No it wouldn't, but how important is it to connect Wrexham with Manchester anyway? More so than Wrexham-Holyhead probably, but I see it as a choice between Wrexham-Manchester or Wrexham-Liverpool. The following quote from the article linked to earlier suggests Merseytravel might have been willing to pay for infrustructure to enable Wrexham-Liverpool, so that's definately an important link.But that still wouldn't connect Wrexham with Manchester.
Wrexham and Shrewsbury both only have south-facing bays, and the semi-redoubled line will presumably take half-hourly services at most. Thus most services at Wrexham are going to come from Cardiff or Birmingham, both of which already have their own through services to Manchester (via more direct routes), but Cardiff to Liverpool seems to make sense as a through route and gives Wrexham through trains to Liverpool. Assuming the Halton curve service is going to be hourly, it also means you don't need to wire the Halton curve (whereas you would if you want north Wales electrification and through services from Llandudno/Bangor/Holyhead to Liverpool).Merseytravel, the transport authority for the Liverpool city region, is disappointed with the outcome of the Welsh Governments investment because it would like through trains between Liverpool and Wrexham.
Liam Robinson, chair of Merseytravel, suggested at a recent National Assembly for Wales inquiry on rail infrastructure that with better coordination across the Wales-England border, funding might have been available to install the complete second track in one go.
The only way you could link Wrexham to both Liverpool and Manchester would probably be to get the Wrexham-Bidston route electrified (for the Liverpool link) and extend the proposed Northern Connect Manchester-Chester service to Swansea (via Wrexham, Shrewsbury and Llandrindod Wells). I don't see that happening somehow. Otherwise, you have to deprive the north Wales coast of Manchester trains, and you still have the problem of where they would go south of Shrewsbury. Unless you reconfigure Wrexham to allow trains from Chester to go to Wrexham Central.
That's one story, another is that services which serve principally English markets wouldn't transfer. If anything that starts/finishes in Wales is going to transfer to English TOCs, that doesn't leave many logical routes for the W&B franchise outside south Wales (the Cambrian lines would be (almost) wholely run by an English TOC for example).I read that the services franchised by the Welsh government were going to be restricted only to services that started and finished within Wales.
If you ask me, the Northern Connect service should take the calls from the current ATW Manchesters. That should mean most of the English stations are served by an English TOC and W&B (calling at just Warrington and Newton-Le-Willows perhaps) might be able run to Manchester saying there are serving a principally Welsh market.Stopping patterns are rather vague, but one of the Chester-Warrington-Manchester services should be semi-fast.
Am I missing something? How would the Northern Connect Manchester-Chester service call at Warrington Central?It is also to replace the current calls at Warrington Central by TPE (the Liverpool-Scarborough service will switch to running via Newton-le-Willows and Victoria).