Manchester - Reduction In Platform Capacity

railfan100 · 18 Aug 2019

Having visited Manchester this weekend and looking at the capacity issues the city seems to have with the rail network I cannot help being of the mindset is it potentially self inflicted? In the late 80's Victoria had approx 17 platforms give or take and was running the Pennine services which seem to be quicker running via Ashton rather than via the heavily speed restricted Guide Bridge area to Piccadilly.

Has the problem with capacity been made much worse by scaling down Victoria for a 'quick buck' in selling off the land for the MEN whilst this is at the expense of the long term strategy with regional transport? Comments welcome but I feel if services were split better between the two main stations if Victoria was still a reasonable size we would not have the capacity concerns that seem to be present? Is the platform capacity of Manchester less today than in the 1980's my research shows it is?

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Jozhua · 18 Aug 2019

Well some of the worst capacity issues in Manchester can be found in the Castlefield area running between Deansgate-Oxford Road-Piccadilly.

Many of the transport planning efforts in the city have surrounded trying to better connect Victoria and Piccadilly, so as to give passengers a more seamless journey if they needed to say go from Bolton to London or the Airport to Leeds.

This has been addressed with the addition of the Windsor Link and Ordsall Chord, both of which put more trains on the Castlefield Corridor. I don't think this wasn't a problem in the 80's when the Windsor Link was created, but was almost certainly a consideration when creating the Ordsall Chord.

So when the Ordsall Chord was made, it was planned to improve Oxford Road and add two more through platforms at Piccadilly (15 & 16) to cope with the increased traffic. Low and behold though, after the completion of the Ordsall Chord, 15/16 were cancelled and the frequent delays speak for themselves. Just two trains go through it an hour and that's still two too many for the creaking infrastructure and difficult conditions at Piccadilly.

It really doesn't help that now many Transpennine Express trains call at multiple Manchester stations instead of just one. I think that 15/16, Oxford Road upgrades and perhaps upgrades to Victoria could definitely keep trains moving much quicker through Manchester!

LNW-GW Joint · 18 Aug 2019

Manchester lost capacity at Central and Exchange, too, which also contributes to today's congestion as remaining trains reverted to the original routes into Piccadilly/Victoria.
There's no satisfactory way of reversing those cuts though.
The "HS3" idea of a new line under the city (Piccadilly-Victoria-Miles Platting) would of course change things for the better.
But it would be expensive.

Class 170101 · 18 Aug 2019

I guess demand and the focus of transport has shifted otherwise why not put all the services back into Victoria?

Simply I would say Manchester Airport which until Ordsall Chord could not be reached directly from Victoria. Piccadilly is also now the major station to head south so can't be ignored.

railfan100 · 18 Aug 2019

Class 170101 said:
I guess demand and the focus of transport has shifted otherwise why not put all the services back into Victoria?

It seems such a huge error to have diverted Pennine services to the slower route via Guide Bridge hence creating some of the capacity issues, looking at station maps of Victoria in as recent times as 1992 it has significantly more capacity than it does today. What an own goal to lose such capacity, such a short view of the future, really no excuse as far as I can see that would justify Victoria losing much needed capacity.

Hadders · 18 Aug 2019

railfan100 said:
Having visited Manchester this weekend and looking at the capacity issues the city seems to have with the rail network I cannot help being of the mindset is it potentially self inflicted? In the late 80's Victoria had approx 17 platforms give or take and was running the Pennine services which seem to be quicker running via Ashton rather than via the heavily speed restricted Guide Bridge area to Piccadilly.

Has the problem with capacity been made much worse by scaling down Victoria for a 'quick buck' in selling off the land for the MEN whilst this is at the expense of the long term strategy with regional transport? Comments welcome but I feel if services were split better between the two main stations if Victoria was still a reasonable size we would not have the capacity concerns that seem to be present? Is the platform capacity of Manchester less today than in the 1980's my research shows it is?

Bear in mind that in the 1980s when the capacity was lost the railway was in significant decline. Some would say terminal decline. If you don't believe me look at what the Serpell Report of the early 1980s proposed (one option proposed reducing route mileage by 84%). Privatisation in the late 1990s was billed as managing decline. Of course the opposite happened and since the mid 1990s the number of journeys made by rail has doubled and we desperately need more capacity.

A 'nice' problem to have compared to those of the 1970s and 1980s....

geoffk · 18 Aug 2019

Rationalisation of city centre stations also happened in Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds and Glasgow, among others, but congestion in Manchester appears to be the worst. Four routes effectively converge on to a double track west of Deansgate and these are bringing trains from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Barrow and North Wales, as well as Liverpool and Blackpool. Four-tracking the section through to Piccadilly, all on a viaduct in a heavily-built-up area, would be a great improvement but hugely disruptive. Many continental cities similar in size would have lines and stations underground (e.g. Zurich. Frankfurt) and grade-separated junctions. More through platforms or even a west-facing bay at Victoria would help. Oxford Road platforms need to be longer but that can only be done by sacrificing bay platform 5.

Glenn1969 · 18 Aug 2019

Have often wondered whether TPE could get trains from Yorkshire to the Airport via Denton or is there no line from Stockport to the Airport?

railfan100 · 18 Aug 2019

Whilst not being from the city but researching this and seeing the capacity issues first hand some thoughts come to mind:

A new branded and marketed service from Victoria-Piccadilly-Airport with suitable capacity perhaps with a frequency of every 15 minutes. No Pennine services going to the Airport but a simple change to a dedicated airport service would seem simple enough with regular high frequency ‘shuttle’ operating methodology. Would seem to provide a good use for the somewhat underutilised Ordsall curve?

All Pennine services going via Victoria, with the only exception the Cleethorpes service going to Piccadilly, although even if this was routed to Victoria to be uniform via the long winded route around the suburbs it would potentially only add an extra 10 minutes to the trip time. The major issue seems to be the lack of capacity at Victoria considering such a huge amount of the station is gone and lost in fairly recent times.

I really cannot see the route between Piccadilly and Deansgate being expanded the amount of high value corporate real estate that would need to be acquired is not practical. By reversing some the self-inflicted issues e.g. all Pennine via Victoria and maybe even the Barrow and Blackpool services diverted to Victoria it removes significant pressure on the bottleneck of today. The problem to this though is the MEN arena which acquired the land at the time ‘on the cheap’ and it likely would take a huge sum to buy the area of land back to provide the needed capacity at Victoria.

Glenn1969 · 18 Aug 2019

Then you lose connectivity to long distance services from Piccadilly and many people are put off by having to change trains however simple the change may be. This may be that at present connections cannot be trusted to be on time if they run at all

Chester1 · 18 Aug 2019

It's a complicated issue. I think that Victoria was too big and shrinking it made sense but that it went a bit to far. 6 through platforms would have been about right. The network circa 1960 reflected that it was built by multiple competing companies and rationalisation was necessary. There has also been significant changes to passenger flows, most notably when the Airport link was built. The strategy of the last 30 years has been correct but underfunding the changes has lead to the situation today. If you look at the Northern Hub plans for Oxford Road it shows a continuation of the strategy to stop trains terminating at anywhere apart from Piccadilly 1-12 and the Airport (the plans will remove the bay platform to allow Oxford Road 1-4 to be extended and a new bigger footbridge built).

plugwash · 18 Aug 2019

Glenn1969 said:
Have often wondered whether TPE could get trains from Yorkshire to the Airport via Denton or is there no line from Stockport to the Airport?

There is no direct line from Stockport to Manchester airport. The current service from stockport to manchester airport (part of the "south transpennine") reverses at Manchester Piccadilly.

There are lines from Stockport to Wilmslow and Wilmslow to Manchester airport but from a quick look on google maps (don't have the track atlas handy) it seems you would have to run the train through Wilmslow statoin, reverse it on a running line south of the station and then bring it back through the other side of Wilmslow station.

The line from Stockport to Altrincham crosses the line from Manchester to Manchester airport, but there is no connection between the two, just a bridge.

yorksrob · 19 Aug 2019

In hindsight, it would have been better to have retained six through platforms at Victoria.

jfollows · 19 Aug 2019

Hadders said:
Bear in mind that in the 1980s when the capacity was lost the railway was in significant decline.

I think this is right, and the rationalisation needs to be viewed in that context.

I travelled into Manchester Piccadilly every school day between September 1973 and March 1980, and it didn't change much over that time. Platforms 1-4 operated as a self-contained station, and on the Western side platform 10 wasn't used much, platform 11 was only used for parcels trains and platform 12 was unused and unusable. There was still spare capacity for the engine off the Harwich Boat Train to run around its train (blocking platforms 5 and 6). Victoria was an antediluvian dump with "express" trains Liverpool-Leeds only about every two hours (yes, lovely for us enthusiasts, steam heated class 40s and the like, but hardly attractive to the normal traveller). Platforms 13&14 at Piccadilly had combined 8 through passenger trains every hour, plus one terminator from Liverpool which reversed in platform 14.

In other words, at the time there was lots of spare capacity at Piccadilly, especially through platforms 13 & 14, and "rationalising" the dump that was Victoria station by reducing number of platforms there after diverting its few through trains to Piccadilly made a lot of sense at the time.

And it worked quite well for a while! Probably until the time that its popularity led to platforms 13 & 14 being extended, after which time the planned service frequency became too much. Culminating in May 2018 .....

railfan100 · 19 Aug 2019

Even if platforms 15 and 16 came and Oxford Road was virtually rebuilt at huge cost the current strategy of Pennine services crossing the throat of Piccadilly won't be fixed from what I have seen of the area. Unless at huge expense flyovers would be built? I cannot see there being funding to rebuild Oxford Road and build a new 15 and 16. Seems that even after purchasing all of the land at huge expense there are still issues. Expanding Victoria again would likely be cheaper? Unless I missed something Pennine services being moved to Piccadilly along with the awkward Airport movements caused the capacity problems.

CdBrux · 19 Aug 2019

railfan100 said:
Even if platforms 15 and 16 came and Oxford Road was virtually rebuilt at huge cost the current strategy of Pennine services crossing the throat of Piccadilly won't be fixed from what I have seen of the area. Unless at huge expense flyovers would be built? I cannot see there being funding to rebuild Oxford Road and build a new 15 and 16. Seems that even after purchasing all of the land at huge expense there are still issues. Expanding Victoria again would likely be cheaper? Unless I missed something Pennine services being moved to Piccadilly along with the awkward Airport movements caused the capacity problems.

What "current strategy of Pennine services crossing the throat of Piccadilly"? The idea of the Ordsall chord was to stop this!

AndyW33 · 19 Aug 2019

yorksrob said:
In hindsight, it would have been better to have retained six through platforms at Victoria.

Yes it would. Other posters should bear in mind that only platforms 11 to 16 at the old Victoria were through ones, all the others were east facing bays, and what with the Bury and Oldham Circle lines being transferred to Metrolink, there's very little coming in from the east that needs to terminate.
There were west facing bays in a sense - that was Manchester Exchange!

HSTEd · 19 Aug 2019

The problem is the Castlefield Corridor stations are better placed for the city and transport links.

Victoria is somewhat out on it's own.
Having multiple city centre stations sharing traffic is a necessary evil, not a benefit.

All available resources should be devoted to expanding the capacity of the Corridor so that as much of the rail traffic in Manchester can be routed over it.
Ideally Victoria would have no terminating trains and all trains through Manchester would pass through Piccadilly and Oxford Road.

cle · 19 Aug 2019

P15/16 and Oxford Road should be done at a bare minimum.

Salford Central should have the platforms rebuilt with all services calling - that will help distributing demand especially with the new developments at One New Bailey and the footbridge over to Spinningfields, Granada (future WPP) and so on.

But service rationalization needs to be done too. Higher frequency metro services to fewer destination combinations - this needs more wires, e.g. to Rochdale, both Wigans both directions, and possibly Blackburn/Tod... - and the 'everywhere to Manchester Airport' fetish needs to be looked at.

keith1879 · 19 Aug 2019

CdBrux said:
What "current strategy of Pennine services crossing the throat of Piccadilly"? The idea of the Ordsall chord was to stop this!

And in fact it has done so....but enhancing the problem of over-use of the Oxford Road corridor. Personally I would ditch the through services from Hazel Grove and Alderley Edge to north of Manchester .....but as ever I do appreciate that the train operators have access to actual passenger usage and demand figures which are superior in value to my personal views.

HSTEd · 19 Aug 2019

I think the Airport trains are politically impossible to remove or reduce, so we should just make them all stop all stations to the Airport to ensure that they get used as a pseudo-metro line.

yorksrob · 19 Aug 2019

I would open a short stub to Heywood, and run some services from the West through to there to minimise terminating in the through platforms.

158756 · 19 Aug 2019

keith1879 said:
And in fact it has done so....but enhancing the problem of over-use of the Oxford Road corridor. Personally I would ditch the through services from Hazel Grove and Alderley Edge to north of Manchester .....but as ever I do appreciate that the train operators have access to actual passenger usage and demand figures which are superior in value to my personal views.

The Hazel Grove and Alderley Edge through services are the result of the requirement in the franchise specification to link Bolton and Stockport.

geoffk · 19 Aug 2019

158756 said:
The Hazel Grove and Alderley Edge through services are the result of the requirement in the franchise specification to link Bolton and Stockport.

Yes, Bolton and Stockport are linked by two trains an hour - around ten minutes apart!

Jozhua · 19 Aug 2019

I wonder how hard it would be to re-open Manchester Central...

I think all the tracks seem to of been Metrolinked, but the building itself doesn't seem to be used for much!

I reckon there's definitely the possibility to squeese an up and down track in, splitting out into about 4 terminating platforms, what use it would be though I don't know... I'm definitely getting a bit speculative now, might start a thread if there's enough interest!

Altfish · 19 Aug 2019

Jozhua said:
I wonder how hard it would be to re-open Manchester Central...

I think all the tracks seem to of been Metrolinked, but the building itself doesn't seem to be used for much!

I reckon there's definitely the possibility to squeese an up and down track in, splitting out into about 4 terminating platforms, what use it would be though I don't know... I'm definitely getting a bit speculative now, might start a thread if there's enough interest!

Virtually impossible without building new viaducts as Metrolink has acquired most of the space.
I think you will also see that GMex/Manchester Central gets a lot of use, hardly a week goes by without a conference of some sort on there.

Ianno87 · 19 Aug 2019

Problem with Manchester Central is not being hugely convenient for some of the core parts of the city centre!

158756 · 19 Aug 2019

Ianno87 said:
Problem with Manchester Central is not being hugely convenient for some of the core parts of the city centre!

It's closer to the town hall than any of the extant stations.

keith1879 · 19 Aug 2019

158756 said:
The Hazel Grove and Alderley Edge through services are the result of the requirement in the franchise specification to link Bolton and Stockport.

Thanks for the info .... an even better excuse for Northern then really.

edwin_m · 19 Aug 2019

plugwash said:
There is no direct line from Stockport to Manchester airport. The current service from stockport to manchester airport (part of the "south transpennine") reverses at Manchester Piccadilly.

There are lines from Stockport to Wilmslow and Wilmslow to Manchester airport but from a quick look on google maps (don't have the track atlas handy) it seems you would have to run the train through Wilmslow statoin, reverse it on a running line south of the station and then bring it back through the other side of Wilmslow station.

The line from Stockport to Altrincham crosses the line from Manchester to Manchester airport, but there is no connection between the two, just a bridge.

It would be very difficult to provide a link for trains between Stockport and the Airport. Many houses would have to be demolished to make the link between the Stockport-Altrincham and Styal lines, along with probably elevating the A34 to create a bridge over the new curve.

In any case there's not much reason to do that. The airport is a convenient place operationally to terminate trains and passengers appreciate the through services from a wide range of stations, but each train actually carries far more people to/from central Manchester. So it wouldn't be worthwhile just to run to the airport without serving one of the central stations first, and reversing at the airport then going to Piccadilly would lengthen journeys for most people to no particular operational benefit.

Manchester - Reduction In Platform Capacity

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