Yet another Manchester rail tunnel thread

I spent (wasted) an afternoon thinking about the "logical" directions tunnels might go based around four new cut and cover underground platforms on the square one site.

Here's overview of all the potential alignments I've considered




\/\/This is the combination I think is probably the most cost effective, although the Manchester Central station would likely get cut from the final plan. Total new route is about 8km, based on a very rough look at the numbers for underground lines around £4billion maybe.

Just a direct link between Victoria and Piccadilly would do me! But priority must be to resolve the Castlefield Corridor congestion, which could involve tunnelling from the east, underneath the centre and serving Picc, emerging further south.
If it wasn't for the money spent on the curve, a further tunnel could have been considered from Victoria to Piccadilly carrying main line traffic??

Has the OP thought about a complementary set of freight tunnels to link Trafford Park in all directions, various stone and waste flows, biomass Liverpool-Drax and new TransPennine intermodal flows to the Liverpool area?

There could economies of scale in (say) a 25-year rolling programme.

Howardh said:

Just a direct link between Victoria and Piccadilly would do me! But priority must be to resolve the Castlefield Corridor congestion, which could involve tunnelling from the east, underneath the centre and serving Picc, emerging further south.
If it wasn't for the money spent on the curve, a further tunnel could have been considered from Victoria to Piccadilly carrying main line traffic??

Click to expand...

I was going with a tunnel connected to Chat Moss would pull enough traffic away from Ordsall junction to enable Bradford trains to use the cord to reach Piccadilly and for Blackpool trains to travel via Victoria and into the new tunnel from the east end.

Dr Hoo said:

Has the OP thought about a complementary set of freight tunnels to link Trafford Park in all directions, various stone and waste flows, biomass Liverpool-Drax and new TransPennine intermodal flows to the Liverpool area?

There could economies of scale in (say) a 25-year rolling programme.

Click to expand...

Not really, freight tunnels would require much longer inclines to reduce grades and I don't think the economics would stack up for the number of trains using them, if we were considering economies of scale I'd be looking at rolling programme in regional cites, eg a tunnel from say Liverpool central to Broad green to move local trains on to Mersey rail, and a north south tunnel in Leeds to connect the Castleford and Harrogate lines and an east west one to connect Airedale and the local services to the east.