The Manchester Hub Study Phase One report originally documented the evidence base for the economic benefits, to the whole of the North, of direct trains to Manchester Airport. The report, "
Manchester Hub Conditional Output Statement", was published by the Northern Way in 2009 and included detailed economic modelling. (The Northern Way was a partnership led by the three erstwhile Regional Development Agencies, One North East, Yorkshire Forward and the Northwest Development Agency. Its transport team was based in Leeds. Its website is archived at
http://webarchive.nationalarchives....p://www.thenorthernway.co.uk/default.asp?id=2)
The report cited academic research and consultancy studies that demonstrated the importance of direct services to airports generally and Manchester in particular:
It concluded:
The growth of the Airport in the subsequent 9 years can only have reinforced these conclusions.
Furthermore, the report recorded the aspirations of high level stakeholders from across the North's city regions, which show that it is a myth that Greater Manchester is the only city region that promotes direct services to Manchester Airport:
The report defined ten "Conditional Outputs" from the study, which fed into the subsequent Network Rail Manchester Hub Phase Two Rail Study. This proposed appropriate infrastructure interventions, including the Ordsall Chord, that subsequently became part of the Northern Hub programme. Conditional Output 7 concerned Manchester Airport services:
The seven "principal rail corridors" into Manchester were defined as:
- Bolton/Chorley line, serving Preston and beyond (1tph to the Airport)
- Calder Valley line, serving Bradford/Halifax (1tph)
- Diggle line, serving Newcastle/Tees Valley/Hull/Leeds (2tph)
- Hope Valley line, serving Sheffield, South Humber Bank and the East Midlands (1tph)
- Stoke and Crewe lines, serving London/Birmingham (1tph)
- CLC line, serving Liverpool (1tph)
- Chat Moss line, serving Chester/North Wales and Liverpool (1tph)
The report also recognised "longer term stakeholder ambitions" that the Hope Valley and Crewe corridors should get direct services to the Airport without the need to pass through central Manchester - so far only achieved for Crewe.
The currently-proposed post-electrification timetable (now put back to May 2019), would provide direct services from all these corridors to the Airport. However, for a mix of technical reasons (e.g. electrification and the end of portion working) and political reasons (reluctance to withdraw an existing direct service from anywhere), the 1tph requirement from the Chat Moss corridor has grown to 3tph (Chester/North Wales, Liverpool stopper and Lancaster/Barrow/Windermere via Wigan NW) and the 1tph requirement from the Chorley corridor has grown to 2tph (Glasgow/Edinburgh and Blackpool North).
It is perhaps worth debating the feasibility of going back to the originally-proposed 1tph of direct Airport services on those two corridors, which could reduce congestion through Castlefield and/or release paths for local services on the Ordsall Chord and Styal line. Options might include diverting the N Wales service or the Liverpool stopper to Victoria, and 8-car EMUs to the Airport from Glasgow/Edinburgh, with high quality connections at Oxenholme, Lancaster and Preston.