Trains run fast through miles of open countryside between Eastham Rake and Chester and in various places in Sefton and Lancashire. Ellesmere Port gets a naff frequency despite being urbanised. People make daily journeys of 50 minutes each way on the service. The Sunday service is anything but turn up and go - stations with over a million annual users in urbanised areas on 2tph. Calling it an S Bahn is a bit rude to most S Bahn services.
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Southport to Wigan Electrification
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This is correct. There were several memorable (for the wrong reason) incidents of bricks, stones, and golf balls being thrown through the windows of moving trains.
Agreed there's no reason (money aside) not to bring back services now.
adrock1976
Established Member
Although going off topic and south of the area being discussed, I would like to mention that the London Underground Central Line is the longest Underground line out of the ones in London (runs from Epping in Essex to West Ruislip formerly in Middlesex, with a loop via Hainault between Leytonstone and Woodford, and a short branch to Ealing Broadway). These trains pass through parts of the countryside and do not have any toilets fitted onboard, unless I have been asleep during the times I have travelled on the Central Line when I have been in London.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I think you need to ride on more S-Bahnen. The service on offer is, for instance, near identical to the Stuttgart S-Bahn, or at least what that was when I last used it. Not all of Germany runs on 5 minute frequencies. Nor indeed does the rather similar Metropolitan Line other than the Uxbridge branch!
They could do with going 4tph all week, but there's the typical Merseyside industrial relations problem to get past with Sunday in the working week as a mandatory thing before you've got any chance of delivering that.
And as for your journey times, the railway geography of Hamburg is very, very similar to Liverpool - along with the journey times.
Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
Not all shoppers go to Manchester but even those that do can have over 4 hours even with the off-peak restriction, more than enough time to get to Kendal's/HoF (or wherever) and back. And there's always Saturdays for those who insist on making a full day of it. As for levels of usage perhaps you need to travel out that way and have a proper look.
I have already said I agree an easement would be useful though it risks creating the sort of complexity that can cause confusion. Given the endemic overcrowding on peak hour services around Manchester some sort of pm restriction is a necessary evil. Perhaps you need to take the wider point up with Northern.
Only place I've had a train bricked was just outside Kirkby heading east and that was a lot more more recent than the 1980s. Before persuading Network Rail to extend the opening hours at Rainford Jn box I think we need to be reasonably certain that the ASB is unlikely to resume.
I would imagine all Saturday patronage is currently building up from a base of around zero, with most people having abandoned the service over the past six months.
I've been one of only a handful left on the train after Wigan a few times. Loadings on Kirkby services are far lower than on Southport services leaving Wigan.
The PM restrictions were introduced with the aim of increasing revenue, not managing overcrowding. They made overcrowding worse on many routes as they pushed the first train after the restrictions well over capacity (the as was 1834 from Leeds to Manchester once left me behind because it was so busy with Huddersfield passengers) and on other routes there is no peak flow whatsoever and yet restrictions were still applied e.g. between Wilmslow and Manchester Airport. Northern also introduced a contra-peak afternoon restriction, where in almost all other cities the afternoon restrictions are quite correctly peak flow only.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
How much Saturday use is made of Upholland station these days?
frodshamfella
Established Member
Yes that would be good to see.
frodshamfella
Established Member
I'd be happy to see any expansion , certainly new stations and to areas where there are big gaps of no rail provision like South Liverpool . I do think the Bidston to Wrexham should be part of the network, it's a busy route with just one per hour. Taking Merseyrail to Helsby would to me make sense too. Sometime in future planning some sort of Airport link would be desirable.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
How do Transport for Wales view such an aspiration?
I'm not sure they've openly commented one way or the other and are quite probably agnostic about the idea.
For the record, I'm against the idea. The line goes too far out and is too rural in nature to fit well in Merseyrail, especially with the metro-style rolling stock. Even just incorporating the northernmost urban part has not much benefit. The line actually isn't that direct to central Birkenhead/Liverpool and moving the interchange south would mean it would be no longer possible to use the Hoylake services for interchange.
Personally, I'd like to see the line re-extended to Birkenhead North, ideally on its own tracks. North station has twice the frequency into Liverpool over Bidston, as well as direct services to Wallasey and New Brighton.
For the record, I'm against the idea. The line goes too far out and is too rural in nature to fit well in Merseyrail, especially with the metro-style rolling stock. Even just incorporating the northernmost urban part has not much benefit. The line actually isn't that direct to central Birkenhead/Liverpool and moving the interchange south would mean it would be no longer possible to use the Hoylake services for interchange.
Personally, I'd like to see the line re-extended to Birkenhead North, ideally on its own tracks. North station has twice the frequency into Liverpool over Bidston, as well as direct services to Wallasey and New Brighton.
Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
As ever you speak from the perspective of someone whose prime concern is in seeing fares reduced as a major priority. The politics we have to live with means that you will continue to be disappointed for some time yet!
As for the restriction itself I did say I see it as a necessary evil. Any such restriction is likely to create problems on the outside shoulders but at the same time provides some relief throughout the restricted period itself. The real issue is the way it has been applied as a blanket across the whole area whereas what's genuinely justified is restricted boarding from the Central Zone stations and the two Salfords. And as for the unfortunately timed last service to Kirkby this could be retimed 5 minutes later without causing significant issues.
Given I doubt it's hardly a money-maker and operationally remote from a depot, would've thought they'd shed few tears if they lost it...
Decent idea in principle, but the current two units wouldn't be able to cover an hourly service extended beyond Bidston - the round trip time would become too long.
Unless you stopped fewer places along the way, or lopped off Wrexham Central at the other end (which wouldn't be popular!)
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Since the title of this thread still is "Southport to Wigan electrification", any talk about Wrexham is not just "a touch off topic" as you describe, but wildly off-topic.
Skelmersdale and Its Railway Lecture Slides by Mwmbwls, on FlickrThis is a slide from a lecture on building a railway into Skelmersdale based on existing DMU timings from Kirkby to Wigan. As this used to be the Lancashire and Yorkshire route from Manchester to Liverpool, steam hauled expresses used to run faster. The diagram also contains a similar postulation for extending electrification from Ormskirk to Southport via the Burscough Curves - as Starmill suggests it would be a roughly equivalent journey time from Sandhills to the Southport to Liverpool coastal route. The main benefit would be allowing Sefton residents and others from north of Aintree to access Southport without the time consuming dog leg down to Sandhills and from Lancashire's perspective taking cars of the A59.
In terms of other events - As part of the next WLDC Local Plan, Skelmersdale is being scheduled for expansion with new housing at the intersection of the M58 and the Rainford by-pass. Rainford, which as part of Knowsley falls within the Merseytravel boundary will only be 24 minutes (every 15 minutes) from Liverpool and further housing development in Rainfordis expected based on the Liverpool SHELMA report.
As far as the GRIP process goes - there is currently a GRIP 2 refresh and GRIP 3A study underway.
The Lancashire County Council resolution authorising this was passed in 2017 - if everything is running on schedule then this work is due to be completed in the 2018/19 financial year - as in about now.
http://council.lancashire.gov.uk/documents/s107737/Report.pdf
frodshamfella
Established Member
Who knows, but I'm must say having used the new regime from Frodsham I have not noticed any improvement, still poor time keeping.
Back to the Southport-Wigan line, I'm currently travelling along the route for a first time in a few months. Noticed the disused connection to the waste disposal facility at Appley Bridge has now been taken out, and the track plain-lined. When did this happen? I hadn't noticed before, but this could just be general ignorance!
It happened at least five years ago if not longer - soon after the tip closed. There was a debate at the time as to whether the yard space vacated should be used to mitigate the dire lack of parking at the station - a move strongly supported by the Parish Council at the time or that it should be deployed as a brown field site, in view of the overwhelming preponderance of green field sites in West Lancashire favoured by the District Council and included in their ten year local plan.
WatcherZero
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As an update on the Skem rail study, Network Rail were supposed to finish the GRIP 3A in March but its now been delayed until the end of the year as the DfT has asked them to produce a side by side comparison of the costs for 3rd rail, overhead and battery traction (£5.1m just for a study!) Lancashire CC have this week nevertheless voted to approve £1.2m for the development of a business case for the project that should take about a year to produce.
frodshamfella
Established Member
Things do plod on
furnessvale
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Deliberate government policy to delay spending money.
It reminds me of the days that civil servants instructed the railway investment committee NOT to submit investment applications to the DoT, so the Minister could stand up in parliament and "honestly" say he had no applications for railway investment sitting on his desk.
Mikey C
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£5.1m for a study???
No wonder building anything in this country now costs so much
Xenophon PCDGS
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Being involved in consultancy work until retirement, such projects as this seemed a most regular income source and one for our young bloods to try to make their mark in business life, working under the guidance of an experienced team leader.
WatcherZero
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The really sad thing is when you think of all the rail engineering projects where they spend millions on studies and designs and which have a marginal but positive business case and they never proceed, all the wasted money.
frodshamfella
Established Member
So depressing, seeing lack of foresight and investment.
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