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Manors Metro and BR

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robertclark125

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Back in 1982, Manors opened on the Tyne and Wear Metro. The station, which is underground, just inside a tunnel, is a short walk away, through the business park, to the national rail station of teh same name. That business Park is built on most of the old Manors BR station.

I was wondering why the Metro station couldn't have been resiteds towards the east a bit, and the BR Manors moved north, so that there could've been better intercahnge facilities.

Any reason why?
 
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robertclark125

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I was meaning in the early days. Could've eased pressure on Central Station, people changing at Manors to go to Monument, or Byker.
 

william

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I dont think there was pressure on central in the early days. In fact the opposite was probably true.
 

DaveNewcastle

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I dont think theres any need to intergrate the two as there are very few trains calling at Manors.

That's very true.
But it IS an interesting question when we look at the potential for future developments. For example, if there was a better interchange there, then plans to improve stopping services on the mainline would make journeys between some Metro catchment areas and some mainline stations much more attractive, specifically those Metro stations which don't have a direct connection to Newcastle Central (unless you go all the way round the loop!). For example, between North Shields or Heaton on the Metro, and Cramlington or Morpeth on the mainline.
And if there were future plans for stations elsewhere on the lines such as Killingworth on the mainline or Ouseburn or the West Road extension on the Metro, then even more journeys would be poss with only one change at Manors.
But as it is, those journeys would require 2 changes. Or the walk through the "Business Park" at Manors.
 

eezypeazy

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Interesting question.

To give an answer, we need to go back to the 1970s...

The Rapid Transit system was always planned to penetrate Newcastle City Centre, while making the most of the existing railway alignments to North and South Tyneside and towards the airport (Bank Foot). Throughout the seventies, the city centre also underwent some major redevelopment, notably the construction of Eldon Square shopping centre and the Central Motorway East. As its name suggests, there was also a plan for a Central Motorway West, which would have been constructed on what is roughly today's St James's Boulevard. There was also to be an east-west central motorway link, running largely underground. This was planned to be underneath what was the "old" Eldon Square Bus Station (which would have been a three-level construction: a motorway in the "basement", the bus station above and the shopping centre above that). (This, incidentally, also explains why the alignment of the "old" Eldon Square bus station appeared strange, failing to connect with Percy Street at what would have been a more logical 90 degree angle, but being skewed). The east-west motorway link would have emerged east of the Central Motorway East and followed New Bridge Street. After crossing the Ouseburn, the motorway would have skirted through Byker, following the alignment of the Byker Wall housing development (which also explains why the Byker Wall has fewer windows on its north side, and balconies on the south).

Are you still with me? Good.

The original Metro plan had been to use exclusively two of the four tracks of the ECML through Heaton, just as the coast railway line had. This was deemed necessary because the original plan envisaged a Metro train every two and a half minutes, half of which would have terminated at Wallsend, while one train every ten minutes continued to North Shields and the remaining train ran right round the coast loop. However, BR indicated that this wouldn't leave them enough capacity for all their traffic on the remaining two tracks. BR was also foreseeing the eventual electrification of the ECML (there's a whole other story involving why Metro doesn't use 25Kv AC for its power, which I'll leave for another day).

Construction of the Central Motorway East had begun, and could have threatened the possibility of the Rapid Transit System ever being built. So the Passenger Transport Executive agreed to put up the money so that two box tunnels could be built beneath the motorway, at Jesmond and Manors, to accommodate Metro, should it ever be built. Which explains why the tunnels there are the shape they are, rather than being circular bores (I hope this isn't boring you!). As the Central Motorway East is diving down into an underpass beneath 55 degrees North (formerly Swan House) to reach the Tyne Bridge, putting the Metro box tunnel any further south would have caused Metro to be very deep here, bearing in mind that the plan was for Metro to reach the ECML alignment. And if you go to Manors railway station, you'll realise that the station is, essentially, built almost atop a viaduct here - Newcastle at one time had other deep denes, like Ouseburn, running down to the river - the one here was Pandon Dene.

So, that's how Manors Metro ended up being built where it was.

The issue of interchange between Metro and BR here was not overlooked. However, the number of trains calling here has diminished over the years, although it is still an important weekday commuting halt.

Regards

eezypeazy
 

Mojo

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Very interesting and shows how planning of projects can sometimes be co-ordinated, thanks very much!
 
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