrastructure or conversions to light rail.

 

[Nottingham59]

I'm a little skeptical of the value of track numbers as a shorthand for capacity and connectivity.
We have demonstrated again and again that not all tracks are created equal.

For example, two tracks operated as a modern Shinkansen with 18-20 high speed trains per hour with 1300 seats each is worth a lot more than a line run by a short multiple units on a not particularly intensive timetable.

I'm all for running high-frequency services along the major corridors. (For instance, the current TRU ambition is to run 8tph between Manchester and Leeds, up one from now. But the ambition should be to aim for metro frequencies on that route, ideally 16tph. That's the way to get agglomeration benefits beyond a single city. Similarly, Castlefield should be running 16tph metro frequencies, or more. And you simple can't achieve either of those with the limited number of tracks available into Piccadilly (or Victoria). There's too much other traffic in the way.

If we had, for example, a modern Birmingham-Wolverhampton-Stoke-Stafford-Manchester-Huddersfield-Leeds-York-Middlesborough-Newcastle line, it would meet a very large fraction of travel requiremens on that axis and would never increase your index by more than four. Inded in some cases the index might shrink because of the removal of surplus infrastructure or conversions to light rail.

A line like that would be great, and yes it would only add 4 to each station index. But it would only work as part of a network if you had other tracks into those stations to allow local trains to distibute passengers to destinations off the trunk route. So you will need extra tracks. And as those tracks would be carrying mixed destinations and mixed traffic, so would only be able to take 4-8tph if you were lucky.

We often see here in speculative ideas for new services which cannot be timetabled because they run into conflicts at junctions like Slade Lane or Handsacre. And the worst conflicts are in the approaches to the main city centre stations where lines from several destinations converge. And the only way out of that is more tracks all the way to the central station.

Remember a four-track railway can carry much more mixed traffic than two separate twin-track railways - and a six track railway twice that of a four track, as seen in HS2+WCML. So I'd say the connectivity index does have some use as a measure of capacity. I agree it's not perfect, but it does highlight the places where there are simply not enough tracks to support growth.

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

Both Cardiff and Bristol could do with better inter-conectivty. Travel flow between the two cities is about 80% of Mancester & Leeds yet the service is 2 tph compared to 6 tph up north.

TBC I'n not saying that the northern connections are anything like good enough, just drawing a contrast!

 

[Nottingham59]

Both Cardiff and Bristol could do with better inter-conectivty.

Totally agree.

Travel flow between the two cities is about 80% of Mancester & Leeds yet the service is 2 tph compared to 6 tph up north.

But looking at the relative sizes of the metropolitan areas, I would have thought that Manc - Leeds/West Yorkshire demand would be several times that of Cardiff - Bristol

[image shows night-time satellite view of the UK]

 

[m0ffy]

Leicester needs a tram system and a passenger rail connection to all of the county’s main conurbations to relieve some of the road traffic. Will we get it? Not a chance.

 

[A S Leib]

For Newcastle, I think the Northumberland line and a rail link to Washington (and Consett?) would give the clearest benefit to the most people around Newcastle. I don't know how much / if capacity into Newcastle (as far as passenger services go, ~5 tph northbound via the ECML, 2 tph to Ashington soon, 1½ tph northbound via the Durham Coast, ~5 tph southbound via the ECML and 3 tph southbound via the Tyne Valley) is an issue; compared to Leeds, Birmingham and the Manchester stations at least, I think Newcastle has more capacity to spare. HS2 would help with e.g. more frequent Chester-le-Street, Northallerton (and Cramlington?) services as well as speeding up journeys to Birmingham, but I don't think it's something which is needed before anything else in Newcastle's case.

For Hemel Hempstead, I'd definitely say that it's HS2 which is needed most. There were proposals for a Herts Essex Rapid Transit to deal with the relative lack of orbital railways as well, which may have been a tram or train but which I don't think has had much more information about it published, although HS2 and more capacity for London services is more urgently needed.