Issues with reducing line through Guide Bridge to two tracks from four

[61653 HTAFC]

Don't tell the REOPEN WOODHEAD NOW!!! brigade - it'll make it even less likely.

We've already got references to Adwick (which is in South Yorkshire) a few posts up...

 

[HSTEd]

Is the extra track necessary if we imagine replacing every train that uses it with a fleet of identical performance EMUs with huge installed power?

Electrification and new rolling stock will be a lot cheaper than significant additional trackwork etc.

 

[geordieblue]

Typical if the only way to improve the railway is to turn it into a tram.

Good point - it would definitely be an improvement if we converted the Bury line back to a couple of trains an hour terminating in Victoria.

 

[edwin_m]

In pre-Covid times, only one of the five TPEs between Leeds and Manchester was routed via Guide Bridge (the Hull semi-fast). The second TPE is the Huddersfield - Manchester stopper.

When the remodelling of Miles Platting and Stalybridge Junctions is complete, the four fast trains via Victoria will become quicker, while the Guide Bridge route will have a slower turnout speed at Stalybridge.

The discussion was related to the time when TPE crossed the Piccadilly throat, at which time all 4TPH went via Guide Bridge.

 

[yorksrob]

Fundamentally, you want to have a 5 minute quicker journey every now and again. It seems that any impact on anybody else's interaction with the railway is irrelevant to you. Would you be prepared for the upgrade to be funded exclusively from additional ticket revenue from TPE passengers?

I said Adwick-Picc, and it's relevant because neither the stopper nor the TPE disappear in a puff of smoke at Ashuburys.

With a standard hour timetable, the path has to be there for all hours even if the freight only runs in one.

You're still likely to need the waiting room on the island platform. And my point about curvature and width is conspicuously unanswered.

Agreed.

• I'm not sure what's particularly controversial about basing the track layout around the majority of trains that use the route. These are the stoppers that turn south at Guide Bridge (and Ashburys) versus the expresses that turn north at Guide Bridge. Having these services separated out will increase speed and capacity for both of those flows. If you have a freight path that is only used infrequently, it will only encroach on the surrounding services infrequently. The rest of the time it will be recovery space in the timetable, therefore there's little point in remodelling around it.
• Apologies, I misread, but what quadroupling is effectively doing is moving the junction from Guide Bridge much nearer to Man Pic, which means that passenger trains can maintain their speed and overtake eachother for longer before slowing to a crawl.
• Waiting rooms can be rebuilt. And if you look at your photo, you'll see that the current formation that is relatively strate is on the northern trackbed which would be used by TPE expresses. If there did need to be any curving (which is unlikely because the railway will still own the original 4 track footprint) it would be of the reinstated southern set of platforms used by the stopping services to Glossop and Rose Hill.

In pre-Covid times, only one of the five TPEs between Leeds and Manchester was routed via Guide Bridge (the Hull semi-fast). The second TPE is the Huddersfield - Manchester stopper.

When the remodelling of Miles Platting and Stalybridge Junctions is complete, the four fast trains via Victoria will become quicker, while the Guide Bridge route will have a slower turnout speed at Stalybridge.

I think there was a proper TPE and a stopper which was moved to Picc.

At present there seems to be a train that stops to Huddersfield then becomes an express, and on that goes fast to Huddersfield then becomes the stopper. One carries on to Hull and the other to York, which are not bad services. Both of these are rather higher quality than the knackered pacer that used to stop from Vic to Huddersfield.

This section is incredibly slow. When it was the mainline to Leeds, it was very frustrating. 2-3 mins for 4-5tph (each way) with hundreds of people on them actually adds up to a lot of human time saved. 6 mins daily is an hour a week less on the train.

However, I was thinking that the Met is the natural evolution here, which probably leaves the lines ripe for accelerating for semi-fast services and clears up more platforms at Picc.

I agree with regard to the frustrating nature of services. The TPE route is generally recognised as not being as fast as a route between such cities ought to be, and a lot of that is the crawl into Manchester. That said, I think quadroupling would work with the Glossop stopper (which is already a very good service) as well as it would as a tram.

Indeed, the attached were drawn by hand (by me) in about 1979 with the help of a ride in the front of a DC unit. The extra lines that did exist were "goods" and couldn't have been used by passenger trains by then (but of course there weren't appropriate crossovers anyway by then). With the exception of the up slow option through Guide Bridge station versus the crossover at Ashton Junction.
I also managed to visit Gorton box around that time. Interesting good memories. Shame I don't have a picture of the box, lots of very small levers I recall.

EDIT: https://signalbox.org/~SBdiagram.php?id= 894 shows a similar layout for Gorton in 1974, which doesn't surprise me.

.
That's very interesting historical background. Thanks for posting.

We've already got references to Adwick (which is in South Yorkshire) a few posts up...

These Viking place names all sound the same !

Is the extra track necessary if we imagine replacing every train that uses it with a fleet of identical performance EMUs with huge installed power?

Electrification and new rolling stock will be a lot cheaper than significant additional trackwork etc.

You still have the problem of stoppers mixed with fasts unfortunately. There's only so much you can do with technology !

 

[HSTEd]

You still have the problem of stoppers mixed with fasts unfortunately. There's only so much you can do with technology !

Yes, but if the stoppers are very fast accelerating this can be mitigated.

 

[zwk500]

I'm not sure what's particularly controversial about basing the track layout around the majority of trains that use the route. These are the stoppers that turn south at Guide Bridge (and Ashburys) versus the expresses that turn north at Guide Bridge. Having these services separated out will increase speed and capacity for both of those flows. If you have a freight path that is only used infrequently, it will only encroach on the surrounding services infrequently. The rest of the time it will be recovery space in the timetable, therefore there's little point in remodelling around it.

There's nothing controversial about basing the track layout around the highest flows, but there is a big problem with preventing the secondary flows from taking place at all. To get from the Denton line to the sidings on the North Side of the line will be extremely difficult to do on a 4-track layout. Especially if the goal is to maintain the TPE speeds, as that will impact on the cant level of the fast lines (for obvious reasons you need 0 cant on a set of points). To rebuild the freight terminal on the other side of the line will push freight customers towards other modes - a loss for rail, a negative impact for local traffic.
There's also the point that even intervals between services is as important as the overall frequency, especially in metro-style services. Not insurmountable, but an adverse impact on users of the slow lines or the freight company.

Apologies, I misread, but what quadroupling is effectively doing is moving the junction from Guide Bridge much nearer to Man Pic, which means that passenger trains can maintain their speed and overtake eachother for longer before slowing to a crawl.

If they have to wait for 3 minutes at the junction that's half the gains gone already - it's a lot of money for half a fix.

Waiting rooms can be rebuilt. And if you look at your photo, you'll see that the current formation that is relatively strate is on the northern trackbed which would be used by TPE expresses. If there did need to be any curving (which is unlikely because the railway will still own the original 4 track footprint) it would be of the reinstated southern set of platforms used by the stopping services to Glossop and Rose Hill.

What the railway owns is irrelevant, tbh. The issue is that passengers using the central island will want at minimum a lift, and probably a waiting shelter of some kind. The platform will need to be 2.5m from these buildings to the train edge (on both sides). They will therefore need to widen out the 10-foot to achieve this. This curve has a minimum standard for things like PTI sightlines and the gap between train and platform, which apply regardless of what trains will use the platform. And the track layout would need to take into account the connection to the Denton line, as the slower you make the connection for freights the more disruptive each movement will be.

I'm not saying it cannot possibly be done - just that it's very complicated, the gains are extremely marginal and the cost is likely to result in a negative BCR. Converting some lines to trams and electrifying the rest is likely to be a far better return on investment.

 

[yorksrob]

There's nothing controversial about basing the track layout around the highest flows, but there is a big problem with preventing the secondary flows from taking place at all. To get from the Denton line to the sidings on the North Side of the line will be extremely difficult to do on a 4-track layout. Especially if the goal is to maintain the TPE speeds, as that will impact on the cant level of the fast lines (for obvious reasons you need 0 cant on a set of points). To rebuild the freight terminal on the other side of the line will push freight customers towards other modes - a loss for rail, a negative impact for local traffic.
There's also the point that even intervals between services is as important as the overall frequency, especially in metro-style services. Not insurmountable, but an adverse impact on users of the slow lines or the freight company.

If they have to wait for 3 minutes at the junction that's half the gains gone already - it's a lot of money for half a fix.

What the railway owns is irrelevant, tbh. The issue is that passengers using the central island will want at minimum a lift, and probably a waiting shelter of some kind. The platform will need to be 2.5m from these buildings to the train edge (on both sides). They will therefore need to widen out the 10-foot to achieve this. This curve has a minimum standard for things like PTI sightlines and the gap between train and platform, which apply regardless of what trains will use the platform. And the track layout would need to take into account the connection to the Denton line, as the slower you make the connection for freights the more disruptive each movement will be.

I'm not saying it cannot possibly be done - just that it's very complicated, the gains are extremely marginal and the cost is likely to result in a negative BCR. Converting some lines to trams and electrifying the rest is likely to be a far better return on investment.

• I'm not going to second guess any track engineers, however there are a lot of quadruple track layouts across the country. It's not an ideal layout, but I'm sure it's not insurmountable.
• I think you're missing the point that one of the whole motivations behind the NPR project is that the main line between Leeds and Manchester is percieved as too slow. That's particularly the case approaching Piccadilly. Waiting for several minutes at Guide Bridge then crawling along behind a stopper is not a good situation for a main city - city route.
• Passengers often want, but they don't always get. Railway regs prefer not to have a bendy platform but will allow for it if there's no alternative. Between those two positions there is a compromise for Guide Bridge.

 

[Ianno87]

• . Having these services separated out will increase speed and capacity for both of those flows.

Capacity is whole-system, not just at one node. It's only "Capacity" if it means you can realise additional timetable-able train paths as a result. Solving one constraint alone doesn't achieve that.

.

If they have to wait for 3 minutes at the junction that's half the gains gone already - it's a lot of money for half a fix.

Important to note that the current Guide Bridge Jn is ideal - it's the point at which services to/from Hadfield pass each other, dictated by the Dinting triangle. This maximises the junction capacity remaining for TPE services to diverge. Moving the flat junction westward disrupts this, and means capacity use is less, not more, efficient.

• I think you're missing the point that one of the whole motivations behind the NPR project is that the main line between Leeds and Manchester is percieved as too slow. That's particularly the case approaching Piccadilly. Waiting for several minutes at Guide Bridge then crawling along behind a stopper is not a good situation for a main city - city route.

Which is now solved by the bulk of the TPE service going to Victoria instead.

 

[yorksrob]

Capacity is whole-system, not just at one node. It's only "Capacity" if it means you can realise additional timetable-able train paths as a result. Solving one constraint alone doesn't achieve that.



Important to note that the current Guide Bridge Jn is ideal - it's the point at which services to/from Hadfield pass each other, dictated by the Dinting triangle. This maximises the junction capacity remaining for TPE services to diverge. Moving the flat junction westward disrupts this, and means capacity use is less, not more, efficient.



Which is now solved by the bulk of the TPE service going to Victoria instead.

Four tracks are more capacity than two. Ultimately if you remove the fast TPE's from the slow lines, you have the following options for slow services from Ashburys:

• Stack trains in the three platforms.
• Move over to an alternative platform (admittedly less options as you're crossing other services).
• Turn around more quickly. Those local units are often sat in Piccadilly for quite a long time.

The bulk of the TPE's have moved to Victoria, but you do currently have two reasonably high quality services from Leeds terminating at Pic. We don't want these pootling along from Guide Bridge.

 

[Ianno87]

Four tracks are more capacity than two.

Only if that results in being able to timetable more services overall than what you otherwise would have been able to. That's what capacity is.

Ultimately if you remove the fast TPE's from the slow lines, you have the following options for slow services from Ashburys:

• Stack trains in the three platforms.
• Move over to an alternative platform (admittedly less options as you're crossing other services).
• Turn around more quickly. Those local units are often sat in Piccadilly for quite a long time.

The bulk of the TPE's have moved to Victoria, but you do currently have two reasonably high quality services from Leeds terminating at Pic. We don't want these pootling along from Guide Bridge.

I repeat my unanswered question from earlier then... if Ardwick-Guide Bridge were 4 tracked, what additional services could be accommodated that could not be accommodated on only two tracks?

The only difference would be the two Leeds services "pooltling along" ever so slightly less**. That would be very lovely, but doesn't wash the face of a business case or any kind of consents process (presumably re-instating 4 tracks to modern standards will require land acquisition somewhere)

**In any case, they're the slow Leeds services anyway, so the value of any journey time saving is relatively low compared to thee 4tph into Victoria.

 

[yorksrob]

Only if that results in being able to timetable more services overall than what you otherwise would have been able to. That's what capacity is.



I repeat my unanswered question from earlier then... if Ardwick-Guide Bridge were 4 tracked, what additional services could be accommodated that could not be accommodated on only two tracks?

The only difference would be the two Leeds services "pooltling along" ever so slightly less**. That would be very lovely, but doesn't wash the face of a business case or any kind of consents process (presumably re-instating 4 tracks to modern standards will require land acquisition somewhere)

**In any case, they're the slow Leeds services anyway, so the value of any journey time saving is relatively low compared to thee 4tph into Victoria.

I would have thought that if there was extra capacity, you might want to institute a more intensive service to Glossop or towards Marple.

They are the "slow" services, but they do a lot of skipping, so could do with being reasonably swift.

 

[Ianno87]

I would have thought that if there was extra capacity, you might want to institute a more intensive service to Glossop or towards Marple.

But, given that the route carries 2 less TPE trains per hour than it did before May 2018, you could probably accommodate those things anyway, without having to 4-track, with the route becoming "metroised" on one pair of tracks.

 

[zwk500]

I would have thought that if there was extra capacity, you might want to institute a more intensive service to Glossop or towards Marple.

They are the "slow" services, but they do a lot of skipping, so could do with being reasonably swift.

How do you get those trains into/out of Piccadilly over the 2 East lines as far as Ardwick/Ashburys?

 

[yorksrob]

But, given that the route carries 2 less TPE trains per hour than it did before May 2018, you could probably accommodate those things anyway, without having to 4-track, with the route becoming "metroised" on one pair of tracks.

Well, that's basically another (in my opinion less satisfactory) way of quadrupling.

How do you get those trains into/out of Piccadilly over the 2 East lines as far as Ardwick/Ashburys?

@Ianno87 asked me to opine how one might use the extra capacity if additional tracks were laid to Piccadilly. I obliged, however that was not my proposition.

 

[Ianno87]

Well, that's basically another (in my opinion less satisfactory) way of quadrupling.

How is it "less satisfactory" when you can fit all the same services in? The outcome is basically the same.

 

[zwk500]

@Ianno87 asked me to opine how one might use the extra capacity if additional tracks were laid to Piccadilly. I obliged, however that was not my proposition.

if Ardwick-Guide Bridge were 4 tracked, what additional services could be accommodated that could not be accommodated on only two tracks?

Nope, he asked you what could be done if the tracks ended at Ardwick. So, what is your answer?

 

[yorksrob]

How is it "less satisfactory" when you can fit all the same services in? The outcome is basically the same.

You're going to have to come off of the main line at some point and go slowly around the traffic. And also it would interfere with all those freight trains @zwk500 has mentioned.

Nope, he asked you what could be done if the tracks ended at Ardwick. So, what is your answer?

My mistake then. I think I've always been clear that the four tracking would be about stopping TPE's getting snagged up behind stoppers rather than capacity.

 

[Ianno87]

You're going to have to come off of the main line at some point and go slowly around the traffic. And also it would interfere with all those freight trains @zwk500 has mentioned.



My mistake then. I think I've always been clear that the four tracking would be about stopping TPE's getting snagged up behind stoppers rather than capacity.

OK...so how does taking a couple of minutes off 2 x TPE semi-fasts per hour that make a business case against an infrastructure scope probably well into the hundreds of millions of pounds to achieve that?

 

[zwk500]

You're going to have to come off of the main line at some point and go slowly around the traffic. And also it would interfere with all those freight trains @zwk500 has mentioned.

A 2-track allows more efficient slots for freight as you have far fewer conflicts to resolve. And at Ashburys, there's goods lines for freight to be completely out of the way, which will be difficult to maintain with 4-tracking for passenger use. Not impossible, but comes with a price tag.

My mistake then. I think I've always been clear that the four tracking would be about stopping TPE's getting snagged up behind stoppers rather than capacity.

You mention capacity in your 3rd post on this thread:

Having four tracks also means that capacity is greater, and there are around 2 an hour TPE's that go that way, so it's not surprising some get stuck

And if your goal is to save a few minutes on the TPEs, do you anticipate a huge upswing in usage of said services to repay the cost of doing this work, or will you be happy to pay a much higher fare? Or will you claim 'the wider economic benefits' will repay the treasury bonds?

 

[yorksrob]

OK...so how does taking a couple of minutes off 2 x TPE semi-fasts per hour that make a business case against an infrastructure scope probably well into the hundreds of millions of pounds to achieve that?

I think it's more than a couple of minutes.

You might as well ask why do any incremental speed increases on main lines.

 

[Ianno87]

You might as well ask why do any incremental speed increases on main lines.

Because the engineering scope to do that is single figure millions, tops (and usually benefits more than two trains per hour).

Whereas 4 tracking is into the hundreds of millions, easily.

 

[zwk500]

You might as well ask why do any incremental speed increases on main lines.

Most incremental speed increases are fiddling with the existing infrastructure, not building a brand new pair of tracks.

 

[yorksrob]

A 2-track allows more efficient slots for freight as you have far fewer conflicts to resolve. And at Ashburys, there's goods lines for freight to be completely out of the way, which will be difficult to maintain with 4-tracking for passenger use. Not impossible, but comes with a price tag.


You mention capacity in your 3rd post on this thread:

And if your goal is to save a few minutes on the TPEs, do you anticipate a huge upswing in usage of said services to repay the cost of doing this work, or will you be happy to pay a much higher fare? Or will you claim 'the wider economic benefits' will repay the treasury bonds?

You have a point.

You'd probably get more overall benefit fro reopening a line to somewhere that doesn't currently have the train.

 

[zwk500]

You have a point.

You'd probably get more overall benefit fro reopening a line to somewhere that doesn't currently have the train.

The solution's been mentioned upthread: hand at least one of the Hyde North lines to the trams to take some trains off the line completely, and electrify the rest to get the remaining stoppers out of the way a little bit quicker. Additional connectivity with the tram, relief and diversionary capacity increased (for a bonus), and cleaner, cheaper trains on those that remain giving a better service to those lines whilst permitting Leeds trains to run with a little less pathing into the bargain.

 

[yorksrob]

The solution's been mentioned upthread: hand at least one of the Hyde North lines to the trams to take some trains off the line completely, and electrify the rest to get the remaining stoppers out of the way a little bit quicker. Additional connectivity with the tram, relief and diversionary capacity increased (for a bonus), and cleaner, cheaper trains on those that remain giving a better service to those lines whilst permitting Leeds trains to run with a little less pathing into the bargain.

And Hyde North passengers spend ages pootling up the street into Manchester. Make one service faster by slowing the other down.

Better just to electrify.

 

[A0]

And Hyde North passengers spend ages pootling up the street into Manchester. Make one service faster by slowing the other down.

Better just to electrify.

That's right, keep shifting the goal posts to suit your argument.

A better questio would actually be, does Leeds get a bad deal in its links to Manchester? Well it's about 50 miles and takes about an hour.

Stoke is on the mainline to London and the West Mids, is about 50 miles to Manchester and journey times are about an hour. Arguably that should be enjoying a far better journey time given the places that route can serve, but it too gets caught up in long 2 track sections, plus a slow approach into Piccadilly from Stockport.

 

[geordieblue]

And Hyde North passengers spend ages pootling up the street into Manchester. Make one service faster by slowing the other down.

Better just to electrify.

Upthread you suggested the issue was the TPE service - your priority is making long-distance services faster, yet as soon as the mention of trams comes out you suddenly become a devoted supporter of local passenger rail interests... come on!

Oh, and conversion of part of the line to Hyde North would not see passengers 'pootling up the street', since they will be on an expanded railway trackbed, not on the, er, street.

 

[yorksrob]

That's right, keep shifting the goal posts to suit your argument.

A better questio would actually be, does Leeds get a bad deal in its links to Manchester? Well it's about 50 miles and takes about an hour.

Stoke is on the mainline to London and the West Mids, is about 50 miles to Manchester and journey times are about an hour. Arguably that should be enjoying a far better journey time given the places that route can serve, but it too gets caught up in long 2 track sections, plus a slow approach into Piccadilly from Stockport.

Although it does benefit from a fair length of quadruple track between Stockport and Manchester. I wonder how much slower that journey would be if it had to share two tracks with stoppers between there.

Upthread you suggested the issue was the TPE service - your priority is making long-distance services faster, yet as soon as the mention of trams comes out you suddenly become a devoted supporter of local passenger rail interests... come on!

Oh, and conversion of part of the line to Hyde North would not see passengers 'pootling up the street', since they will be on an expanded railway trackbed, not on the, er, street.

Well it won't have a trackbed all the way to Piccadilly. It'll be on the street somewhere.

I'm afraid I wasn't aware that supporting speedier trans pennine express services and supporting local passenger rail services was mutually exclusive. You learn something new everyday !

 

[zwk500]

And Hyde North passengers spend ages pootling up the street into Manchester. Make one service faster by slowing the other down.

Better just to electrify.

It doesn't seem to bother Oldham, Rochdale or Airport customers. The obvious line to convert is Glossop/Hadfield, as the Hyde North to Marple line has freight connections to the Hope Valley.

Regardless of which line is converted, it'll be able to interchange near Guide Bridge station then join the existing Ashton-Under-Lyne line around Audenshaw tram stop. The tram might be longer (roughly twice as long), but you won't have to change to get across the city.