GNERman
Established Member
All,
Just having a quick thought here.
Would it not be best to have a dedicated Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Airport service???
Excluding Northern slow services
Currently, from what I can see, there are roughly :
3tpd ATW services
4tph TPE plus Windermere, Edinburgh/Glasgow and Barrow-in-Furness (although some are combined with others)
2tph Northern
So, would it not be best to operate a seperate company, possibly part of either the Northern or TPE franchises, to operate this corridor, and, possibly, with a similar job (eg Heathrow Connect) for the local services?
A possible timetable could be something like 6tph Fast and 2tph Slow, with both slows working to Crewe for connections with the WCML.
These could be worked by a fleet of 350's or derivative with First Class and proper Luggage Storage, unlike the unsuitable 185's...
OR, as part of the Northern Hub proposals, could 2tph start from Manchester Victoria and work via an electrified Ordsall Curve???
Some benefits i'm thinking of are that it could allow a better fleet utilisation for Northern and TPE, with less units required for services. Also, for TPE, it could allow the extension of some of these services to destinations such as Chester or Southport, which both Arriva TPE and FTPE are/were interested in...
Just having a quick thought here.
Would it not be best to have a dedicated Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Airport service???
Excluding Northern slow services
Currently, from what I can see, there are roughly :
3tpd ATW services
4tph TPE plus Windermere, Edinburgh/Glasgow and Barrow-in-Furness (although some are combined with others)
2tph Northern
So, would it not be best to operate a seperate company, possibly part of either the Northern or TPE franchises, to operate this corridor, and, possibly, with a similar job (eg Heathrow Connect) for the local services?
A possible timetable could be something like 6tph Fast and 2tph Slow, with both slows working to Crewe for connections with the WCML.
These could be worked by a fleet of 350's or derivative with First Class and proper Luggage Storage, unlike the unsuitable 185's...
OR, as part of the Northern Hub proposals, could 2tph start from Manchester Victoria and work via an electrified Ordsall Curve???
Some benefits i'm thinking of are that it could allow a better fleet utilisation for Northern and TPE, with less units required for services. Also, for TPE, it could allow the extension of some of these services to destinations such as Chester or Southport, which both Arriva TPE and FTPE are/were interested in...