Liverpool Road and the Ordsall Curve.

One of the reasons for this chord is to speed up train times between Piccadilly and Leeds. Yet people are assuming extra stops at Victoria and Oxford Road will be made. I think you can think again.

 

A speed-up between Leeds and Manchester will be achieved by improvements on the Diggle route, such as the recent work at Stalybridge. Leeds to Piccadilly via Victoria, but without stopping there, is always going to be slower than via Guide Bridge with no stops so the re-routeing would be pointless if timing to any central Manchester station was the criterion. Leeds to Victoria will be quicker than Leeds to Piccadilly and will represent a move towards re-instating Victoria as the principal station on the Leeds-Liverpool axis. Oxford Road will be an essential stop to serve the city centre adequately. The ex-Leeds trains regarded as more significant will be those to Liverpool with those to Manchester Airport less so.

 

We know that the hourly Liverpool-Scarborough will be re-routed via Earlestown, direct to Victoria and onwards to Leeds and beyond. By virtue of this fact, it will become the fastest Manchester-Leeds service. Are you saying that the vast number of people who use the other three Leeds services from Piccadilly will accept a service that could be up to 10 minutes slower between Piccadilly and Leeds when travelling via the new chord and calling at Oxford Road and Victoria? (That is assuming that the Piccadilly-Hull services are re-routed this way) That is not the idea of the chord and will also clog up the line completely. Victoria only has four through platforms now and a lot of local trains use those.

 

After the "country improvements" on the Diggle route, Leeds to Victoria via Miles Platting will be quicker than Leeds to Piccadilly via Guide Bridge. Leeds to Piccadilly via, and calling at, Victoria and Oxford Road will be slower than via Guide Bridge. Detailed times have not yet been worked out as I understand it but your theroretical "10 minutes" could well be split, that is 5 minutes quicker to Victoria and 5 slower to Piccadilly. Remember though that the airport services will not need to reverse so airport times will be much the same

 

How many people actually travel between Liverpool and Leeds anyway..

Does everyone in Liverpool have a granny in Yorkshire or something ?

is this not just a propagation of an ancient Victorian route from L&Y days that still exists today, because it always did because back int em days when grandfather was thou lad there were mills in Yorkshire that traded with the sea ?

anyone actually done a survey of who travels where on this train ?.. If there's a completely different set of passengers getting off in Leeds than what got on in Liverpool... Maybe the route itself should be rethought ?

 

Please check your history. The Liverpool-Newcastle service ran on the ex-LNWR line across the Moss to Manchester Exchange/Victoria and onwards to Leeds on the ex-LNWR line via Diggle until the mid 1980s. For some reason (Warrington Development Corporation?) the service was then altered to run on the much slower route via Warrington and Piccadilly. When Manchester Airport station opened, there was a rethink on routes and Liverpool ended up with a Scarborough service instead of the Newcastle one. I would have to check, but I think that there were very few, if any, trains from Piccadilly to Leeds and beyond prior to the Airport station opening, except for the above service from Liverpool.. As well as the Liverpool-Newcastle trains, there were also Liverpool-Hull services. Both ran across the Moss through Victoria/Exchange station. So other than a break of 25 years or so, the major route through Manchester to Leeds and beyond was via Exchange/Victoria station.

 

Only that kind of answer would come on Nat pres.
i presume it was too much to assume the L&Y actually had trains between Lancashire and Yorkshire.

but the original question was the one I was posing was..

How many people actually travel between Liverpool and Leeds anyway..
is there even a need for a "somewhere west" to "somewhere east" across the peninnes.. Or are most passengers going to/from east or west on these services from the "middle" or vicinity..ie Manchester.

 

As an aid to people checking history the following text is from the Disused staions site

Disused Stations: Station

 

Doesn't help with the answers to ADB968008's questions though!

 

And therein lies the question. If you look at the tourist trade, Liverpool and York are the most visited cities in the North. If you look at the business trade, then it is Manchester and Leeds. There are four trains per hour between Manchester, Leeds and beyond and one per hour from Liverpool to Leeds and beyond. I travel from Liverpool to York regularly and it is not all Manchester to Leeds passengers, by no means. The figures I would like to see published are those for Manchester Airport station passengers. Do incoming visitors use the trains, and where do they travel to? Also, where do people in the UK, who use the Airport, travel from? I think those details would be very interesting.

 

Indeed, afterall a rail service is designed to suit it's passengers.
Not maintained to enforce status quo.

I have a hunch the Liverpool-transpeninne service was designed to suit Liverpool's transatlantic passenger liner trade back in the day, and has been maintained to run that way ever since, but travel routines of passengers now may be a more Liverpool-to the South & Manchester direction, rather than an "all over Yorkshire to Liverpool and onto the new world"
If that were true, maybe Liverpool-Manchester and a separate Manchester Airport - Yorkshire service is more appropriate in todays world ? (Yorkshire isnt well blessed when it comes to Air travel options or destinations)

I also agree if Manchester Airport passengers are travelling to Manchester and changing to a myriad of different places, unless there's a clear large passenger base to aim towards... then an Airport Express (with baggage Checkin facilities etc) at Mayfield Road may be the best overall solution... if there changing at Manchester already.. they may as well do it in more comfort with a solution that meets what people are doing anyway.

I suspect Bolton plays a large part in any Manchester passenger travel figures.. it is a very large urban conurbation..yet it's services are somewhat "victorian" too.. Manchester-Blackpool.. i suspect there arent many commuters really going from Bolton to Blackpool every day... I reckon that could service be curtailed at Preston most of the day... but where are those passengers changing to from Manchester...?.. maybe this should be a Preston-Transpenine service instead ?

 

If there had been a demand for Yorkshire folk to dis-embark from a transatlantic liner and travel back home, then a service would have been laid on from Liverpool Riverside station for them. The Londoners got this service with the Cunard specials and the Empress Voyager trains. As well as the trains to Yorkshire from Lime Street, there were also trains over the exL & Y to Newcastle which bypassed Leeds and went via Wakefield.
Rebuilding Mayfield station and using it for the purpose you have stated. Well, that would totally eliminate the need for the chord and vastly simplify services in the Piccadilly area.
With regards to services in the Manchester north area. Yes, they are abysmal, especially at peak times. There are the poor local services, then the TPE Barrow and Blackpool to the Airport services. Again the question needs to be asked, Do these TPE services need to go to the Airport?
As I have mentioned in a previous post, the one Northern area that does not have a service to the Airport is Chester and North Wales. To and from Piccadilly, yes, Airport no. Why.

 

Oddly the airport is generally served quite badly from south of Manchester, despite being on that side of the city. Apart from a stopping service from Crewe there is basically nothing, despite Manchester being clearly the biggest airport in the country outside of the south east.

From my occasional trips on TPE services (generally between Manchester and either Leeds or Liverpool) there is clear demand for services through Manchester from Liverpool to Yorkshire and vice versa - one only needs to look at the destination tickets on the reservation markers. Liverpool is very poorly served by rail in my view, and to curtail services to Yorkshire would just make the situation worse.

 

When I fly I use the service from York to the Airport, usually at some early hour.

 

The simple answer is that there's no railway to run one on. It could be done as part of a comprehensive reorganisation of services on the south side of Manchester.

(1) Extend the airport line some 6km to meet the Chester line north of Mobberley. Run an hourly limited stop North Wales to Piccadilly, Oxford Road, Victoria and points north-east to Leeds, York and Scarborough via the mid-Cheshire line. Intermediately run an hourly Chester to Manchester local as now via Altrincham and Stockport. (Initially both diesel services)

(2) Rebuild Skelton Junction to Glazebrook for freight, with a chord on the eastern side of the Manchester Ship Canal from Partington to Flixton, to take virtually all such off the Castlefield corridor.

(3) On current Trans-Pennine (geographically, not the operator) routes,
(i) Newcastle-York-Leeds-Liverpool to call at Victoria only; (Electic trains).
(ii) Scarborough to North Wales as in (1) above.
(iii)Leeds to Manchester "locals" to run via Guide Bridge to Piccadilly east side together with the
Glossop and Sheffield locals.
(iv) Norwich-Liverpool and Buxton - Preston etc. to slip over to the west side at Slade Lane /
Longsight and call at Piccadilly and Oxford Road.

How would all this go down with the public? Airport to Mobberley wouldn't be popular with the locals but both construction and operation would probably cause less disruption than aircraft movements. The "Partington Chord" is in an area of poor landscape quality. I know that I've strayed some way from the Ordsall Chord but these suggestions are relevant to the amount of traffic that would use the line between Piccadilly and Deansgate Junction / Ordsall Lane Junction.

The current problems all stem from BR's propulsion of the elimination of alternative routes to impress the politicians of the day. Withdrawal of services was no real problem and lifting track was not too bad because it would only deteriorate, but the killer was pursuing redevelopment on isolated bits of the solum instead of protecting it. These now stand as horribly expensive blockages to re-opening and removal is probably politically unacceptable because there is something rather unpleasant in terms of pubic policy about a public body selling land "it has no conceivable further use for" and then (under a different name but essentially performing the same function) wanting to buy it back and demolish relatively new development which often is of a residential or community purpose. It's been done on small scale on the Waverley line but it isn't popular.

 

For airport passengers, especially those with luggage, the best solution will be one involving no changes - helpfully it's a useful place for services through the Castlefield Corridor to turnback so there's no need for a separate 'express' service or renovating Mayfield as most run non-stop to the airport anyway, and there's neither the capacity nor potential time saving for the kind of premium service that Gatwick or Heathrow have anyway.

Looking at the modelled timetable on the last page of the Manchester Hub Study a very comprehensive service is quite possible and thanks to the 4tph via Oxford Rd and Victoria i'd be surprised if most passengers required more than one change.

In recent years a handful of services from Chester via Warrington have been extended through to the airport though i believe capacity constraints prevent any more, however this could increase to hourly as shown in the Hub study above.

Chris

 

John, at present there is an hourly service from Manchester Piccadilly to Llandudno via Earlestown and Warrington Bank Quay.
All services approaching Piccadilly from the Stockport direction are put on their correct path into Piccadilly in the Stockport area.
Also on your point 2. I could agree with that, but where does the freight go to? There is now no line from Heaton Mersey to Godley Junction and onwards via Woodhead, to either Sheffield or Mexborough. To do away with that route was a major mistake. The only route for freight eastwards is from Heaton Mersey to Chinley and then across to the Midland main line at Dore, where you can go either north or south. Where is the capacity for that?

 

Please note that there are no direct services from North Wales and Chester to the Airport. All services terminate at Piccadilly.
I tell a lie. There is one service, 1849 from Chester. Big deal.

 

According to NRE it's actually three a day from Chester at 03:36, 18:49 and 19:50, which i believe ATW applied for back in 2009 - it might not be a 'big deal' but it's better than nothing and as i pointed out the Northern Hub might see this increased to hourly.

Chris