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Manchester United Halt. (MUF)

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vidal

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Does anything still use this? I remember seeing services stabled there in the past, not seen anything there for many years.

When was it last used?

James.
 
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js1000

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There simply isn't the capacity from what I understand now that the former Manchester Airport/Crewe to Manchester Piccadilly shuttle (the one that usually continued onto Old Trafford to provide the matchday service before turning back) is now a Crewe to Liverpool Lime Street service for most of the day.

On Sunday you could probably run the shuttle as many half hourly services are hourly, but Northern's well documented problems with driver rest days/working hours is well publicised.
 

noddingdonkey

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I assume as it never had a regular service there is no need to go through the formal closure procedure or run a Parliamentary?
 

Chester1

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Should United expand it will close anyway. The only expansion of Old Trafford that is remotely financially viable would be replacing the stand next to the station. The club has suggested building over the line but the cost is prohibitive. A cheaper approach would be taking the platform and third track land for the stand but building a plaza (for access and fire escape) over the rest of the line. That would give the club another 15m of land which would mean they could build a new, slightly bigger stand but crucially designed with a big emphasis on hospitality seating and facilities. Old Trafford is still the largest football club stadium in the UK by 11-12,000 seats but its match day revenue advantage has significantly shrunk in the last 15 years. It would be reasonably to expect Manchester United to pay for a replacement two platform station to the east (on passing loops), which could be used for regular traffic as well as match day extras.
 

Bletchleyite

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It would be reasonably to expect Manchester United to pay for a replacement two platform station to the east (on passing loops), which could be used for regular traffic as well as match day extras.

That would be good, but I very much doubt it - the tram serves the area reasonably anyway and is what most people used on matchdays.
 

Chester1

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That would be good, but I very much doubt it - the tram serves the area reasonably anyway and is what most people used on matchdays.

In the event of a stadium expansion it could (and should) be a condition of planning permission that public transport provision is increased by the number of seats added. This sort of trade off has limited Arsenal and Tottenham to 60-62,000 seats and imposes a limit of about 60,000 on Anfield's maximum future capacity. For the latter, the club could fill much more than 60,000 seats but the council has said it will never allow it without major public transport improvements. The cost of any of the options makes Anfield expansion past 60,000 financially unviable. If United wants to expand its South Stand by say 5000 seats then it will be expected to increase public transport provision not reduce it. Whether that cost would make expansion of the stadium unviable would be a decision for the club.
 

edwin_m

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...and in about 12-months time it will have a new stop on the Trafford Centre line
Indeed. It is being designed with crowd control facilities similar to those at Etihad and is likely to be the main way of shifting people to and from matches.
 

Bevan Price

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Not sure how they could expand the Moneybags Utd. stand across the line - the track through MUFC Halt platform also forms the exit from Trafford Park Freightliner Terminal...
 

Altfish

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Not sure how they could expand the Moneybags Utd. stand across the line - the track through MUFC Halt platform also forms the exit from Trafford Park Freightliner Terminal...
Plans have been available for years, they have bought most (all?) of the houses on the section of Railway Road that they need to bridge the railway. It was always planned to span all the tracks, I think the station is just 'in the way'
 

Tomnick

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Not sure how they could expand the Moneybags Utd. stand across the line - the track through MUFC Halt platform also forms the exit from Trafford Park Freightliner Terminal...
Indeed, the platform line acts as a headshunt for the terminal and is also the only route into all bar one of the reception roads on the Euroterminal side.
 

Class 170101

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Should United expand it will close anyway. The only expansion of Old Trafford that is remotely financially viable would be replacing the stand next to the station. The club has suggested building over the line but the cost is prohibitive. A cheaper approach would be taking the platform and third track land for the stand but building a plaza (for access and fire escape) over the rest of the line. That would give the club another 15m of land which would mean they could build a new, slightly bigger stand but crucially designed with a big emphasis on hospitality seating and facilities. Old Trafford is still the largest football club stadium in the UK by 11-12,000 seats but its match day revenue advantage has significantly shrunk in the last 15 years. It would be reasonably to expect Manchester United to pay for a replacement two platform station to the east (on passing loops), which could be used for regular traffic as well as match day extras.

I believe you will find the gap in respect of seat numbers between 1st and 2nd place has reduced now that the new White Hart Lan has opened.

In terms of the station layout you suggest for the replacement Manchester United FC Halt how do you propose to timetable it. The extra journey time added for the stop will mean slots missed into the Castlefield corridor.
 

sprunt

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In the event of a stadium expansion it could (and should) be a condition of planning permission that public transport provision is increased by the number of seats added. This sort of trade off has limited Arsenal and Tottenham to 60-62,000 seats and imposes a limit of about 60,000 on Anfield's maximum future capacity. For the latter, the club could fill much more than 60,000 seats but the council has said it will never allow it without major public transport improvements. The cost of any of the options makes Anfield expansion past 60,000 financially unviable. If United wants to expand its South Stand by say 5000 seats then it will be expected to increase public transport provision not reduce it. Whether that cost would make expansion of the stadium unviable would be a decision for the club.

What new public transport provision did either Arsenal or Tottenham provide when they built their new stadia (in each case adding about 20,000 extra seats)? Arsenal's stadium actually resulted in a loss of transport provision, as Holloway Road and Drayton Park stations close when there are matches taking place/ And while there might be an argument that United should provide a replacement for the halt (although not a very strong one, given that it's no longer in use on match days) I certainly don't see why they should be required to fund a brand new station for everyday use.

Regardless of this, the idea of expanding the stand by building a bridge (really more of a tunnel) across the line sounds a lot more easily said than done to me. Is it feasible for construction to take place while trains are running? Are there any other examples of major third party construction projects bridging lines like this?
 

Glenn1969

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Could the Northern Oxford Road to Liverpool stopper which RTT shows as passing MUF Halt stop and provide some kind of service on match days if the club wanted it to?
 

Tomnick

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I believe you will find the gap in respect of seat numbers between 1st and 2nd place has reduced now that the new White Hart Lan has opened.

In terms of the station layout you suggest for the replacement Manchester United FC Halt how do you propose to timetable it. The extra journey time added for the stop will mean slots missed into the Castlefield corridor.
There’s already loads of skip-stopping on the locals as it is, just to wedge them between the two fasts each hour, and Warrington West to add to that soon, so I doubt another stop on those would be viable as it stands. My feeling is that it’s getting to the point where the only sensible option is to split the stoppers in the middle somehow to create better margins and maybe give a better opportunity for this sort of thing, although trying to shift large crowds with local trains that are already full of local people maybe isn’t the best idea anyway.
Could the Northern Oxford Road to Liverpool stopper which RTT shows as passing MUF Halt stop and provide some kind of service on match days if the club wanted it to?
No, the only access to the platform line is from the east.
 

Chester1

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I believe you will find the gap in respect of seat numbers between 1st and 2nd place has reduced now that the new White Hart Lan has opened.

In terms of the station layout you suggest for the replacement Manchester United FC Halt how do you propose to timetable it. The extra journey time added for the stop will mean slots missed into the Castlefield corridor.

Its not made a huge difference to the difference between first and second because Tottenham's stadium is only very slightly larger than both the Olympic Stadium and Emirates. The stoppers are timed for pacers therefore enough slack should be added when 150s are used to allow one stop to be added.

What new public transport provision did either Arsenal or Tottenham provide when they built their new stadia (in each case adding about 20,000 extra seats)? Arsenal's stadium actually resulted in a loss of transport provision, as Holloway Road and Drayton Park stations close when there are matches taking place/ And while there might be an argument that United should provide a replacement for the halt (although not a very strong one, given that it's no longer in use on match days) I certainly don't see why they should be required to fund a brand new station for everyday use.

Regardless of this, the idea of expanding the stand by building a bridge (really more of a tunnel) across the line sounds a lot more easily said than done to me. Is it feasible for construction to take place while trains are running? Are there any other examples of major third party construction projects bridging lines like this?

Both clubs had to invest in the local area. Liverpool had to for expanding their main stand by 8500 seats. If the club want planning permission they will need to prove the transport infrastructure can support extra people arriving by car, or more likely, proposed public transport improvements to support the extra fans. 60,000 has become the new standard for top Premier League clubs because there are few areas that can support a larger stadium. United have a car park right next to the obvious place for a replacement station, linked to the main road by a bridge over the railway. It would be a matter of paying for platforms and furnishing etc, no footbridge necessary and Network Rail could decide if it wanted spend money to put the station on a loop or not. If United expand Old Trafford they will have to cough up a few million for the local community one way or another.

I can't think of similar example but the club has suggested it several times and Network Rail has never publicly opposed it. The cost would be extremely expensive. Thats why I think something like my suggestion might be more likely because the stand itself would not be built over the railway therefore a standard stand structure would be fine. Building a plaza over the line to access the stand would not be a significant engineering challenge. The extension has not happened because the cost of a major expansion by building a stand over the railway has, so far, been too high to justify. I think the club has suggested £150m+. Its the only part of the stadium that was largely untouched by the redevelopment of the 90s and early 2000s and is the only reasonable way to add both general and hospitality seats. Tottenham joining the 60,000+ group and the likelihood of City and Liverpool doing so in the near future threatens United's position of having the highest match day revenues. New White Hart Lane should get very close to Old Trafford because it has higher proportion of hospitality seats. Manchester don't need to expand and the current owners have been reluctant to invest but I am sure plans and costs will be reviewed. I am most certainly not a United and would like to see their revenue decline relative to other Premier League clubs but if they do expand the halt has to go to make way. Politically the council would have to insist on a replacement because match day traffic is a huge problem and Trafford Borough Council is marginal and run by a Labour-Green coalition with a tiny majority.
 

DelW

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Regardless of this, the idea of expanding the stand by building a bridge (really more of a tunnel) across the line sounds a lot more easily said than done to me. Is it feasible for construction to take place while trains are running? Are there any other examples of major third party construction projects bridging lines like this?
How about the infamous Tesco tunnel at Gerrards Cross? That involved filling in a cutting, with the railway in a concrete tunnel within it, solely to provide space for a supermarket and its car park.
In theory it should have been built without disrupting train services. In the event, the contractor changed the construction sequence to try to get back on programme, and it collapsed onto the track. Only chance, that it happened in daylight and the next train was stopping there, avoided a major disaster.
 

Magicake

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Regardless of this, the idea of expanding the stand by building a bridge (really more of a tunnel) across the line sounds a lot more easily said than done to me. Is it feasible for construction to take place while trains are running? Are there any other examples of major third party construction projects bridging lines like this?

The plans for the new Chelsea ground (which have now been shelved) involved a similar thing
 

AMD

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My feeling is that it’s getting to the point where the only sensible option is to split the stoppers in the middle somehow to create better margins and maybe give a better opportunity for this sort of thing, although trying to shift large crowds with local trains that are already full of local people maybe isn’t the best idea anyway.
The difficulty is that the stoppers already run as semi fast for half the route - alternately all stops Liverpool to Warrington then principal stops to Manchester or limited stops to Warrington then all stops to Manchester. To take any stops out would substantially reduce the number of services per hour some stations receive which would be a big no no, as you mention yourself.
Generally the whole route has a number of pinch points which limits the options to add any more station calls - as mentioned the Castlefield corridor is already struggling, plus slotting services across Allerton junction can be tight as some points of the day, and just to top it off the East Midlands/ Northern Airport services are already just behind the stoppers by the time they reach Liverpool or Manchester. Hence why Sankey is losing most of its calls once Warrington West opens.
 

Bletchleyite

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There’s already loads of skip-stopping on the locals as it is, just to wedge them between the two fasts each hour, and Warrington West to add to that soon, so I doubt another stop on those would be viable as it stands. My feeling is that it’s getting to the point where the only sensible option is to split the stoppers in the middle somehow to create better margins and maybe give a better opportunity for this sort of thing, although trying to shift large crowds with local trains that are already full of local people maybe isn’t the best idea anyway.

The pre-1998 timetable did that, there was the following, with some peak extras and oddities in the early morning or late evening[1]:
1tph Liverpool-Widnes-Warrington C-Manchester Oxford Rd.....Norwich
1tph Liverpool-Warrington C-Birchwood-Manchester Oxford Rd.....North TPE
1tph Liverpool-Warrington C all stations
0.5tph Manchester-Irlam all stations, alternating with 0.5tph Manchester-Warrington C all stations (which meant only Glazebrook had 0.5tph I think, which as it's in the middle of nowhere[2] is fine)
1tph Liverpool-Manchester Airport semifast (I forget where it stopped, but something like Hunts X-Widnes-Warrington C-Birchwood-Urmston-Irlam-Deansgate, Oxford Rd, Picc, Heald Green, Airport)

[1] In particular the last train from Liverpool, at about 2330, which I used a number of times, was all stations to Warrington C then fast to Picc, arriving around 0030. I believe Merseytravel were happy to pay for the stops but GMPTE weren't...

[2] It'd actually be useful for Cadishead if someone would cough up to build about 0.3km of footpath and a bridge over the river (Glaze Brook)...

Which I think is roughly what you were suggesting?
 

Tomnick

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The difficulty is that the stoppers already run as semi fast for half the route - alternately all stops Liverpool to Warrington then principal stops to Manchester or limited stops to Warrington then all stops to Manchester. To take any stops out would substantially reduce the number of services per hour some stations receive which would be a big no no, as you mention yourself.
Generally the whole route has a number of pinch points which limits the options to add any more station calls - as mentioned the Castlefield corridor is already struggling, plus slotting services across Allerton junction can be tight as some points of the day, and just to top it off the East Midlands/ Northern Airport services are already just behind the stoppers by the time they reach Liverpool or Manchester. Hence why Sankey is losing most of its calls once Warrington West opens.
Rather than trying to take stops out, I meant physically splitting the route in two for the stoppers, so rather than trying to wedge a stopper between two fasts, you have two stoppers each serving half the route - so one would leave Liverpool immediately behind the fast (as now) but would only need to get to Warrington and shunt clear before the next fast catches up, whilst another stopper would have already left there to pick up the stops over the rest of the route. I’m not sure how that’d work out for local journeys across Warrington (e.g Padgate to Sankey) or indeed how well the current layout at Warrington would cope with all these shunts.
...

Which I think is roughly what you were suggesting?
It is, but with 2tph ‘slow’ from each end. Turning one of the two back at Glazebrook East is an interesting twist on that!
 

Bletchleyite

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It is, but with 2tph ‘slow’ from each end. Turning one of the two back at Glazebrook East is an interesting twist on that!

I don't think you could fit 2tph slow in without binning off at least one of the expresses or building some loops (in which case you might as well keep the through service). The pre-1998 timetable had absolutely shocking punctuality as a result of there being basically no slack and the poor punctuality of the Norwich service messing everything else up.
 

Ken H

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What new public transport provision did either Arsenal or Tottenham provide when they built their new stadia (in each case adding about 20,000 extra seats)? Arsenal's stadium actually resulted in a loss of transport provision, as Holloway Road and Drayton Park stations close when there are matches taking place/ And while there might be an argument that United should provide a replacement for the halt (although not a very strong one, given that it's no longer in use on match days) I certainly don't see why they should be required to fund a brand new station for everyday use.

Regardless of this, the idea of expanding the stand by building a bridge (really more of a tunnel) across the line sounds a lot more easily said than done to me. Is it feasible for construction to take place while trains are running? Are there any other examples of major third party construction projects bridging lines like this?
tesco at Gerrards Cross?
 

kilonewton

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Regardless of this, the idea of expanding the stand by building a bridge (really more of a tunnel) across the line sounds a lot more easily said than done to me. Is it feasible for construction to take place while trains are running? Are there any other examples of major third party construction projects bridging lines like this?
Landsdowne Road has already been mentioned, Federation Square in Melbourne was decked over what is now 13 lines with construction of the buildings ongoing after the deck was completed. Take a few possessions to build the tunnel then it’s away you go as per a “normal” construction project.

Having a station practically within the stadium is a bad idea anyway. To disperse (currently) 75k people the best way is with multiple nodes, remote from each other such that the crowds don’t all arrive at the node(s) at once.
As an example, if I use Melbourne again, the MCG holds 100k, has two train stations on opposite sides of the stadium along with two tram lines. Rare that you don’t get on the first train / tram that comes along. At the other end of the city there is Marvel* Stadium. 56k capacity but next to the main regional station and second busiest station on the suburban network. The queue to get across the, quite wide, footbridge to the station can involve a lengthy wait, and there’s nowhere for the mounted police to do crowd control like they do at Wembley.

* currently called Marvel Stadium, it’s had more than a few corporate sponsors since it was built.
 
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