Proposed new Liverpool & Manchester Railway

[Brubulus]

This project would effectively relieve every rail bottleneck in Manchester in one go.In the end, rebuilding Manchester will end up costing almost as much as just tunneling under the city and relieving all the bottlenecks in one go. Underground stations can be relatively cheap(comparatively), Woolwich only cost £125 million, and a 2 platform station underground at Manchester is fine. With ETCS headways can be minimised and you could fit up to 15tph assuming 3 minutes dwells and 1 minute reoccupation. It's a very reasonable move to just build a tunnel when designing a system truly fit for the future instead of trying to work around current boundaries.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Considering the massive.cost, and no time saving and two routes already in existence, I do wonder that money could be used on other projects. Electrifying the CLC would be a start.

What capacity does that unlock though, really?

The current rail link from Manchester Airport into Manchester is very much overcrowded, and will need some form of tunnelled link to sort that out (unless you want to completely cut services south of Heald Green on the Styal Line and turn it into a dedicated airport link).

The CLC has a lot of freight heading for Trafford Park and it would be better served with tram-trains linked to Metrolink at the Manchester end/extensions of some Merseyrail services towards Warrington.

The Chat Moss is pretty busy as it is, and the section over the Moss itself has been upgraded to the highest speed feasible already.

Finally, this line would provide the first stage of a high speed railway that can truly rival the M62 in terms of capacity and journey times - even if it was only this section built, with an eastern portal at somewhere east of Guide Bridge, you could tie in nicely with the work currently underway on the Transpennine Upgrade.

 

[hux385]

As with HS2, the focus needs to be on capacity and not speed! I think this rehashed version of NPR would do a good job of freeing up capacity on other routes around the Manchester area. I suppose the main obstacle will be cost.

 

[frodshamfella]

What capacity does that unlock though, really?

The current rail link from Manchester Airport into Manchester is very much overcrowded, and will need some form of tunnelled link to sort that out (unless you want to completely cut services south of Heald Green on the Styal Line and turn it into a dedicated airport link).

The CLC has a lot of freight heading for Trafford Park and it would be better served with tram-trains linked to Metrolink at the Manchester end/extensions of some Merseyrail services towards Warrington.

The Chat Moss is pretty busy as it is, and the section over the Moss itself has been upgraded to the highest speed feasible already.

Finally, this line would provide the first stage of a high speed railway that can truly rival the M62 in terms of capacity and journey times - even if it was only this section built, with an eastern portal at somewhere east of Guide Bridge, you could tie in nicely with the work currently underway on the Transpennine Upgrade.

How many trains per hour use rhe CLC and via Chat Moss now ? None are particularly long.

This seems like a waste of money to me, The TPE service from Victoria is great at 33 minutes. Why the Liverpool mayor has agreed to this- And there is no provision for the airport Baffles me.

Liverpool Airport must be included in this scheme one way or the other if it comes about. Otherwise it's a huge missed opportunity for improving surface access to the airport, which is needed more than Manchester Airport.

 

[AlastairFraser]

How many trains per hour use rhe CLC and via Chat Moss now ? None are particularly long.

2tph passenger on the CLC along the whole length, part of the western end has up to 8tph (4tph Merseyrail/2tph Northern/1tph EMR/1tph TPE ).
Chat Moss has at least 4tph east of Huyton I think, more west of Huyton junction.
Yes, some trains could be lengthened, but the current mess of a layout at Manchester Vic would require huge amount of money to upgrade to significantly passenger capacity and so would the Castlefield corridor including Manchester Oxford Road. Building new is a much better future proofed solution for the North West.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Agreed RE Liverpool Airport.

RE spending it on the CLC electrification, the problem is that you'd just end up with an electric service sat waiting to get down the Castlefield corridor. The benefit of this isn't the speed it's the removing express services from CLC, Chat Moss, Ordsall, Castlefield, Piccadilly Throat, Victoria to Salford Central etc.

You'd then be able to timetable better regional/local services with expresses out of the system. Might even get away with better services for the Ordsall Chord.

Then if we can get an underground Piccadilly station with a short tunnel out east near guide bridge as mentioned above you could also put Sheffield services down it and potentially see improvements to South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and East Midlands connectivity with airports and NW and release capacity through Stockport. That would also give the route a good number of TPH to justify it. 4 from West Yorks, 2 from South Yorks initially with potential for more. Would need to look at terminal capacity at Liverpool end mind.

 

[Dspatula]

This project would effectively relieve every rail bottleneck in Manchester in one go.In the end, rebuilding Manchester will end up costing almost as much as just tunneling under the city and relieving all the bottlenecks in one go. Underground stations can be relatively cheap(comparatively), Woolwich only cost £125 million, and a 2 platform station underground at Manchester is fine. With ETCS headways can be minimised and you could fit up to 15tph assuming 3 minutes dwells and 1 minute reoccupation. It's a very reasonable move to just build a tunnel when designing a system truly fit for the future instead of trying to work around current boundaries.

I don't how it would? Compared to now it would remove two Liverpool fasts from Ordsall lane and one Airport from Castlefield. Everything else is outside of the scope of the proposed line so you can't include any gains from what was HS2 or a further route to Yorkshire, so that leaves you the six trains an hour from the current trans-Pennine upgrade plan. Six trains an our that can do Liverpool and Manchester airport is very nice but likely to justify the price tag.
If we are including HS2 benefits, then any argument for a cheap underground station goes out the window because you need 400m platforms. I just don't see how an expensive plan that needs 2 to 3 other expensive plans to be funded is ever going to get off the ground.

"The benefit of this isn't the speed it's the removing express services from CLC"

The plan still includes CLC expresses so there is no gain there.

 

[AlastairFraser]

RE spending it on the CLC electrification, the problem is that you'd just end up with an electric service sat waiting to get down the Castlefield corridor. The benefit of this isn't the speed it's the removing express services from CLC, Chat Moss, Ordsall, Castlefield, Piccadilly Throat, Victoria to Salford Central etc.

You'd then be able to timetable better regional/local services with expresses out of the system. Might even get away with better services for the Ordsall Chord.

Exactly.
You'd be able to timetable a much better local service and attract more people off the motorway much easier than the current frequencies do.

Then if we can get an underground Piccadilly station with a short tunnel out east near guide bridge as mentioned above you could also put Sheffield services down it and potentially see improvements to South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and East Midlands connectivity with airports and NW and release capacity through Stockport. That would also give the route a good number of TPH to justify it. 4 from West Yorks, 2 from South Yorks initially with potential for more. Would need to look at terminal capacity at Liverpool end mind.

I wonder if you could get the proposed 3rd fast train per hour that the Hope Valley upgrade was supposed to deliver out of this.
Perhaps you'd need a short branch of the tunnel second portal further into Hyde to dodge the Glossop/Hatfield services, and then the line traffic is relatively light until Dore & Totley.

 

[YorkshireBear]

I don't how it would? Compared to now it would remove two Liverpool fasts from Ordsall lane and one Airport from Castlefield. Everything else is outside of the scope of the proposed line so you can't include any gains from what was HS2 or a further route to Yorkshire, so that leaves you the six trains an hour from the current trans-Pennine upgrade plan. Six trains an our that can do Liverpool and Manchester airport is very nice but likely to justify the price tag.
If we are including HS2 benefits, then any argument for a cheap underground station goes out the window because you need 400m platforms. I just don't see how an expensive plan that needs 2 to 3 other expensive plans to be funded is ever going to get off the ground.

The plan still includes CLC expresses so there is no gain there.

I was considering the post TRU frequencies, and an uplift for the total number using new line. Yes yours are what would be removed from the junctions.

The plan might well still include CLC expresses but I wouldn't in my plan. I was more outlining what I would propose.

 

[HSTEd]

I don't how it would? Compared to now it would remove two Liverpool fasts from Ordsall lane and one Airport from Castlefield. Everything else is outside of the scope of the proposed line so you can't include any gains from what was HS2 or a further route to Yorkshire, so that leaves you the six trains an hour from the current trans-Pennine upgrade plan. Six trains an our that can do Liverpool and Manchester airport is very nice but likely to justify the price tag.
If we are including HS2 benefits, then any argument for a cheap underground station goes out the window because you need 400m platforms. I just don't see how an expensive plan that needs 2 to 3 other expensive plans to be funded is ever going to get off the ground.

The plan still includes CLC expresses so there is no gain there.

Well conceptually there are a lot of trains at Manchester that could be extended to Liverpool. The XC services or even the Manchester-London trains.
If you really want paths used you could build a connection to the Mid Cheshire line at Manchester Airport station.

Also 400m underground platforms probably won't be much more expensive than shorter ones. You don't want to cripple the line forever by skimping on a few tens of metres of platform length.
I'd say the critical problem is to make sure that the platforms can access all the major routes south or east out of Manchester

 

[Brubulus]

I don't how it would? Compared to now it would remove two Liverpool fasts from Ordsall lane and one Airport from Castlefield. Everything else is outside of the scope of the proposed line so you can't include any gains from what was HS2 or a further route to Yorkshire, so that leaves you the six trains an hour from the current trans-Pennine upgrade plan. Six trains an our that can do Liverpool and Manchester airport is very nice but likely to justify the price tag.
If we are including HS2 benefits, then any argument for a cheap underground station goes out the window because you need 400m platforms. I just don't see how an expensive plan that needs 2 to 3 other expensive plans to be funded is ever going to get off the ground.

The plan still includes CLC expresses so there is no gain there.

Woolwich is 270M, cost 125M. Costs wont be linear with length and there will be local factors. Remember it's a through station, so you only need 2 platforms, and that can support up to around 15tph, (2-3 minute dwell, 1 min reoccupation), with a reversing siding. I agree that trying to run CLC fasts is ridiculous and should be dropped. The CLC needs 4tph all stations, every station except Glazebrook deserves that level of service. In the end it's a tunnel under Manchester, and that is what will revolutionise the railway in that area, it's what will need to happen in order to effectively enable any reasonable expansion of service. Castlefield, even with 4 platforms is fundamentally limited by 2 tracks and the need to accommodate freight and mixed traffic trains (not all 700s on ATO), and even then that hasn't gone well. A railway line in a rural area generally isn't that expensive, without crazy interventions such as tunnels through flat land.

Exactly.
You'd be able to timetable a much better local service and attract more people off the motorway much easier than the current frequencies do.

I wonder if you could get the proposed 3rd fast train per hour that the Hope Valley upgrade was supposed to deliver out of this.
Perhaps you'd need a short branch of the tunnel second portal further into Hyde to dodge the Glossop/Hatfield services, and then the line traffic is relatively light until Dore & Totley.

You would be able to get a third service - it would be by redirecting the current fasts via the new line and New Mills Central, while then adding another service via Stockport. Two portals is likely to inflame costs hugely, and it definitely seems doable with a single portal, utilising the space avaliable for 4 tracks on much of the route.

 

[AlastairFraser]

You would be able to get a third service - it would be by redirecting the current fasts via the new line and New Mills Central, while then adding another service via Stockport. Two portals is likely to inflame costs hugely, and it definitely seems doable with a single portal, utilising the space avaliable for 4 tracks on much of the route.

Would you be able to do that with existing rolling stock? Or would you need to order a fleet of (additional) bi modes for TPE and EMR?

 

[frodshamfella]

Agreed RE Liverpool Airport.

RE spending it on the CLC electrification, the problem is that you'd just end up with an electric service sat waiting to get down the Castlefield corridor. The benefit of this isn't the speed it's the removing express services from CLC, Chat Moss, Ordsall, Castlefield, Piccadilly Throat, Victoria to Salford Central etc.

You'd then be able to timetable better regional/local services with expresses out of the system. Might even get away with better services for the Ordsall Chord.

Then if we can get an underground Piccadilly station with a short tunnel out east near guide bridge as mentioned above you could also put Sheffield services down it and potentially see improvements to South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and East Midlands connectivity with airports and NW and release capacity through Stockport. That would also give the route a good number of TPH to justify it. 4 from West Yorks, 2 from South Yorks initially with potential for more. Would need to look at terminal capacity at Liverpool end mind.

Is the idea that the termination point in Lime Street or a new Central Station.
? We are told Lime Street is at capacity now .

 

[WAO]

The problems generally described above are of terminals, which would not be solved by a new high (or low) speed line.

Both Manchester and Liverpool termini need relieving, not more new lines.

In Manchester's case the solutions offered seem to approach the 1972 Picc - Vic line. This did little for the lines approaching from the West. If tunnelling under Manchester is now to be considered, then a short East - West route, say passing under St Peter's Square, with connections at each end to the four main routes converging on central Manchester might do the trick. This would be for stopping trains - a Metro - with surface stations for longer distance fasts and semi-fasts. Tunnels are unsuitable for terminating intercity trains, as they need long lay-overs for unloading, preparation and loading, if operated in a civilised manner.

Liverpool, as I have mentioned previously needs four tracks from Roby Junction and diversion of L&M (and even one day CLC, via Garston) stopping trains via one of the tunnels (Victoria or Wapping) to the under-used South of Central low level.

WAO

 

[MatthewHutton]

Woolwich is 270M, cost 125M. Costs wont be linear with length and there will be local factors. Remember it's a through station, so you only need 2 platforms, and that can support up to around 15tph, (2-3 minute dwell, 1 min reoccupation), with a reversing siding. I agree that trying to run CLC fasts is ridiculous and should be dropped. The CLC needs 4tph all stations, every station except Glazebrook deserves that level of service. In the end it's a tunnel under Manchester, and that is what will revolutionise the railway in that area, it's what will need to happen in order to effectively enable any reasonable expansion of service. Castlefield, even with 4 platforms is fundamentally limited by 2 tracks and the need to accommodate freight and mixed traffic trains (not all 700s on ATO), and even then that hasn't gone well. A railway line in a rural area generally isn't that expensive, without crazy interventions such as tunnels through flat land.

Antwerpen Centraal (high speed rail service tunnelled under a city of a million people) including the tunnelling to support it was €750m in 2011. Adjusted for inflation that is what? £1bn or a little more.

Stockholm Citybahnan (RER tunnel under a city of 1.5 million) cost $3bn PPP or £2bn in today’s money.

A Manchester or Leeds project should be certainly able to match Stockholm on costs.

The problems generally described above are of terminals, which would not be solved by a new high (or low) speed line.

Both Manchester and Liverpool termini need relieving, not more new lines.

In Manchester's case the solutions offered seem to approach the 1972 Picc - Vic line. This did little for the lines approaching from the West. If tunnelling under Manchester is now to be considered, then a short East - West route, say passing under St Peter's Square, with connections at each end to the four main routes converging on central Manchester might do the trick. This would be for stopping trains - a Metro - with surface stations for longer distance fasts and semi-fasts. Tunnels are unsuitable for terminating intercity trains, as they need long lay-overs for unloading, preparation and loading, if operated in a civilised manner.

Liverpool, as I have mentioned previously needs four tracks from Roby Junction and diversion of L&M (and even one day CLC, via Garston) stopping trains via one of the tunnels (Victoria or Wapping) to the under-used South of Central low level.

WAO

It’s definitely the termini at Manchester/Leeds/Liverpool/Birmingham where the biggest capacity constraints are.

Elsewhere shortish express lines or four tracking for overtaking or just buying better trains or tightening stopping times is surely sufficient.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It’s definitely the termini at Manchester/Leeds/Liverpool/Birmingham where the biggest capacity constraints are.

It would be easy to add platforms to Manchester Piccadilly on the present car park, you could get at least two in. Similarly you could reinstate P1 at Lime St and add more on the car park, they'd be short platforms but there are plenty of short DMU services at both stations. Building 15/16 at Piccadilly wouldn't be hard either, or switching the present island to side platforms cantilevered off the viaduct if you just wanted to improve passenger capacity rather than train capacity.

Is the idea that the termination point in Lime Street or a new Central Station.

Lime St.

? We are told Lime Street is at capacity now .

I'd question that to be honest.

 

[BrianW]

Antwerpen Centraal (high speed rail service tunnelled under a city of a million people) including the tunnelling to support it was €750m in 2011. Adjusted for inflation that is what? £1bn or a little more.

Stockholm Citybahnan (RER tunnel under a city of 1.5 million) cost $3bn PPP or £2bn in today’s money.

A Manchester or Leeds project should be certainly able to match Stockholm on costs.


It’s definitely the termini at Manchester/Leeds/Liverpool/Birmingham where the biggest capacity constraints are.

Elsewhere shortish express lines or four tracking for overtaking or just buying better trains or tightening stopping times is surely sufficient.

Through stations definitely appear to have the edge capacity-wise on termini.

Capacity at many important stations is constrained by platforms of inconsistent and limited length.

Capacity could be increased by maximising train lengths and loadings, provided platforms and their configurations could take the peak passngers flows in and out without crushing, dangers of falling, etc. Train lengths and configurations are of course further constrained by past, and future, buying and leasing decisions, and funding!

Is there some kind of data that informs future plans- e.g.biggest/ worst/ cheapest/ quickest to rectify constraints- or is it all down to political will in the end?

 

[frodshamfella]

The CLC line is not very busy. I know there is a mess when you get into Manchester, but would resolving that not be cheaper than building a new line and tunnelling. ?

 

[Bletchleyite]

The CLC line is not very busy. I know there is a mess when you get into Manchester, but would resolving that not be cheaper than building a new line and tunnelling. ?

The CLC line is not very busy because the service is shocking. If you look at what it and the CLC (Liverpool side) serve, they should both easily sustain a 4tph Merseyrail style EMU service and be very well used as such. That means you need to take the expresses off and move them elsewhere, hence this proposal. The Fiddler's Ferry line doesn't run through any built up areas bar Warrington, nor would it be particularly useful for development, so it's ideal.

While it isn't busy in terms of train movements the involvement of long distance and very unpunctual expresses like the Norwich means it needs all the resilience it has got.

To be fair, even if they didn't build this, as a former regular user I can't help but think the line would be substantially more useful if they cut the two expresses back to Piccadilly main trainshed and replaced it with a purely local service operated using Class 195s (which would allow a speed-up over 15x), say 2tph semi fast Liverpool to Manchester Airport (South Parkway, Widnes, Warrington W, Warrington C, Birchwood, Urmston, Oxford Road, Piccadilly, Airport) and 2tph all stations Liverpool to Manchester Oxford Road. That would be close enough to Merseyrail like and far better in terms of punctuality and capacity. Loss of a through Liverpool to Nottingham service would be a shame but if you look at these services there's a near total turnover of passengers at Manchester, and Liverpool presently I think doesn't have a Manchester Airport service at all.

Alternatively still have the 4 but run each all stations one side of Warrington and fast the other side.

 

[HSTEd]

The CLC line is not very busy. I know there is a mess when you get into Manchester, but would resolving that not be cheaper than building a new line and tunnelling. ?

The alignment is pretty hemmed in by high density development.
It'd take major demolitions, including of new high rises to do anything to get more trains through it.

A new line is likely the most feasible way to do something about it, excluding mroe extreme solutions like converting the line to Merseyrail and Metrolink.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A new line is likely the most feasible way to do something about it, excluding mroe extreme solutions like converting the line to Merseyrail and Metrolink.

Any solution to the CLC (be that heavy or light rail) requires removing the long distance services from it. To be fair as I say above that could be by simply truncating them to Manchester Piccadilly - given the actual usage patterns this would be a cheap improvement that could be done now.

 

[BrianW]

The alignment is pretty hemmed in by high density development.
It'd take major demolitions, including of new high rises to do anything to get more trains through it.

A new line is likely the most feasible way to do something about it, excluding mroe extreme solutions like converting the line to Merseyrail and Metrolink.

Thinking of 'hemmed-in'ness ... The Castlefield bottleneck could be reduced/ avoided by greter use of the 'third dimension', e.g a double-deck arrangement. If Fairfield Road and North Western Street were to be closed, and some 're-ordering' at Ardwick a burrowing under or over of the lines to Piccadilly could be crossed to facilitate Liverpool-Sheffield. Whether it's 'worth it' is another question!

(Maybe similar 'issues' for East-West Rail Bletchley- Milton Keynes and at Bedford might benefit from Three-dimensional/ blue sky/ out of ther box thinking?)

 

[MatthewHutton]

Through stations definitely appear to have the edge capacity-wise on termini.

Capacity at many important stations is constrained by platforms of inconsistent and limited length.

Capacity could be increased by maximising train lengths and loadings, provided platforms and their configurations could take the peak passngers flows in and out without crushing, dangers of falling, etc. Train lengths and configurations are of course further constrained by past, and future, buying and leasing decisions, and funding!

Is there some kind of data that informs future plans- e.g.biggest/ worst/ cheapest/ quickest to rectify constraints- or is it all down to political will in the end?

I think there is definitely a problem that there are only 2 through platforms at Manchester Piccadilly and even Japan who are aggressive with their platform usage would likely have 4 like e.g Nagoya, Shin Kobe etc.

But the main issue is the 60tph across the throat on a flat junction. Even the Japanese aren’t attempting that.

So a tunnel to the north-south or east-west or both would help with that.

In terms of the platforms with 12 terminal platforms you should be able to handle ~18 long distance services departing per hour (which is what St Pancras manages) or perhaps ~24 regional services departing per hour. That is probably sufficient for the current service level.

The alignment is pretty hemmed in by high density development.
It'd take major demolitions, including of new high rises to do anything to get more trains through it.

A new line is likely the most feasible way to do something about it, excluding mroe extreme solutions like converting the line to Merseyrail and Metrolink.

Is it all hemmed in or is there any possibility of three-four tracking a section between 2-3 stations to allow strategic overtaking?

Otherwise replacing the local trains with overhead electric FLIRT trains or similar for faster acceleration and braking and also doing 45 second dwells like the London commuter services would also help with capacity.

 

[HSTEd]

Is it all hemmed in or is there any possibility of three-four tracking a section between 2-3 stations to allow strategic overtaking?

Otherwise replacing the local trains with overhead electric FLIRT trains or similar for faster acceleration and braking and also doing 45 second dwells like the London commuter services would also help with capacity.

I think there are only a small number of stretches of a handful of kilometres where it is not in a developed area.
There are an awful lot of overbridges.

I'm not convinced that there is much scope for four tracking without extremely disruptive demolitions or reconstructions.

And this obviously doesn't help you when you have to dump the additional trains into the Castlefield junction complex.

 

[urbophile]

Well yes if the Northern line could be extended from Hunts X and serve Speke too as well as the airport, you could kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Hunts X always seems an odd place to terminate anyway.



A tram would be a nice quick fix from South Parkway, but it needs to be segregated from traffic, otherwise it would be as bad as the bus. It could then continue to where ever the Gateway Station is. I certainly feel that Liverpool Airport needs a bit more consideration with the scheme, it's all about Manchester Airport which has a rail and tram link already.


I use the bus link from South Parkway quite often when I get a flight. As you say it's stops and the traffic it that area is really getting bad , so something needs to be done.

Ideally the former: the residents of Speke deserve a much better connection to the city centre than the current slow bus service. Second best, a tram-train link from the Airport, joining the slow line from Parkway to Edge Hill and then into the city centre either via the Wapping tunnel or on-street running. A tram shuttle only as far as South Parkway would be a waste of money: most people would take the direct bus to the city centre. If they were happy to change at Parkway an improvement on the current bus link would be almost as good as a tram.

 

[MatthewHutton]

I think there are only a small number of stretches of a handful of kilometres where it is not in a developed area.
There are an awful lot of overbridges.

I'm not convinced that there is much scope for four tracking without extremely disruptive demolitions or reconstructions.

And this obviously doesn't help you when you have to dump the additional trains into the Castlefield junction complex.

The big question is is four-tracking those sections of track sufficient to run the desired service? Or is the best to build 1-2 short higher speed diversions away from the line to allow passing?

And can some services terminate at Manchester Victoria or are another two east-west tracks required through the city centre?

We need to get to the bottom of what is necessary and then get on and build it. But without excessive gold plating (as it won’t pass the treasury) and with all the options properly considered.

 

[The Planner]

Any solution to the CLC (be that heavy or light rail) requires removing the long distance services from it. To be fair as I say above that could be by simply truncating them to Manchester Piccadilly - given the actual usage patterns this would be a cheap improvement that could be done now.

You would need to find a replacement for the lost Liverpool Manchester train in the peaks as a minimum. They are well used.

 

[Topological]

You would need to find a replacement for the lost Liverpool Manchester train in the peaks as a minimum. They are well used.

Presumably 2 services extending from the airport.

Could even couple with sending one of the trains through Bolton that currently goes to the airport to Victoria instead and remove some more conflicts. Would still be a net increase on airport services.

I do agree that there is no way to just remove capacity on Manchester to Liverpool.

Worth noting as well that until recently the Cleethorpes TPE did not go to Liverpool, but instead there was a Northern Airport to Liverpool in that slot.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You would need to find a replacement for the lost Liverpool Manchester train in the peaks as a minimum. They are well used.

Presumably 2 services extending from the airport.

Yep, that's what I said - two fast two slow, just self contained to Liverpool-Manchester(-Airport) and not importing all the delay the longer distance services do. It's not the presence of fasts that is the problem (though a better local service could be run without them were they moved to the Fiddlers Ferry line), it's that they're shockingly unpunctual. Though I'd have the fasts stop in slightly more places to improve connectivity.

Even ignoring the CLC itself, taking the Norwich off Castlefield would probably improve punctuality there significantly. I think it's the only short-train end-doored service left that serves 13/14? The Scotland 397s are end doored but capacious enough that boarding isn't horribly slow.

Doing this would have the secondary advantage that everything from 13/14 would go to/from the Airport (or the reversing siding which is on that side) and thus Slade Lane would be a bit "cleaner" operationally.

 

[Topological]

Yep, that's what I said - two fast two slow, just self contained to Liverpool-Manchester(-Airport) and not importing all the delay the longer distance services do. It's not the presence of fasts that is the problem (though a better local service could be run without them were they moved to the Fiddlers Ferry line), it's that they're shockingly unpunctual. Though I'd have the fasts stop in slightly more places to improve connectivity.

Even ignoring the CLC itself, taking the Norwich off Castlefield would probably improve punctuality there significantly. I think it's the only short-train end-doored service left that serves 13/14? The Scotland 397s are end doored but capacious enough that boarding isn't horribly slow.

Doing this would have the secondary advantage that everything from 13/14 would go to/from the Airport (or the reversing siding which is on that side) and thus Slade Lane would be a bit "cleaner" operationally.

I was thinking of some of the stuff that serves Southport, but that terminates at Oxford Road now? The Liverpool stoppers are likewise short end door, but start from Oxford Road.

Under the current timetable the severing of the direct trains would add significantly to the Liverpool to Sheffield journey time though. Whether it is possible to recast the CLC so that the connections would be sensible at Piccadilly I am not sure. Making passengers from Liverpool wait almost 30 minutes for the next Sheffield train seems a bit much.

The splitting of these longer distance trains at Manchester could only be a short term fix until the new line is open.