Would Liverpool - London via a reversal at Chester be one option for increasing Liverpool's services to London & making use of the curve?
London-Chester is 2 hours 4 mins, add in a 7 minute reversal stop at Chester and 43 minutes to Liverpool it would be 2 hours 54 minutes, 18 minutes longer than current London to Liverpool trains. Nearly 10 mins could be cut by going non stop from London to Crewe and perhaps another 5 mins by by not stopping at Helsby and Frodsham. Add in direct Liverpool-London services stopping at Milton Keynes to componsate and they could be balanced timewise at 4-5 mins longer than the current service.
Only if Voyagers are used.
Yep, which is the biggest issue. It would mean Virgin switching all its Birmingham-Scotland voyagers to Chester services.
What, on earth, would you want to do that for? If determined, Merseyrail is there for that.
It would be a direct service and give Liverpool half hourly services. Also, most London-Chester/North Wales services are 5 coaches with only 2 or 3 a day being 10 coaches (two voyagers) which is a waste of capacity of WCML fast paths. Switching as much capacity through changing routes, timings and stopping patterns so that every Chester-London service is double voyager would add 250+ seats per hour each way of capacity without needing any line upgrades. Addtionally, Merseytravel has always wanted Liverpool South Parkway to have a fast London service, which it could every two hours if an hourly double voyager service to Chester was implemented, and was 10 carriages to Liverpool once per two hours and split at Chester once every two hours with half the train going to Holyhead and the other half going to Liverpool. South Parkway could fit in a single voyager. Id split the 22 9 coach Pendalinos into 11x11 and 11x7 and use the latter to replace the voyagers needed for Chester/Liverpool services. 11x11 coach new trains would then need to be bought. It would add huge capacity without needing a line upgrade.
I'm pretty sure I remember the times being roughly similar, depending on stopping pattern. That said, much of South Liverpool would find a direct service between Liverpool South Parkway and Chester much more convenient regardless.
If you mix the saturday one directional service timings with LM times from South Parkway to Lime Street then the time would be 43 minutes compared with 41 mins for the existing Merseyrail service.
Could be done to combine a Liverpool-Chester and a Chester-London into one train, rather than having two separate trains. Like the London-Birmingham and Birmingham-Glasgow service being operated as London-Glasgow via Birmingham.
But I wouldn't see that as a particularly good use of the service. Now, Wrexham General-Liverpool Lime Street via Chester, that would be a useful service.
That would depend on the outcome of the Wrexham-Chester redoubling debacle. There might not be any paths for more than making Holyhead-Chester hourly.
From central Liverpool to Chester, maybe not so much. The intermediate destinations both routes serve is very different though. The Halton Curve also opens the possibility of direct North Wales services, at some point.
It also opens up better access to the Airport.
As someone who lives in Chester and cant drive, its an area that might as well not exist for me, its easier to get to Manchester than South Liverpool via public transport.
A classic Beeching type mistake as others have pointed out the traffic is not all end to end. In fact the heavily used but still closed Chester Northgate to Dee Marsh Junction should give a third route.
The messy bit is what to do at the Chester end. Its possible to build a bridge bending over the exisiting line around the right side of the ATW shed and into platform 7b but it would be extremely expensive. The alternative would be rebuilding the whole line with a new Station on Brook Lane and expecting people to walk several hundred metres to Chester General.
Times might be similar with stops only at Runcorn and Liverpool South Parkway.
Add in others like Helsby and Frodsham and it will be slower than the Birkenhead route.
The Frodsham-Runcorn section will be VERY slow.
A limited stop EMU service on the Birkenhead route would be more attractive to Chester/Wirral passengers.
Limited stop services would be great but would require line upgrades to allow overtaking, which wont happen anytime soon.
But not South & East Liverpool passengers, which is the point. The two routes serve very different intermediate areas.
Definately.
I have raised this before on other threads, that the as yet "untapped" source of passengers from Helsby and Frodsham areas will quickly prove this route a success on their own. Not to mention the fact that the Mersey road bridges will soon be Toll Roads, so the market is there for rail to take. I think car parking will be a big issue at these stations before too long and an "integrated transport" approach would be working on increasing capacity now.
My original point is that once NR make these statements with dates like 2016 for a set price, then they should be made to keep to them, even if it means only the minimum work to open on time not linked, to some big scheme that may well slip back years.
The work at Lime Street and Edge Hill still leaves a lot of railway missing from Weaver-Wavertree.
Agreed. It would open up allot of job oppertunities for me if I could easily get to South Liverpool!
