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Potential for reopening of the Timperley-Glazebrook line

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Philip

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It seems a shame that nothing seems to be being done with the Cadishead line; whilst the Cadishead Viaduct over the MSC does need expensive repairs doing to it, the rest of the line is fairly intact, as are the two junctions.

In conjunction with the Midland line from Heaton Mersey to New Mills, the reopening of the Cadishead line could provide a useful 'Manchester cut-off' route for the speeding up of routes like Liverpool-Sheffield, avoiding the need to go through Manchester.

Are there any plans to reopen the route through Cadishead?
 
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najaB

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...whilst the Cadishead Viaduct over the MSC does need expensive repairs doing to it...
It was expensive enough that it was deemed cheaper to close the line nearly 35 years ago, it's hardly likely to have gotten any cheaper.
 

edwin_m

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There was a heritage railway proposal kicking around a few months back.

As a main line route there isn't much point. Passenger services between Liverpool and Sheffield are unlikely to miss out the most important place in between, and the curve from the mid-Cheshire to the WCML provides a route for the fairly small amount of freight between the Peak District and Liverpool. The CLC route doesn't provide a direct route to the WCML or any of Liverpool's freight terminals and it 100% utilised by passenger trains for most of the day.
 

Geeves

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If the TOC mindset ever changed that every passenger must be funnelled through the centre of Manchester even if they are going elsewhere then maybe but I cant see that changing. As you can see on the map virtually every line that avoided the city centre is unfortunately long gone.

I can see the bridge having to be took down at some point in the not too distant future due to it being totally rusted through.
 

TimboM

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There was a heritage railway proposal kicking around a few months back.

As a main line route there isn't much point. Passenger services between Liverpool and Sheffield are unlikely to miss out the most important place in between, and the curve from the mid-Cheshire to the WCML provides a route for the fairly small amount of freight between the Peak District and Liverpool. The CLC route doesn't provide a direct route to the WCML or any of Liverpool's freight terminals and it 100% utilised by passenger trains for most of the day.

Here's the story...

http://www.itv.com/news/granada/201...64-set-to-become-heritage-line-and-cycle-way/

Ambitious plans are being unveiled to create a heritage railway along the disused rail route between Irlam in Salford and Timperley in Trafford.
There will be a footpath and cycleway running parallel to historic steam and diesel trains.
The £25 million - £30 million project would involve relaying the track and rebuilding stations and reinstating the Cadishead Viaduct along the six mile route... (continues, see link)
 

Shaw S Hunter

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I agree with edwin m, this would be absolutely pointless. Providing Sheffield-Liverpool services via this route would still need the existing services to run to maintain the current and fully justified level of provision. This would therefore require additional paths to be found on both the Hope Valley and CLC main-line routes, both of which are more or less full today. A complete non-starter.
 

158756

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The draft Greater Manchester Spatial Framework envisaged very substantial development around Carrington in the future. Albeit that the framework is likely to be much changed next time we see it, maybe the line would be of interest for Metrolink or some sort of BRT scheme in the future?
 

Philip

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I agree with edwin m, this would be absolutely pointless. Providing Sheffield-Liverpool services via this route would still need the existing services to run to maintain the current and fully justified level of provision. This would therefore require additional paths to be found on both the Hope Valley and CLC main-line routes, both of which are more or less full today. A complete non-starter.

An option could be a new interchange between tram and train at Timperley; providing Manchester passengers coming from Sheffield or Liverpool with a fast and frequent connection into the city, without the train having to go in. Let's not forget that there are other express services from these two cities into Manchester, with even more planned at least for the western side. The 185s going off lease from 2020 could also be put to use with a third Hope Valley express service, to shuttle between Manchester and Nottingham, if the signalling allows for an extra train to be put on the route.

I bet there's a good proportion of passengers who use the service who are travelling between Liverpool, Warrington and Sheffield and would therefore be of benefit from this re-routeing. A lot of the Manchester passengers tend to go for the TPE option because of their cheap advance tickets.

It would also free up at least one much needed path on the Piccadilly-Castlefield corridor, about as valuable as finding gold (or oil)!
 
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DynamicSpirit

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It seems a shame that nothing seems to be being done with the Cadishead line; whilst the Cadishead Viaduct over the MSC does need expensive repairs doing to it, the rest of the line is fairly intact, as are the two junctions.

In conjunction with the Midland line from Heaton Mersey to New Mills, the reopening of the Cadishead line could provide a useful 'Manchester cut-off' route for the speeding up of routes like Liverpool-Sheffield, avoiding the need to go through Manchester.

Are there any plans to reopen the route through Cadishead?

I'm assuming by 'Midland line' you mean the line that leaves the Altrincham-Stockport line about halfway along, and runs South of Stockport to link to the existing Manchester-Sheffield route just past Hazelgrove?

There are a few merits: The Deansgate-Piccadilly corridor is very congested and anything that could take passengers off that corridor would be welcome. You'd also speed up Liverpool-Sheffield times not just by avoiding Manchester, but also by avoiding the slow section between Stockport and Hazelgrove. But on the flip side, as others have mentioned, it's hard to see that there'd be enough through Liverpool/Warrington to Sheffield/beyond traffic to justify all that work. And although you may speed up a few journeys, you haven't actually enabled any journeys that can't already be made fairly easily. And the number of people you'd remove from central Manchester would be quite small. Seems to me like a lot of investment for relatively little gain.

More seriously in my view, you'd be running non-stop along lines that go through some heavily populated areas in south Manchester. Wouldn't it be better to use those lines for local services that can serve the residents of those areas?

I suggest a different approach: If money is available for this kind of investment in the area, then surely a far bigger priority has to be upgrading the Altrincham-Stockport line with some new stations so you can run a decent Manchester-Stockport-(new stations)-Altrincham metro service. And of course, once you've done that, it's going to be hard to mix in fast Liverpool-Sheffield services along that line, as your proposal requires.

A second priority would surely be the Western link to Manchester Airport, connecting Altrincham to the airport, ideally via the new HS2 station (and presumably, thereby extending the aforementioned Manchester-Altrincham services).

Only after you've done that would there possibly be a half-decent case for the Cadishead line - but that would probably also be most suited to local services - most likely to give a Liverpool-Warrington-Altrincham-HS2 station-Airport link. That would seriously improve connectivity, enabling a lot of new journeys that are not really possible today. And it would likely remove a much larger number of passengers from the Deansgate-Piccadilly corridor (basically, most people from Liverpool/Warrington who want to get to HS2 or to the airport) so helping congestion in central Manchester.
 
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Holly

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A second priority would surely be the Western link to Manchester Airport, connecting Altrincham to the airport, ideally via the new HS2 station (and presumably, thereby extending the aforementioned Manchester-Altrincham services). ...
Airport to Mid-Cheshire line near Knutsford and on to Northwich is what is needed.
The new track would best run in cut and cover (with open cuttings in appropriate sections) so as not to interfere with aircraft operations.
 

daodao

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I'm assuming by 'Midland line' you mean the line that leaves the Altrincham-Stockport line about halfway along, and runs South of Stockport to link to the existing Manchester-Sheffield route just past Hazelgrove?

There are a few merits: The Deansgate-Piccadilly corridor is very congested and anything that could take passengers off that corridor would be welcome. You'd also speed up Liverpool-Sheffield times not just by avoiding Manchester, but also by avoiding the slow section between Stockport and Hazelgrove. But on the flip side, as others have mentioned, it's hard to see that there'd be enough through Liverpool/Warrington to Sheffield/beyond traffic to justify all that work. And although you may speed up a few journeys, you haven't actually enabled any journeys that can't already be made fairly easily. And the number of people you'd remove from central Manchester would be quite small. Seems to me like a lot of investment for relatively little gain.

More seriously in my view, you'd be running non-stop along lines that go through some heavily populated areas in south Manchester. Wouldn't it be better to use those lines for local services that can serve the residents of those areas?

I suggest a different approach: If money is available for this kind of investment in the area, then surely a far bigger priority has to be upgrading the Altrincham-Stockport line with some new stations so you can run a decent Manchester-Stockport-(new stations)-Altrincham metro service. And of course, once you've done that, it's going to be hard to mix in fast Liverpool-Sheffield services along that line, as your proposal requires.

A second priority would surely be the Western link to Manchester Airport, connecting Altrincham to the airport, ideally via the new HS2 station (and presumably, thereby extending the aforementioned Manchester-Altrincham services).

Only after you've done that would there possibly be a half-decent case for the Cadishead line - but that would probably also be most suited to local services - most likely to give a Liverpool-Warrington-Altrincham-HS2 station-Airport link. That would seriously improve connectivity, enabling a lot of new journeys that are not really possible today. And it would likely remove a much larger number of passengers from the Deansgate-Piccadilly corridor (basically, most people from Liverpool/Warrington who want to get to HS2 or to the airport) so helping congestion in central Manchester.

Historically, the CLC line via Baguley provided a useful fast link from Liverpool to Sheffield via Godley Junction, and to Chinley and beyond. However, those days are long gone. The line is now extremely busy with slow freight traffic, and it is going to be difficult to squeeze in the extra M/c-Northwich trains agreed under the new Northern franchise, yet alone anything else. The case for bypassing M/c for passenger traffic is weak, and there is no spare capacity on the CLC line from Glazebrook to Hunt's Cross.

Passengers from Liverpool and Warrington to HS2 will go via Crewe.

As for linking Altrincham and the Airport, the bus service (now 288) was cut back to hourly and requires a subsidy, hardly indicative of much demand. There is likely to be even less demand for a rail link from the Airport to the Mid Cheshire line
 

Holly

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... As for linking Altrincham and the Airport, the bus service (now 288) was cut back to hourly and requires a subsidy, hardly indicative of much demand. There is likely to be even less demand for a rail link from the Airport to the Mid Cheshire line
I would say on the contrary there is a huge demand for a better link for Airport to Mid Cheshire line. Which an Altrincham bus does not come even close to providing any useful help with. I doubt anyone uses the Altrincham bus twice, experiencing it once is more than enough experience for most.

Airport and Northwich are both on the rail network, they are about 12 miles apart as the crow flies and the rail journey typically takes about two hours or more :(
Chester (also on the mid Cheshire line) is almost, but not quite, as bad even though there are at least four reasonable routes to get there by rail. With the cheapest Manchester Airport-Chester routing, via Liverpool and Hooton, being just about the longest (but not the slowest) route.
Building that connection would open a whole host of new possibile routes and/or engineering diversions. Including a faster Mid Cheshire to Manchester city centre service than presently exists.

In short there is no demand because there is no service and people use very expensive Manchester based taxis for the dozen or so miles SouthWest that are surcharging for out of territory service.
 
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Philip

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Same OP, fancy that!

What's your point? I feel quite strongly about the mass closure of many lines and really I think the reopening of many would be better than making existing lines even more congested with extra trains.

Even if not used for expresses, as stated above, there are also local communities along the route which would gain much improved public transport links through the reopening of the line, like Cadishead and Partington. You could also make a similar case for the Skelton Junction-Warrington line, with Lymm and Grappenhall being the benefactors.
 
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daodao

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What's your point? I feel quite strongly about the mass closure of many lines and really I think the reopening of many would be better than making existing lines even more congested with extra trains.

Even if not used for expresses, as stated above, there are also local communities along the route which would gain much improved public transport links through the reopening of the line, like Cadishead and Partington. You could also make a similar case for the Skelton Junction-Warrington line, with Lymm and Grappenhall being the benefactors.

The Skelton Junction-Warrington line? Really!! The area is rural and can just about justify an hourly (part-subsidised) daytime bus service between Warrington and Altrincham. The former alignment in Broadheath has been demolished and re-used for industrial/warehouse/retail facilities. It didn't serve Altrincham town properly either.
 

flixtonman

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The various arguments for and against re-opening the Glazebrook to Skelton Junction line for services between Liverpool and Sheffield [and beyond] avoiding Manchester might in each case be strengthened or diminished if there were reliable figures for annual ticket sales for direct journeys from Liverpool to Sheffield [and beyond]. Where might these figures be obtained?
 

Shaw S Hunter

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What's your point? I feel quite strongly about the mass closure of many lines and really I think the reopening of many would be better than making existing lines even more congested with extra trains.

Even if not used for expresses, as stated above, there are also local communities along the route which would gain much improved public transport links through the reopening of the line, like Cadishead and Partington. You could also make a similar case for the Skelton Junction-Warrington line, with Lymm and Grappenhall being the benefactors.

Small beer! Railway have always been most efficient when shifting decent volumes. Even if you accept that some subsidy towards socially necessary services is a good thing there are still limits. Lightly used (semi-)rural railways consume significant sums of subsidy but continue to run because a) politicians have an aversion to closing existing passenger railways and b) unlike many other countries we have never been able to work out how to make sensible use of permanent replacement bus services. But those two factors do not justify re-opening long-closed lines just to serve small communities.
 

markem41

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A slight tangent but this this ex-line passes through a newish housing development "Stamford Brook" that has left the line route intact. Turnbull Road includes a bridge to climb over the old track alignment. Is this a legal requirement or a local council showing some common sense?
 

Altfish

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A slight tangent but this this ex-line passes through a newish housing development "Stamford Brook" that has left the line route intact. Turnbull Road includes a bridge to climb over the old track alignment. Is this a legal requirement or a local council showing some common sense?

Neither. At the time the road was built there was serious talk of a new port on the Manchester Ship Canal at Partington. Since then Port Salford near the M60 has been championed and this possible use for the Timperley - Glazebrook line gone with it.
 

daodao

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Thanks AltFish, I actually thought some planning had been done and considered a future cycling / walking route to tempt people away from Waitrose. :)

What's wrong with Waitrose? The store in Sinderland is my local branch and the staff there were helpful to me yesterday.
 

markem41

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Nothing wrong with Waitrose (other than it's too far from me!) but an area such as West Timperley should be better connected and have something more to offer than a supermarket.
 

flixtonman

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I guess many [perhaps most?] of us on here first search the posts dealing with the routes near where we live now or lived where we grew up. With that in mind, here's a plea for some more discussion on the now unused Glazebrook to Skelton Junction line. One of the last proposals on here was for its resurrection as a Liverpool to Sheffield route avoiding Manchester [and so freeing up paths between Irlam and Hazel Grove through Manchester]. The proposal was shot down in flames [slight exaggeration, and my apologies if I summarise the argument incorrectly ] on the basis that there weren't enough passengers wishing to travel directly between Liverpool and Sheffield sufficient to justify the cost of re-instating the Glazebrook to Skelton Junction line [and beyond to Hazel Grove High level Junction] . This argument may be entirely right but, to refute it, how does one find the ticket sales figures for journeys booked from Liverpool directly to Sheffield? This would, of course, just be the start of the argument which might, on additional grounds, justify the re-opening of this short route.
 

flixtonman

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When I said, in my last message 'and beyond to Hazel Grove High Level Junction', I meant doubling it throughout from Skelton Junction to Hazel Grove High Level Junction.
 

B&I

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Top flight crsyon action! Why would you want to avoid Manchester?


How long have you got?

More seriously, because of how many trains are forced onto the congested line through Oxford Rd. But then you have the number of passengers Manchester itself generates, and the number of transfers made there thanks to the relatively worse connections to other places in the north-west.

If re-opened and electrified, Glazebrook-Timperley could at least take Trafford Park freight services out of that congested central corridor. Not sure, though, it would ever be much use for anything other than local passenger services. Much as my own life would be made easier by magically reinstating the CLC as a quick way of getting me from Liverpool to the eastern outskirts of Stockport....
 

dggar

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Which freight services into and out of Trafford Park go via Timperley at present?
 

B&I

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Which freight services into and out of Trafford Park go via Timperley at present?


None as far as I'm aware. I was suggesting one possible use for re-opening this route was as a way to Trafford Park avoiding Castlefield, though even that's pretty marginal and electrifying the CLC with new chord somehow to the WCML would be a much better overall solution.
 
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