The issue with 4 tracking the Aire Valley is that both Kirkstall Forge and Apperley Bridge have been built over the formation, the latter with some quite substantial engineering to access the car park.
Again, the question nobody seems to be able to answer: how many people interchange between stations at Bradford? And, more importantly, how many would do so that don't currently if it was easier? Perhaps more pertinently for the various suggestions: 'How much revenue is the railway missing out on because of the lack of interchange?' If you know the railway is missing out on £x a year, then you know what your budget for improvements will be.
For me it's not about Interchange between stations. It needs to be a way to reduce journey time between Leeds and Calderdale/Rochdale which are currently amongst the slowest in the North for the distance involved
Why does doing anything to Bradford Interchange help Leeds to Calderdale journeys?
But building a through station based on lines into and out of the current station would site it much further from the city centre, away from the bus interchange and a further walk to Forster Sq. Unless you want to do a lot of heavy engineering to build a new alignment crossing the heart of the city on an east-west axis, which would cost £silly.
You’ve missed many of the comments on here saying why it would take longer via Shipley. Heading 10 miles NW out of Leeds on an already congested route will not save time. Nor will the gradients and constrained route through Bradford speed anything up.
Kirkstall Forge to New Pudsey tunnel?
How does NPR stuff get to the far side of the Pennines if it's been bumped over northwards? And no, Skipton-Colne isn't part of this. You may avoid taking out the Courts but you appear to need to completely remove the industrial/retail park next to Forster Square. That's a fair number of jobs that will go.
What - it's doubled in the space of a week!? It was one billion last time I read this thread. We're boiling the frogs in crayon juice!
what is the geology of central Bradford? Tunnelling in hard rock is difficult and expensive. London, with its blue clay is easier.
TfN met last week and agreed to write to Shapps to ask for a meeting to indentify alternative funding sources to allow it to be taken forward. They also mentioned Sheffield-Leeds and Leamside. That was the first I knew of a Newcastle NPR plan in particular. I think the benefits it brings to my corridor are substantial especially if they go ahead with plans for Calder Valley services to share the new station which would mean closure of the current Interchange station
This I did not know. I thought the levels were much closer either side of Bridge Street. Much more work involved then...
No, I was making the point that for those who say that people don't like to transfer, the best you could hope for was to have the two station entrances where they were rather than where they are.
There are a lot of sofas in the north. I wonder how much money is down the back of those?
No, but then it misses out on the most unseful cross-Bradford flow.
Every drawing I've seen shows much the same route squeezing between it and the (listed) Old Post Office and Cathedral Gate.
Extending them to Skipton wouldn't be a bad idea, but Leeds-Harrogate via Shipley, and Otley?????
Bradford used to be known as the 'woolopolis'. Virtually all wool was bought and sold here. There were 300 mill chimneys when I was a lad. Listers mill was the biggest silk mill in the world. It was a rich town with some very rich people. Mill owners would often live in morecambe to get away from the smoke and commute in. There was much wool traffic, general goods, two big mail order companies (Grattan and empire stores) who both sent a lot of traffic by rail. They even had iron, steel and coal before my time. All that has gone. It is now more like a much bigger version of Dewsbury, low wage, low educational attainment, poor prospects, not somewhere companies or people are keen to relocate to. Most rail traffic now is people commuting to decent jobs in Leeds or Manchester. Ask yourself a simple question "what is XX city famous for?" ..... Leeds finance and shopping.....Manchester insurance, finance, shopping .... Bradford ??????
It's worth pointing out that Merseyrail was about much more than linking separate termini. It was the creation of a proper metro-type network, as well as creating another fixed crossing of the River Mersey. Bradford City Centre may be bad to get across, but it isn't a 1km wide river. Bradford's metro trains will always be linked in with the Leeds and other Yorkshire services, so it's difficult to see anywhere you could create strong boundaries as Merseyrail has at Chester, Kirkby, Ormskirk etc.
Bradford Council is inept. They’d rather spend millions on a pointless and fruitless city of culture bid than spend it where it needs to go (housing, education, crime reduction etc…).
100% agree.
The city centre is full of buses linking all the suburbs on a regular basis from what I can see so no issue there.
Quite
But what additional rail routes could you add? The buses connect the areas without rail and in fact compete with rail in some areas.
