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Manchester infrastructure(some not realised)

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dggar

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CosherB

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There is an exhibition in Manchester starting 24th March on post war plans for transport in Manchster.

24th February isn't it?

I remember the Pic - Vic proposed underground line!

Helicopters into the city - hardly mass public transport is it? It would have been intolerably noisy for the many who'd never get to use it, just to whisk a few privaledged rich ones about!
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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I remember a Monorail project from Middleton to Manchester Airport being considered in the mid-1960's period which had a three-volume "Manchester Rapid Transit Study" document that was commissioned jointly by Manchester Corporation, British Railways and the Ministry of Transport in 1965. The Consulting Engineers were de Leuw Cather and Partners who were working in conjunction with Hennessey Chadwick Oh Eocha and Partners.

A copy of the set of all three volumes is currently in the archives of the Museum of Transport in Manchester.
 

dggar

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24th February isn't it?

I remember the Pic - Vic proposed underground line!

Helicopters into the city - hardly mass public transport is it? It would have been intolerably noisy for the many who'd never get to use it, just to whisk a few privaledged rich ones about!

Misread the Evening news entry.

edited the original posting
 

lancastrian

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I also remember the plans for the 'Picc - Vic Line'. I really wish that it had been built. As good as Metrolink is excellent as a Tram System, but to have linked the former ex: Lancashire & Yorkshire suburban system with the South Manchester one as a through electrified system would have been brilliant.

It was managed in Liverpool (the loop & link) and in Newcastle (Tyne & Wear Metro). I just don't really understand why it did not happen in Manchester.
 

John55

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I also remember the plans for the 'Picc - Vic Line'. I really wish that it had been built. As good as Metrolink is excellent as a Tram System, but to have linked the former ex: Lancashire & Yorkshire suburban system with the South Manchester one as a through electrified system would have been brilliant.

It was managed in Liverpool (the loop & link) and in Newcastle (Tyne & Wear Metro). I just don't really understand why it did not happen in Manchester.

In my opinion the Picc-Vic scheme was not good enough as proposed in 1977 . It joined the Bury route (+ the line from Bury to Bolton) to the southbound lines from Piccadilly. This always seemed odd to me as the busy routes were Piccadilly to Altrincham and Victoria to Bury. To make sense I always thought junctions were needed at north and south of the underground link to ensure enough services ran through.

I think the PTE had ideas for other projects which involved joining the Altrincham line to the Woodhead route or similar but they were a long way from concrete ideas.

When Metrolink was dreamed up they didn't make the same mistake and used the busy routes as the basis and it went much better though with a completely different type of network.

Don't underestimate the impact of good timing and luck in getting approvals for these kind of schemes. When I was doing some research in the National Archive a few years ago I was interested to find some correspondence from the MoT which essentially told the Merseyside promoters of the Loop and Link that if they kept the design of the L&L as agreed the money would be available to build it but if there was a delay of as little as 6 months then the chance of the money would be gone possibly for ever. This was during a period when a different scheme was being discussed. Presumably on the basis that a Loop and Link in the gronud is worth any number of other scheme on the drawing board they stuck with the scheme that was built.
 

Wath Yard

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This is an interesting exhibition. The highlight is the artist's impression of the Manchester Victoria helipad. The 1950's vision of the future of transport was apparently helicopters and steam trains!
 

Midlandman

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A good while ago now, we lived in Chorlton-cum-Hardy (just connected to Metrolink and how handy would THAT have been when we lived there - 4 minutes walk from our old front door). In the local library was a book entitled 'The Manchester Plan' which was published immediately after the war to deal with the proposed restoration of the bomb-damaged city. It was certainly a gran scheme, with tree-lined boulevards every where. An especially grand example of these was to lead North from Albert Square (submerging the present day Brazennose Street) until it crossed the river Irwell.
Here, there was to be a huge new station called Trinity, which was supposed to replace Manchester Central, Manchester Exchange and Salford Central (and absorbing a few Victoria services as well). The artists impressions show a large multi-platform through station under a low overall roof but with an impressive building facing the aforesaid wide boulevard. Now, that I would like to have seen. Sadly, as it was a reference book, you couldn't take it out of the building to study it in depth and one day it just wasn't there. Presumably someone either saw it on the day it went on sale and snapped it up, or just nicked it, or it's gathering dust in some council archive. Pity, because it was a fascinating document apart from the transport angle.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Regarding Picc-Vic, I was told (by a senior member of another PTE) that it took so long to get the detailed plans into central government that Liverpool (with the Loop/Link city centre tunnels) and Tyne and Wear (with the Metro) overtook Manchester in the queue for funding. All it took was another credit squeeze/financial crisis (not unknown in the 1970s) for there to be no money left over for Picc-Vic, which many people felt to be over specified anyway.

By the way, can anyone confirm or deny the urban myth (certainly being talked about when I moved here) that the Arndale Centre was built with a full size Picc-Vic 'station tunnel' underneath it, on the assumption that teh line would be built?
 

dggar

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A good while ago now, we lived in Chorlton-cum-Hardy (just connected to Metrolink and how handy would THAT have been when we lived there - 4 minutes walk from our old front door). In the local library was a book entitled 'The Manchester Plan' which was published immediately after the war to deal with the proposed restoration of the bomb-damaged city. It was certainly a gran scheme, with tree-lined boulevards every where. An especially grand example of these was to lead North from Albert Square (submerging the present day Brazennose Street) until it crossed the river Irwell.
Here, there was to be a huge new station called Trinity, which was supposed to replace Manchester Central, Manchester Exchange and Salford Central (and absorbing a few Victoria services as well). The artists impressions show a large multi-platform through station under a low overall roof but with an impressive building facing the aforesaid wide boulevard. Now, that I would like to have seen. Sadly, as it was a reference book, you couldn't take it out of the building to study it in depth and one day it just wasn't there. Presumably someone either saw it on the day it went on sale and snapped it up, or just nicked it, or it's gathering dust in some council archive. Pity, because it was a fascinating document apart from the transport angle.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Regarding Picc-Vic, I was told (by a senior member of another PTE) that it took so long to get the detailed plans into central government that Liverpool (with the Loop/Link city centre tunnels) and Tyne and Wear (with the Metro) overtook Manchester in the queue for funding. All it took was another credit squeeze/financial crisis (not unknown in the 1970s) for there to be no money left over for Picc-Vic, which many people felt to be over specified anyway.

By the way, can anyone confirm or deny the urban myth (certainly being talked about when I moved here) that the Arndale Centre was built with a full size Picc-Vic 'station tunnel' underneath it, on the assumption that teh line would be built?


It would appear that the John Rylands library has custody of it now

http://library.cmsstage.manchester.ac.uk/specialcollections/exhibitions/web/mappingmanchester/plan/
 
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