No, Northern's Northern Connect webpage says that the Airport service will terminate at Bradford, so is not dependent on capacity at Leeds. The services running through Bradford to Leeds will be the Chester, the Liverpool and the Blackpool.
The Northern Connect map is very Manchester and MIA orientated. Only three Connect services that do not call there.
It is mentioned on the map that all towns and cities over 8500 will be connected so what about Carlisle-Workington-Whitehaven-Millom-Barrow, York-Scarborough, Leeds-Harrogate-York and Leeds-Settle-Carlisle? Cumbrian Coast, Leeds-Harrogate-York and Leeds-Carlisle do not even feature as a non-Connect Northern service.
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Although the Hendy Draft Version of CP5 Enhancements Plan is a very "draft" document, the "Calder Valley East" activity provides linespeed improvements not capacity improvements,
The activities required to deliver increased Calder Valley capacity are somewhat scattered through the document but are identified as including:
Leeds Station capacity is interesting since the CP5 HLOS specified a turnback at Micklefield to allow 2 extra Calder Valley services (although West Yorkshire conveniently had a budget for an alternative with a station at East Leeds Parkway), but this seems to have disappeared with Hendy, so presumably there will have to be more spade work at Leeds.
- Bradford Mill Lane capacity (Complete December 2018)
- Leeds Station capacity (Complete December 2019)
- Huddersfield to Bradford Resignalling and Recontrol (Identified in a couple of places as being necessary during CP5, but I cant see where this activity is actually being done).Apparently Halifax to Bradford needs resignalling to allow Grand Central trains to run along with the new services.
Its not just Piccadilly that needs extra platforms, while we'll have to see what happens when Grip 3 for Leeds capacity is complete in May 2017, a Platform 0 has been mentioned to cater for the 2tph extra to Harrogate, platform lengthening for longer Airdale and Sheffield trains, now something unknown for Calder Valley services.
Micklefield and East Leeds Parkway are the same places. Parkway will have a turnback siding and additional platform. You are confusing the new four platform station where the East Leeds Orbital Road will join the M1 motorway at Thorpe Park with East Leeds Parkway and the A1(M) motorway.
It is of course the wrong place for it as Church Fenton already has a platform off the main running lines for turnback. Only trackwork missing is facing cross over and signalling for such which is less than is needed at Micklefield so therefore less costly but Church Fenton is just inside North Yorkshire and not West Yorkshire and NYCC doesn't want to contribute to this proposal.
For little more than the £15m Micklefield will cost, a siding from Church Fenton to Tadcaster could be reinstated where services could turnback and put Tadcaster back on the map. This would provide P&R adjacent to the A64 York-Leeds road that Micklefield was supposed to cater for
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