Publication of Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands

[ohgoditsjames]

Is Meadowhall still a magnet? Retail is increasingly moving online so are these giant retail complexes still a big draw for people?

Yes it is still a magnet, unfortunately the magnet that killed off Sheffield’s once prosperous retail scene but that’s off topic.

 

[Roast Veg]

No, it says "4 tracking through the scheme route". By "the scheme" it means Huddersfield to Westtown, which is the scope of the TWAO that the document is in support of.

And is where 4 tracking is immediately useful, because of the non-TPE services in the area.

 

[adrock1976]

Thanks.
Didn't know the L'ter - Nottm slows were labelled as the Ivanhoe Line; thought it just referred to L'ter - Burton.

Be interesting to see if HS2 joins the MML going round north of Kegworth or, with a better alignment, to the south, with the actual junction near Kingston.

Regarding the Ivanhoe Project, Phase I is the present day Leicester - Loughbourgh - Nottingham Slow Line local, with Phase II being Leicester - Burton section (yet to be reopened to passenger trains).

 

[Roast Veg]

Regarding the Ivanhoe Project, Phase I is the present day Leicester - Loughbourgh - Nottingham Slow Line local, with Phase II being Leicester - Burton section (yet to be reopened to passenger trains).

And currently without any due date, because nobody(?) is working on it. It would only be worth looking at after (or - less likely - as part of) Leicester South remodelling.

 

[Glenn1969]

And is where 4 tracking is immediately useful, because of the non-TPE services in the area.

I think it needs to be all the way to Leeds including the Station area. This is what I think needs expanding by 2030, not 2040 or 2050 because unless I'm mistaken the station is full particularly heading South and East

 

[stephen rp]

Please not a guided busway! Poor man’s solution!

Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham (even Blackpool) have trams, metros or decent city centre rail systems, what did Leeds (and Bristol) do to deserve a guided bus? it’s not gone very well down here in Bristol, lots of criticism, operators reluctant to run the service etc. the short one in Bradford is dreadful!

It's gone down well in Leigh. Mind you, despite its being delivered by Labour-controlled authorities, they still elected a Conservative MP. Now they want independence from Wigan (and probably from Greater Manchester).

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

When people have absorbed the physical elements of the plan, and the headline journey times, attention will turn to service planning and deliverability, neither of which got any airtime in the report/announcement, except the repeated insistence that benefits would appear "earlier" than on the old plan.
I'm still not sure how Sheffield can get the same 87m journey time now it has to run via Derby on the MML.

NR will have to work out a programme that delivers TRU, MMLU and ECMLU in parallel over about 10 years (CP7/8).
They have a habit of getting overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of major upgrades (WCRM, GWML etc).
"Digital signalling throughout TRU and ECML" is an easy phrase to say but can NR organise itself to do all that in a meaningful timeframe?
There will also be huge disruption on each of the upgraded routes for at least a decade, as was the case for WCRM.

On the services front, has any TOC, or NR System Operator, had any input to these plans to say what if feasible and what isn't on the classic network?
What happens to the overall pattern of (eg) XC and TP services on the routes to be hacked about?
What does 140mph do to capacity on the ECML? The plan talks about 7/8tph, and 12-car trains.
The solutions around Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham look particularly vague, with new connections here and there but no overall service vision.
There was no illustrative service plan in the report, in terms of frequencies and stopping patterns.
It also means that the HS2 TOC (nominally Avanti today) will have to plan services on the northern MML to Leeds, but not to York/Newcastle.
Edinburgh is left up in the air: the plan sort of endorses the WCML route via Golborne, but the ECML upgrade does change the balance.

There will also be a major impact on train procurement and cascade, another topic not mentioned in the plan.
I suspect there may be second thoughts on some of this when the train planners get to grips with the network being proposed, and its consequences.

 

[stephen rp]

To give him the undeserved benefit of the doubt, he might have been referring to the contactless zonal ticketing system which was announced in parallel, for conurbations in the north/midlands (PTEs).
That would be "like London".

He wasn't, and why give a liar the benefit of the doubt?

 

[Ianno87]

I think it needs to be all the way to Leeds including the Station area. This is what I think needs expanding by 2030, not 2040 or 2050 because unless I'm mistaken the station is full particularly heading South and East

Therein lies the problem. Taking 4 tracking beyond Westtown only realises further capacity benefit in conjunction with doing something pretty major (i.e. expensive and disruptive) at Leeds.

But if TRU+NPR as already defined gives up to 8 Fast Paths per hour (which is a huge amount of passenger-carrying capacity)...how much further benefit is there from yet more scope beyond a little bit more reduction of journey times? Any demand-led need to do that would be many, many decades into the future.

 

[stephen rp]

From a House of Commons Library report from last year, the South West does comparably to Yorkshire & The Humber in terms of overall transport spending per person and a little worse (definitely not "much worse") than the rest of the north. The East Midlands does worst of all, though – a situation that will likely be compounded over time by the announcements today.

View attachment 105845

When it comes to overall capital spending, the South West does slightly worse than the three regions in the North, but again better than the East Midlands.

View attachment 105844

How much of that transport spending in the poorer regions originated in EU money?

 

[quantinghome]

Take a look at the WYCA Mass Transit proposals, which go into plenty of detail. Although reference is made to HS2 reaching Leeds, I don't think any of the proposals are meaningfully affected by the IRP, just a few maps.

I read it when it came out. It's a good, thorough, strategic document. However on all routes into Leeds it is looking to supplement local rail services, not replace them. So it looks like there wouldn't really be any takeover of local rail services by mass transit, so no relief of Leeds station. Happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken.

 

[stephen rp]

Does anyone think the local Toton station will be built? I don't as the report says only if it gets 50% funding from developers and I assume the developers that were intrested in building at Toton were intrested because there was going to be a HS2 Station there. I also think the government thinks the same and doesn't expect to have to find its half of the money.

And who's going to fund East Midlands Parkway? Oh wait, it's got a local Tory MP.

 

[quantinghome]

But if TRU+NPR as already defined gives up to 8 Fast Paths per hour (which is a huge amount of passenger-carrying capacity)...how much further benefit is there from yet more scope beyond a little bit more reduction of journey times? Any demand-led need to do that would be many, many decades into the future.

That would certainly be enough fast paths. But we need frequent local services as well - an all-stations train every 10 to 15 minutes. I can't see how that would be possible if we still have mixed use sections.

 

[Glenn1969]

Therein lies the problem. Taking 4 tracking beyond Westtown only realises further capacity benefit in conjunction with doing something pretty major (i.e. expensive and disruptive) at Leeds.

But if TRU+NPR as already defined gives up to 8 Fast Paths per hour (which is a huge amount of passenger-carrying capacity)...how much further benefit is there from yet more scope beyond a little bit more reduction of journey times? Any demand-led need to do that would be many, many decades into the future.

I think currently there is no room for any additional services at Leeds station particularly heading towards York. Hence why XC is still once an hour?

 

[Minstral25]

I thought there was going to be an IRP for England so where is the IRP for the South and South-west (outside London of course as that is TfL territory)? When will this be published?

 

[stephen rp]

Is it just me that thinks much of this will not happen

Leeds - Manchester electrification was originally announced 10 years ago with no wires up yet.

MML electrification was originally announced 9 years ago and has been on / off and now back on since then.

And of course HS2 to Leeds now cancelled.

Give it a couple of years and some of these schemes will be cancelled. To coin a phrase, it’s all just blah, blah, blah.

At least the Scots seem to have a long term plan that they are actually carrying out with a rolling programme of electrification.

"We will electrify the MML" ("But you pulled that scheme years ago...")

 

[Ianno87]

I think currently there is no room for any additional services at Leeds station particularly heading towards York. Hence why XC is still once an hour?

If anything, East of Leeds (Leeds-Micklefield) is more the problem. Hence the IRP proposal to partially 4-track that section too.

 

[Roast Veg]

I think it needs to be all the way to Leeds including the Station area. This is what I think needs expanding by 2030, not 2040 or 2050 because unless I'm mistaken the station is full particularly heading South and East

Leeds capacity enhancements are in the project scope. Four tracking is unlikely to be a requirement, but more platforms are likely. A lot will come down to resignalling I suspect.

On the services front, has any TOC, or NR System Operator, had any input to these plans to say what if feasible and what isn't on the classic network?

Yes.

What happens to the overall pattern of (eg) XC and TP services on the routes to be hacked about?

XC services will likely be split by all accounts. There likely won't be an east coast Edinburgh to Birmingham service (but there will be one starting at Newcastle), with a Moor Street to the South West connection. TPE's services that don't end up on NPR will continue to use the existing infrastructure. Neither TOC will exist in 2040, and the service provision will be taken into consideration with the other former TOCs in a GBR world. As we all know, most people don't travel end to end on these services anyway.

What does 140mph do to capacity on the ECML? The plan talks about 7/8tph, and 12-car trains.

140mph "does" very little. Improving some of the slowest sections of the ECML does. It is the functional equivalent of the WCRM but on the ECML.

It also means that the HS2 TOC (nominally Avanti today) will have to plan services on the northern MML, but not to York/Newcastle.

We shall see what happens in the GBR way of doing things, but this seems likely. The HS2/WCML contract likely won't be responsible for NPR services as you say, so most likely the TPE service contract will cover it. That's only a geographic extension to Curzon Street, so I don't see an issue there.

I read it when it came out. It's a good, thorough, strategic document. However on all routes into Leeds it is looking to supplement local rail services, not replace them. So it looks like there wouldn't really be any takeover of local rail services by mass transit, so no relief of Leeds station. Happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken.

"Five towns" and Calder Valley locals are the easy targets for having their heavy rail services transferred to tram/tram-train.

 

[Glenn1969]

Leeds capacity enhancements are in the project scope. Four tracking is unlikely to be a requirement, but more platforms are likely. A lot will come down to resignalling I suspect.

Yes.

XC services will likely be split by all accounts. There likely won't be an east coast Edinburgh to Birmingham service (but there will be one starting at Leeds), with a Moor Street to the South West connection. TPE's services that don't end up on NPR will continue to use the existing infrastructure. Neither TOC will exist in 2040, and the service provision will be taken into consideration with the other former TOCs in a GBR world. As we all know, most people don't travel end to end on these services anyway.

140mph "does" very little. Improving some of the slowest sections of the ECML does. It is the functional equivalent of the WCRM but on the ECML.

We shall see what happens in the GBR way of doing things, but this seems likely. The HS2/WCML contract likely won't be responsible for NPR services as you say, so most likely the TPE service contract will cover it. That's only a geographic extension to Curzon Street, so I don't see an issue there.

"Five towns" and Calder Valley locals are the easy targets for having their heavy rail services transferred to tram/tram-train.

There is no "Calder Valley local service"- all or most trains currently run to one of Manchester or Blackpool. Is that too far for a tram train?

 

[javelin]

That would certainly be enough fast paths. But we need frequent local services as well - an all-stations train every 10 to 15 minutes. I can't see how that would be possible if we still have mixed use sections.

On the Manchester end the removal of fasts from the existing lines permits tram-training. On the Leeds end there'll probably be looking at something similar for the mass transit.

 

[Purple Orange]

I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that you write „all over the world“ and then only give examples from the UK. In the rest of Europe, while such situations do exist, no one would think of building it for new. If anything, we do try to consolidate services at central stations whenever the opportunity comes up. Having to use local transport to reach a connecting train almost is like the connection wasn’t there at all, so many potential passengers will be put off.

Ok I will cite Dublin, Paris, Milan, Barcelona, all big cities with more than one termini and not all journeys have a metro line to continue on from there. Big cities have this problem - unless Birmingham is not a big city...

 

[Roast Veg]

There is no "Calder Valley local service"- all or most trains currently run to one of Manchester or Blackpool. Is that too far for a tram train?

It is the former I suggest could be transferred, with the Bradford to Manchester Victoria service remaining. The service is quite clearly two different services connected together at Bradford.

 

[quantinghome]

"Five towns" and Calder Valley locals are the easy targets for having their heavy rail services transferred to tram/tram-train.

They would certainly be in the running, but you would only see a limited number of trains transferred. Most trains on those routes are longer distance regional services.

 

[YorksLad12]

There is reference to adding a 3rd track on that section, subject to business case.
It's also not clear if they plan a new Standedge tunnel or to re-use the spare bores.
The GC route Ardwick-Guide Bridge was 4-track at one time, but then you have a real challenge to engineer a new route to Marsden.

You'd likely re-bore anyway, engineering techniques having moved on.

Biggest winner today is Leeds. Assuming it is rail-based, a metro system for the Leeds area will be far more beneficial than HS2 could ever be and it won't take 25+ years to build. (Plan says ~23 years for HS2 to East Midlands!)

It's already taken more than 25 years to not build. Given that it has to go through all the stages of conceptual development, route selction, design, finding funding, being cut back to save money, public inquiries etc it will probably take another 40. There are few convenient off-road or former-rail alignments available.

Leeds Supertram received government approval 20 years ago. Construction is going well... oh, wait. And let's not mention NGT trolleybuses.

Is there really a big enough market to justify a Leeds-Rotherham-Meadowhall-Sheffield service that misses out every other intermediate population centre?

Yes. It was in the Northern franchise in 2016.

Absolutely. I'm just countering @A0wen's point. The main reason for HS2 is to relieve the south WCML by effectively 6-tracking it. Everything else is an incremental added benefit (and allows relief of other routes e.g. Trent Valley, south Manchester commuter routes etc). If you're building a 125mph route you might as well build it faster than that, the added cost is in the scheme of a major new railway very low.

The whole problem with the scheme is those two words "high speed". If it had been sold as a capacity improvement, allowing faster journey times by taking a straighter route, absolutely no-one would have complained, apart from those relative few people who want a high-speed train set. The IPR says we should caution against over-engineering... remind me again, what's the projected top speed of HS2 trains? How much cheaper could we build the thing if we knocked a bit off that?

Is Meadowhall still a magnet? Retail is increasingly moving online so are these giant retail complexes still a big draw for people?

I'd have said more of a black hole, but I'm not always so generous...

To give him the undeserved benefit of the doubt, he might have been referring to the contactless zonal ticketing system which was announced in parallel, for conurbations in the north/midlands (PTEs).
That would be "like London".

Which TfN was doing work on until its budget was cut this year, so they had to let the team go.

It's hard to see which Leeds local rail services would readily transfer to tram or tram-train. The destinations currently served by local trains (Skipton, Harrogate, Selby, Barnsley, Calder valley) are further than you'd want a tram-train to serve and the typical linespeeds of 75 to 90 mph are higher than any tram-train in use today. Giving a line over entirely to tram-train would slow services down and require very long tram vehicles. Mixing shorter distance frequent tram-trains with train services would force train speeds to be reduced.

About 20 years ago there was a plan/suggestion at the PTE to turn the Harrogate Line into trams or tram-train, branching off somewhere near the Gyratory and street running into Leeds. That probably can't be done now, thanks to the road changes; you also can't use the alignment into what was Central as that's now offices, including the Government Hub (DfT!). There's the old line up to Wetherby, but the nimbies all complained when we tried to do that as Supertram. The only other possibilities that spring to mind would be Leeds to Castleford/Pontefract (thus easing problems using route F at Leeds West End)... or Leeds-Bradford replaced by tram throughout, which would allow train services to run non-stop.

I suppose I'd better dig out that WYCA Mass Transit report...

 

[quantinghome]

It is the former I suggest could be transferred, with the Bradford to Manchester Victoria service remaining. The service is quite clearly two different services connected together at Bradford.

Yes, because hardly anyone takes the train to Leeds from the Calder Valley or Halifax or Rochdale or East Lancs or Blackpool...

 

[HowardGWR]

Ok I will cite Dublin, Paris, Milan, Barcelona, all big cities with more than one termini and not all journeys have a metro line to continue on from there. Big cities have this problem - unless Birmingham is not a big city...

Yes but the OP stated that whenever major remodelling is envisaged for such places, it would be stupid to perpetuate the existing inconveniences, as is not happening in Stuttgart and Vienna.

 

[Roast Veg]

Yes, because hardly anyone takes the train to Leeds from the Calder Valley or Halifax or Rochdale or East Lancs or Blackpool...

I don't propose removing the York to Blackpool. The "former" here referred to the Leeds to Manchester Victoria.

Travellers from the Calder Valley, Halifax, and East Lancashire will have great access to multiple entry points in the WYCA Mass transit system, whereupon they can actually get to where they need to be within that region. It's not insanity to suggest that the Manchester Victoria (MCV) - Leeds (LDS) service be split at all.

 

[javelin]

Yes, because hardly anyone takes the train to Leeds from the Calder Valley or Halifax or Rochdale or East Lancs or Blackpool...

Compared to local travel to their respective commuter hubs? Yes.

The only reason we have long distance services running through entirely unsuitable local lines is because there are no dedicated regional lines.

The whole point of NPR is that instead of running long distance services everywhere you boost capacity on local lines into the hubs with convenient interchange.

 

[BrianW]

£14bn is still a massive sum of money though

In a way the government is being "honest" about the Leeds leg, as they could have just deferred it so that any work on it wouldn't start for ages, with the costs being left for future governments, without getting the flak for actually cancelling it

Perhaps the government has lost a sense of direction (over recent weeks?) and its Comms are missing Cummings. What you say MikeyC seems to fit. Mandleson represented a Red Wall seat ... Just sayin'

 

[stephen rp]

Biggest winner today is Leeds. Assuming it is rail-based, a metro system for the Leeds area will be far more beneficial than HS2 could ever be and it won't take 25+ years to build. (Plan says ~23 years for HS2 to East Midlands!)

So after no Supertram in 2005 and the refusal of the trolley bus scheme in 2016, a metro system is suddenly going to be viable?
leeds_trolley-vehicle-planning_permission_letter.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Nov 2021 ==

The proposals are a curate's egg. It's not a north/south split, but rather like the result of the Battle of Bosworth, when the House of York was defeated. In summary, Manchester gets (nearly) all that it wanted, whereas Leeds/West Yorkshire get (essentially) nowt.

It's particularly good for Altrincham, the (marginal) parliamentary constituency of the chairman of the 1922 committee, as the new station at Hale Barns will have a lot of fast trains to many different places.

The curate's egg was all bad. He only pretended some of it was quite good.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Nov 2021 ==

if I read it right it will still be a two track railway Marsden- Huddersfield and Westtown- Leeds- York. Not sure how services can maintain high speed for the 33 minute journey time to be delivered or how the fast trains and the stoppers can be pathed.

Well, that's you and the government.