Liverpool Road and the Ordsall Curve.

Re: Liverpool Road and the Budget

from what ive been told alinement is to be moved to protect Stephensons river bridge, so will be nearer MOSI. new line will also have a cant to it. so this means that it cant have a flat crossing over it for MOSIs mainline connection. also network rail were looking into a new mainline connection onto the chord itself, this can not now happen due to the radius of the chord. so MOSI will have NO mainline connection as well as lossing the running lines beyone water st. bridge.

 

Re: Liverpool Road and the Budget

No need to apologise, I was more concerned as I wrote the formal Conservation Agreement for the canal bridge and was worried I had missed an earlier example!

 

Re: Liverpool Road and the Budget

I had a similar feeling on reading page 244 of Biddle's Britain's Historic Railway Buildings (Oxford University Press 2003)where he described the Alfreton Road Bridge as listed grade II. I was the responsible DC officer and panicked until I had checked the Statutory List and found that Biddle was wrong!

 

Re: Liverpool Road and the Budget

Now is not the time to try to get Ministers to intervene. The applications for planning permission and listed building consent will be made to the Planning Inspectorate and a public inquiry will be held. The Inspector must take into account all representations made in compiling his or her report for the Secretary of State, who is the decision maker, and the SofS must take into account all such representations in coming to a decision. The DfT ministers must be regarded as having a duty primarily to the railway operations and their views must also be taken into account. I don't think that one should try, at this point, to get a DfT Minister to influence NR's proposals. NR is perfectly capable of assessing the public mood (which will include the views of MOSI, TfGM and EH) in formulating its proposals for submission.

 

Getting ministers involved is one way to can the whole project, and save the budget.. After all the headlines of railway investment have already been used, now they need a way out of keeping the status quo.

 

There is absolutely no prospect of the Northern Hub, of which the Ordsall Chord is a fundamental part, being canned now and certainly not over this.

Chris

 

Re: Liverpool Road and the Budget

It sounds like someone needs to take the HUMP - as adopted by the ELR at Bury - and create an under bridge for one of the lines concerned since it appears that a flat crossing is not possible. Given that the MOSI connection is the original line (and presumably part of any Grade listing) then could it not be possible to create a hump for the new chord; a thought from the top of my head is to build the hump over circular sections through which the existing MOSI line could pass and adapt other circular sections as commercial premises for engineering activities.

 

I'd reply to this if only I could understand the point possibly being made.

 

Re: Liverpool Road and the Budget

An ELR 'ski jump' solution isn't possible as the railway's in the area are already elevated making a high viaduct the only option - while a 'short chord flyover option' was drawn up (second diagram) to give an idea of what would be required, it's not a viable proposition given the size, length and sheer intrusiveness of the necessary structure .

Chris

 

An article sympathetic to MOSI's plight is here:
http://www.manchesterconfidential.co.uk/News/MOSI-Bitter-About-Ordsall-Chord

From what I've read great efforts will be made to preserve the 1830s Stephenson bridge and improve its appearance but am I right in thinking it will no longer carry a railway or serve any other purpose?

 

Let us understand which official bodies are involved here. The proposal is being put forward by Network Rail and it can do so because the Department for Transport (DfT) has approved it in terms of strategic principle and investment. It has not, and cannot, approve it in relation to the necessary Planning Permission and Listed Building Consents. That decision will be made by the Secretary of State (SofS) for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) (or possibly jointly in the case of TWA applications with the SofS for Transport) after considering the report of the public inquiry. This will be held by an Inspector of the Planning Inspectorate (to which the applications will be made.) The other Government Department with an involvement is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) which has reponsibility for our heritage environment, and to which is linked our favourite quango, English Heritage (EH).

EH's concerns will lie principally with the fabric and setting of the listed structures and the historic environment generally. I am unsure to what extent it will see the Museum's functioning as part of its concern but it certainly should so do as a diminution in the effectiveness of the museum would surely lead to a threat to those structures. EH will contribute directly to the planning and listed building applications as it is a statutory consultee and may, in this case, communicate its concerns upwards to the DCMS. Whilst DCLG and DCMS are Government Departments, they can, I feel, be relied on to fight their own corner and not be rolled over by the DfT. Such an outlook is, I think, more likely in the present circumstances where the DfT is somewhat on the back foot as regards competence.

Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has very considerable influence and the fact that it is unhappy with the possibility of the Museum being isolated from the national network whilst being totally in favour of the Ordsall Chord in principle is of huge significance. Network Rail will appreciate that, should it pursue a scheme in oppostion to the views of TfGM, EH, DCMS and assorted historic environment specialists, it will have a real fight on its hands to convince any Inspector to recommend the proposal. Also, as I well know, the last thing that an Inspector wants to do is to squirm his or her way through a report and to justify an unpopular conclusion only to have the SofS take the broader political line and reject it.

If anyone wants to read the comments that I have made to NR they can send me a personal message with their e-mail address and I will forward them. They are far too long to post here but may be summarised as "NR hasn't tried hard enough - yet"!

 

I'm sure they are unhappy about the negative impacts, who isn't, but i've not come across anything that suggests they are advocating an alternative alignment.

Chris

 

Can't wait to travel on the Liverpool-Manchester Airport electric service. It will travel across the Moss like a bat out of hell and then take an age to get from Ordsall Lane Junction to Piccadilly. The present diesel service is normally checked, at least, twice by signals, now.

 

Only twice! Some days I only see reds and yellows all the way to the airport from Ordsall Lane!

 

I've never been beyond Piccadilly on an Airport service, but I can understand what you are saying.

 

One thing that I have not seen are the passenger figures for Manchester Airport station. How many foreign visitors use the trains from the Airport and what are their destinations? How many British people use the trains to the Airport and where do they start their journies?
There are 9/10 trains per hour during the day from Manchester Piccadilly to the Airport. Can this number of services be justified by the passenger numbers using them or are the number of services being used to justify the building of the station at the Airport?

 

I've used Manchester airport station a few times when flying in and out... It's always seemed to carrya fair number of incoming and outgoing passengers. My guess would be most are British, holiday makers. Regionally for the populace MAN airport has quite a wide catchment area, especially when it comes as the only real alternative to London for going long haul direct from the UK.

 

I've used the airport services to get to and from Heald Green in the past and they are normally well loaded, sometimes to the extent that it's difficult to get a seat.

Regards

 

While Manchester might have 9tph to the airport, that's made up of a variety of service's serving many of the major town's and cities in the region at mostly hourly or half hourly frequencies.

As a relatively short extension and convenient place to turnback i don't see any issue if the capacity exists and with the airport seeing 20m passengers annually (2.7m by rail in 2010/11), room for another 30m, a Metrolink line under construction and a fourth national rail platform funded it's importance is only going to grow with a lot of potential for both air and rail growth in the future - especially with a HS2 station expected to be announced in the new year as well.

Chris