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Britain’s Worst Connected Big Cities By Rail.

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PartyOperator

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I'd argue Liverpool's main problem is that it would rather by a city (independent city-state?) of a million than one part of a conurbation of six million.

Comparing railways between Liverpool and Manchester with Glasgow to Edinburgh is instructive. Obviously links to Birmingham and London are important, but the fact that Liverpool and Manchester aren't currently connected by four direct, electrified railways is the biggest disgrace. The Scottish cities manage it despite being further apart and having smaller populations.
 
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Djgr

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I'd argue Liverpool's main problem is that it would rather by a city (independent city-state?) of a million than one part of a conurbation of six million.

Comparing railways between Liverpool and Manchester with Glasgow to Edinburgh is instructive. Obviously links to Birmingham and London are important, but the fact that Liverpool and Manchester aren't currently connected by four direct, electrified railways is the biggest disgrace. The Scottish cities manage it despite being further apart and having smaller populations.

But that's more because Scotland has achieved a degree of independence whilst England outside of London has to be grateful for the few crumbs it throws out.
 

duesselmartin

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Sorry to moan. Anytime the UK is mentioned, GB is discussed at best.
Northern Ireland is poorly connected since the UTA slashed the network and as mentioned, the CITY of Armagh has no rail services at all.
 

gazzaa2

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I'd argue Liverpool's main problem is that it would rather by a city (independent city-state?) of a million than one part of a conurbation of six million.

Comparing railways between Liverpool and Manchester with Glasgow to Edinburgh is instructive. Obviously links to Birmingham and London are important, but the fact that Liverpool and Manchester aren't currently connected by four direct, electrified railways is the biggest disgrace. The Scottish cities manage it despite being further apart and having smaller populations.

The platform 13/14 Piccadilly madness is generally a result of this.
 

PartyOperator

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But that's more because Scotland has achieved a degree of independence whilst England outside of London has to be grateful for the few crumbs it throws out.

Perhaps a shared national identity is what it takes to get this, but Liverpool and Manchester together could be out there with the rest of the North West fighting for devolution of transport funding for a combined population greater than that of Scotland. Instead it seems the only way to get any kind of coordination in what is effectively a continuous urban area is top-down dictation from a London government.
 

THC

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Sorry to moan. Anytime the UK is mentioned, GB is discussed at best.
Northern Ireland is poorly connected since the UTA slashed the network and as mentioned, the CITY of Armagh has no rail services at all.

The thread title refers to Britain, not the UK. While in the latter, Armagh is not part of the former. With you all the way on the lack of railway connection though. I seem to recall plans to reinstate the line to Portadown - whatever became of those?

THC
 

Tomos y Tanc

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Sorry to moan. Anytime the UK is mentioned, GB is discussed at best.
Northern Ireland is poorly connected since the UTA slashed the network and as mentioned, the CITY of Armagh has no rail services at all.

Nor do CITIES of Saint Davids or Saint Asaph for the simple reason that, like Armagh, although they have city status they are, in reality, small towns.
 
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Western Lord

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I'd argue Liverpool's main problem is that it would rather by a city (independent city-state?) of a million than one part of a conurbation of six million.

Comparing railways between Liverpool and Manchester with Glasgow to Edinburgh is instructive. Obviously links to Birmingham and London are important, but the fact that Liverpool and Manchester aren't currently connected by four direct, electrified railways is the biggest disgrace. The Scottish cities manage it despite being further apart and having smaller populations.
The relationship between Liverpool and Manchester and between Glasgow and Edinburgh is completely different. Glasgow is Scotland's largest city and was its industrial hub, Edinburgh is Scotland's capital and its financial centre. Liverpool and Manchester on the other hand have been, almost throughout their existence, deadly rivals for trade and commerce with little reason for travel between them. People on this site continue to make the mistake of believing that, just because two cities have a reasonably large population that there must be demand to travel between them. It is not necessarily the case for all kinds of reasons, cultural, social and economic.
 

Djgr

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The relationship between Liverpool and Manchester and between Glasgow and Edinburgh is completely different. Glasgow is Scotland's largest city and was its industrial hub, Edinburgh is Scotland's capital and its financial centre. Liverpool and Manchester on the other hand have been, almost throughout their existence, deadly rivals for trade and commerce with little reason for travel between them. People on this site continue to make the mistake of believing that, just because two cities have a reasonably large population that there must be demand to travel between them. It is not necessarily the case for all kinds of reasons, cultural, social and economic.

I think it would be fair to say that for a typical resident of Liverpool, on a day to day basis, Manchester never enters their head.
 

PartyOperator

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And that’s why Liverpool will remain an irrelevant backwater when it comes to investment. The desire to remain a city of special outsiders is in direct opposition to improved transport links. Even if HS2 brings Liverpool within an hour of London, the numbers travelling there will remain dwarfed by the (amazingly low) numbers travelling within the North West. If Liverpool wants the economic benefits of improved transport, it has to accept that this involves becoming part of something bigger than itself.
 

benbristow

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Lincoln is quite poorly connected. Only saving grace is it's close to Newark/Doncaster for the ECML.
 

frodshamfella

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You shortly won't have to change at New St. You will be able to do a same platform change at Stafford. The Manchester-TM service is due to be extended to Exeter.

That will make it a bit better than the New Street scrum.
 

frodshamfella

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And that’s why Liverpool will remain an irrelevant backwater when it comes to investment. The desire to remain a city of special outsiders is in direct opposition to improved transport links. Even if HS2 brings Liverpool within an hour of London, the numbers travelling there will remain dwarfed by the (amazingly low) numbers travelling within the North West. If Liverpool wants the economic benefits of improved transport, it has to accept that this involves becoming part of something bigger than itself.

Im not sure thats true, there is plenty going on in Liverpool, its a very vibrant city. I can think of a new Cruise Terminal which is being built, the port itself is i think the UKs 4 busiest. So its far from gloom.
 

ChrisC

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Nottingham may at first appear well connected if you just consider all the destinations that can be reached by direct trains, but when you then look at journey times it is not always so good.
Journey times to London, despite the MML being slower than comparable distances on the East Coast Main Line, are not too bad. However Nottingham to Manchester and Nottingham to Leeds takes almost 2 hours. Nottingham to Birmingham is 1 hour 15 minutes. There cannot be direct trains to everywhere but Nottingham is in a bit of a backwater between the ECML and the XC line through Derby, with so many areas of the country requiring at least one change of train to reach.
 

greyman42

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A lot of it is luck where the railways were built and which ones survived the Beeching Axe.

Many places that aren't very large have very good connections because of previous historical importance for example York has very good connections partially because in Victorian Times it was a very important city due to it being historically a very important city.
York needs good connections and services because it has a booming all year round tourist industry. It is also a affluent city with good employment prospects to entice commuters.
 

Djgr

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And that’s why Liverpool will remain an irrelevant backwater when it comes to investment. The desire to remain a city of special outsiders is in direct opposition to improved transport links. Even if HS2 brings Liverpool within an hour of London, the numbers travelling there will remain dwarfed by the (amazingly low) numbers travelling within the North West. If Liverpool wants the economic benefits of improved transport, it has to accept that this involves becoming part of something bigger than itself.

Have you been to Liverpool recently? Have you seen the thousands of tourists, the never ending parade of tourist buses, the cruise shops, all the new hotels, the museums, the art galleries, the theatres, the football teams. People come to Liverpool because it's different, because it's independent thinking, because it's not a dead dull soulless London dormitory town.

(As an example in 2017 4 out of the 10 most visited museums in England outside London were in Liverpool. Google it.)
 
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Tomos y Tanc

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Agreed. Liverpool is great these days. The metamorphosis is astonishing. I remember it in the 1980s when it was a truly depressing place.
 

route101

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Nottingham may at first appear well connected if you just consider all the destinations that can be reached by direct trains, but when you then look at journey times it is not always so good.
Journey times to London, despite the MML being slower than comparable distances on the East Coast Main Line, are not too bad. However Nottingham to Manchester and Nottingham to Leeds takes almost 2 hours. Nottingham to Birmingham is 1 hour 15 minutes. There cannot be direct trains to everywhere but Nottingham is in a bit of a backwater between the ECML and the XC line through Derby, with so many areas of the country requiring at least one change of train to reach.

Nottingham to Manchester is like 60 miles or something and takes quite a bit time .
 

Camden

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And that’s why Liverpool will remain an irrelevant backwater when it comes to investment. The desire to remain a city of special outsiders is in direct opposition to improved transport links. Even if HS2 brings Liverpool within an hour of London, the numbers travelling there will remain dwarfed by the (amazingly low) numbers travelling within the North West. If Liverpool wants the economic benefits of improved transport, it has to accept that this involves becoming part of something bigger than itself.

What is this offensive drivel?? I find it pretty disgusting, rather than simply ill informed.

Some facts:

Did you know that Liverpool is the only city in the UK that has more people traveling to it from London, than the other way around? (according to the train operator). And despite that it consistently posts the highest accelerating level of growth (according to the train operator), despite remaining with just one train each hour.

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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DKlOGuMXcAEqWOJ?format=png&name=small

As for an amazingly low number of people traveling in the north west, yes it is dwarfed. The Liverpool metropolitan area accounts for around 100 million internal journeys per year within its own area alone (according to ORR).

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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cb60dBQXIAAZUkk?format=jpg&name=small

Someone above also suggested that few people travel outside of the city, in particular to Manchester.
In fact it also accounts for twice the number of passengers between itself and Manchester than Manchester to Leeds. Not surprising given the centuries of business links between the two large cities, which gave rise to the World's first regular passenger railway, built and funded by Liverpool busineses. Inward looking indeed.

DH2sx0YXgAE97yK

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DH2sx0YXgAE97yK?format=jpg&name=900x900

It's a nonsense suggestion that a major metropolitan city forged in international migration could be in any way insular.

In the face of these facts, what is it exactly you expect them to do in order to "deserve" an equitable settlement.

I have found these attitudes troublingly common, and I suspect that the city's languishing connectivity may be no coincidence.
 

matacaster

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Agreed. Liverpool is great these days. The metamorphosis is astonishing. I remember it in the 1980s when it was a truly depressing place.

The Cavern club is cheap (often free live music in afternoons) and always has good acts on. Its not the original cavern club, but I suspect its pretty similar?
 

Bletchleyite

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You shortly won't have to change at New St. You will be able to do a same platform change at Stafford. The Manchester-TM service is due to be extended to Exeter.

In any case it's only stressful because XC is garbage, and it still would be garbage as a through service. These days I choose to change at New St, it's really a very nice station to spend half an hour at with an excellent selection of retail etc. The platforms are grim, but why stand around down there?

Liverpool of course has a local rail service (Merseyrail) that would be the envy of every other city in the UK barring London.
 

Gareth

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Liverpool of course has a local rail service (Merseyrail) that would be the envy of every other city in the UK barring London.

It is. That's why some people on here want to integrate it into Northern or mess it up by throwing irregular diesel services into the tunnel sections.
 

Senex

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The platform 13/14 Piccadilly madness is caused solely by the absence of platforms 15/16 which in Switzerland or Germany would have been built in the 1990s to go with the Windsor Link.
In both those countries the pattern would have been:
1. What train service do we want to be able to run (reliably!)?
2. What infrastructure is needed to be able to run that service?
3. So what's not there — what do we need to build before the service can be introduced?
4. Build it!
5. Introduce the new timetable and watch it work smoothly.​
It's only Britain that doesn't start by looking at an overall picture but rather thinks "What's the smallest piece of new infrastructure we need to be able to run a train service on the assumption that everything always works perfectly, that no capacity for expansion will ever be needed, and that passengers (even long-distance passengers with luggage) can perfectly properly be herded like cattle on platforms built for much lower traffic-levels long ago?"
 

yorksrob

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The discussion regarding Liverpool and Manchester versus Glasgow and Edinburgh is interesting.

At the moment, one pair only has one electrified rail link verses four between the other. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be especially difficult to electrify the Warrington line (assuming Manchester doesn't turn half of it into a tram). One could even conceive of a third route via Wigan, if the third rail were extended from Kirkby and the overhead via Atherton. You could have a semi-fast dual voltage electric service that way, perhaps providing a good connection from the East to a new Skelmersdale line.
 

frodshamfella

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It is. That's why some people on here want to integrate it into Northern or mess it up by throwing irregular diesel services into the tunnel sections.

Thats would be a mistake , Merseyrail serves the city and surrounds really well, it could be expanded somewhat like Skelmersdale / Wigan but it works well because it a contained system.
 

frodshamfella

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Im not sure if Norwich has been mentioned ? It has a good London service, otherwise I think its only the East Midlands service to Liverpool which will be shorten at some point ?
 

Bletchleyite

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Thats would be a mistake , Merseyrail serves the city and surrounds really well, it could be expanded somewhat like Skelmersdale / Wigan but it works well because it a contained system.

Skem, Wigan and Burscough Bridge/Preston could be done without great problems provided they were electrified. It's the more complex stuff that would ruin it.
 

Bletchleyite

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The discussion regarding Liverpool and Manchester versus Glasgow and Edinburgh is interesting.

At the moment, one pair only has one electrified rail link verses four between the other. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be especially difficult to electrify the Warrington line (assuming Manchester doesn't turn half of it into a tram). One could even conceive of a third route via Wigan, if the third rail were extended from Kirkby and the overhead via Atherton. You could have a semi-fast dual voltage electric service that way, perhaps providing a good connection from the East to a new Skelmersdale line.

There would be major benefits in wiring the CLC due to its large number of local stations. With a modern EMU instead of a 1980s DMU I reckon you'd get over ten minutes off the stopping service end to end.
 
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