Manchester Piccadilly platforms 15, 16 pulled, but £72m nearby

[Bletchleyite]

As we discussed some time ago just building the Ordsall Chord without platforms 15 & 16 at Piccadilly significantly reduced the benefits. For the full benefit additional tracks needed too but they are never going to happen in the current financial climate.

Yep. If you were going to build something first out of the three pieces of work (Ordsall, Picc 15/16 and Oxford Road modifications) 15/16 is the one that would bring most benefit in resilience terms. But the UK doesn't like resilience builds, we prefer to build a nice electrified chord to take one diesel train an hour. Utter white elephant.

 

[josh-j]

It's a silly half billion pounds the DfT/Treasury does not have.
The "Manchester Hub" had a long gestation period, and things have changed since it was given partial approval (for the Ordsall Chord, Victoria/Airport upgrades etc).
I don't think Network Rail were ready at Piccadilly/Oxford Road at the point where money might have been available, but the prospects of approval declined thereafter.
We now have a notional plan to build HS2 to Manchester, which will free up capacity on the approach to Piccadilly from the south.
If NPR also gets built using the HS2 access, there will be more capacity on cross-Manchester routes away from the Castlefield corridor.

I haven't seen anything on the once-promised "digital signalling" solution for Castlefield.
The TPU ETCS scheme seemingly won't extend west of Stalybridge.

Half a billion is nothing on a national budgeting level, and the more the treasury prevents investment the more it *costs* the country. Spending money on transport infrastructure pays for itself; the problem is their blinkered ideology.

 

[Bikeman78]

Cheap and nasty.

15/16 are needed (and this now means I guess the land can be built on so it'll be prevented forever), and Salford Crescent needs to be two islands with flyovers so there can be cross-platform interchange between Picc and Vic trains one way and Boltons and Athertons the other.

Very disappointing.

The Netherlands figured this out 30 to 40 years ago.

 

[Geeves]

Salford ones are two sidings in between the Hope St sidings and the down Salford. The Brewery turn back is between Miles Platting Jn and Brewery Jn off the Down Rochdale.

Mr Planner. Do you know if there is to be alterations to the east end layout, also where is the mystery extra platform going at Vic or is the mess room creating platforms where they can't go. Surely there's no room next to the current bays?

 

[The Planner]

Mr Planner. Do you know if there is to be alterations to the east end layout, also where is the mystery extra platform going at Vic or is the mess room creating platforms where they can't go. Surely there's no room next to the current bays?

Nothing changes at the east end that I have seen. Not sure plans exist in any form for the extra platform yet.

Yep. If you were going to build something first out of the three pieces of work (Ordsall, Picc 15/16 and Oxford Road modifications) 15/16 is the one that would bring most benefit in resilience terms. But the UK doesn't like resilience builds, we prefer to build a nice electrified chord to take one diesel train an hour. Utter white elephant.

The plans for 15/16 only allowed parallel moves at the Oxford Road end though, it was single lead on/off the Down Oxford Road.

 

[LYuen]

Since the last timetable change the need for 15 and 16 has definitely been reduced. Improvements around Victoria unpicking the terrible layout at the east end is a good investment as are the additional sidings.

As for the Crescent it's not a huge job. The new platform goes on the bypass loop and the station was always designed to have steps and a lift going down from the current station building. At Victoria I would imagine a new entrance will head out towards Cheetham Hill Road bridge.

The services are reduced do not mean the passenger demand is gone

 

[Viscount702]

Salford ones are two sidings in between the Hope St sidings and the down Salford. The Brewery turn back is between Miles Platting Jn and Brewery Jn off the Down Rochdale.

Thank you

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Half a billion is nothing on a national budgeting level, and the more the treasury prevents investment the more it *costs* the country. Spending money on transport infrastructure pays for itself; the problem is their blinkered ideology.

They've spent (overspent) the money on HS2 and TRU which have also exceeded their budgets.
You can also blame electrification cost overruns in the North West (and elsewhere).
The project has been pending for sign-off for some years and has run out of road as well as money.
The cost would have gone up steeply anyway with present inflation, like other projects.

 

[josh-j]

They've spent (overspent) the money on HS2 and TRU which have also exceeded their budgets.
You can also blame electrification cost overruns in the North West (and elsewhere).
The project has been pending for sign-off for some years and has run out of road as well as money.
The cost would have gone up steeply anyway with present inflation, like other projects.

Yes but it's all still a drop in the ocean. If they don't want to overspend they should sort out the structural problems which are also down to flawed political ideology. We have ROSCOs siphoning huge sums of money off into tax havens, then claim there's nothing to be done and railways are too expensive so we can't build them.

When the government say "we can't afford this", what they really mean is "we want to keep as much money as possible flowing to our rich mates and lobbyists, so we can only commit the bare minimum to public services".

 

[Dspatula]

Salford ones are two sidings in between the Hope St sidings and the down Salford. The Brewery turn back is between Miles Platting Jn and Brewery Jn off the Down Rochdale.

I'm hoping that they've picked that location for the Brewery turn because it's easier to electrify than the Brewery loop itself otherwise it seems a bit pointless.

 

[The Planner]

I'm hoping that they've picked that location for the Brewery turn because it's easier to electrify than the Brewery loop itself otherwise it seems a bit pointless.

Its more likely where there is room as close to Victoria as possible.

 

[Rail Ranger]

So there won't be new sidings on the course of the Cheetham Hill loop at Victoria East Junction? Would seem an obvious place to put them. Perhaps because you could only get to them from platforms 5 and 6?

 

[Fazaar1889]

Been seeing responses to this on twitter and am a little uncertain. Just to be clear, £75m is basically bugger all for rail infrastructure, right?

 

[Mollman]

From my observations the only terminators at Victoria during the day use Platforms 1/2. All other trains run through. In peak hour there are some terminators from Liverpool and Wigan which are electric powered and could easily run through to Stalybridge when the OHL is switched on.

The problem at Vic is that the terminating trains tend to come off the Rochdale line and have to cross the Stalybridge line to access the bay platforms

Been seeing responses to this on twitter and am a little uncertain. Just to be clear, £75m is basically bugger all for rail infrastructure, right?

The problem is they are not really saying much apart from the new platform at Crescent and 'junction remodeling', the fact that it hasn't been laid out in more detail does seem to indicate it there isn't much for £75m.

 

[Parjon]

While I believe there are far easier, more efficient ways of enabling more trains to use the routes through Manchester, the stated reasons regarding "success" of the Manchester taskforce is built on a lie.

1) Other cities have sacrificed connectivity and throughput to make this suboptimal, supposedly temporary outcome occur, and
2) There is no basis for judging the success of the timetable changes, due to the astonishing number of trains which are supposed to run but are not due to TPE's behaviour. It is entirely possible if those trains did run then punctuality could be as bad as ever. As TPE have been hiding these cancellations, they don't count in the stats.

Since Burnham knows this fine well, his quotes in support of the money being spent elsewhere on his patch suggests to me TfGM are complicit.

"Manchester and the north" is an insulting and dismissive turn of phrase. There are 12 million people living in "the north" who don't live in greater Manchester, which doesn't even account for half of those living in the north west alone.

 

[josh-j]

To be fair, poor connectivity through Manchester does also affect the quality of transport provision between other cities in the north.

 

[Parjon]

To be fair, poor connectivity through Manchester does also affect the quality of transport provision between other cities in the north.

So why is fixing that for us never the priority? Why do improvements only ever seem to improve things for them with regards their own narrow priorities, and make things worse for everyone else. The Ordsall Chord being a case in point.

 

[josh-j]

But isn't the problem with the ordsall chord the lack of platforms 15 and 16? I do think other places in the north get less focus than they deserve, not gonna argue with that!

 

[Parjon]

But isn't the problem with the ordsall chord the lack of platforms 15 and 16?

And yet now they've got the Ordsall Chord it appears they are content to leave it at that, wrapped tight around the connectivity neck of our own city region.

 

[nr758123]

Just to put this into perspective, there's a politician who today chose to make a journey from Manchester Airport to Northallerton by private helicopter, to avoid having to experience the problems of platform 14 at Piccadilly which his government yesterday chose not to address.

And yet now they've got the Ordsall Chord it appears they are content to leave it at that, wrapped tight around the connectivity neck of our own city region.

I don't think any of the civic or business leaders in Greater Manchester are content to leave it with just an underused Ordsall Chord. They don't make the decisions, and don't get listened to by those who should be making decisions.

 

[LYuen]

So why is fixing that for us never the priority? Why do improvements only ever seem to improve things for them with regards their own narrow priorities, and make things worse for everyone else. The Ordsall Chord being a case in point.

Because it is not London?
Historically Manchester always get compromised for projects that needs funding.
e.g. the proposed underground, airport metrolink western loop, NPR, etc

 

[Parjon]

Because it is not London?
Historically Manchester always get compromised for projects that needs funding.
e.g. the proposed underground, airport metrolink western loop, NPR, etc

It is never Manchester that gets compromised. It is everyone else. And yes, Manchester is not London, making it even more unjustifiable.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Just to be clear, £75m is basically bugger all for rail infrastructure, right?

Yes. The new Cheadle station is going to cost £9 million to build 100 metres of platform and modifying the current hospital car park to add a bus stop.

 

[btdrawer]

Tom Forth on Twitter:

If government had invested as much capital in transport North England as it had in the Greater South East of England over the past 22 years,... over £45bn would have been invested in North England. Imagine what we could get for that?

You don't actually need to imagine. You could just go to Rotterdam, Hamburg, Lille, Toulouse, Lyon, Milan, Munich, Barcelona, or pretty much any other similarly sized cities in Europe and experience it.

 

[javelin]

It is never Manchester that gets compromised. It is everyone else. And yes, Manchester is not London, making it even more unjustifiable.

You think cancelling platforms 15&16 and instead spending pittance on turnbacks for trains coming from outside GM is not compromising Manchester?

You appear to be under the misapprehension that all transport infrastructure built in Manchester is primarily benefiting Manchester. Ask people in the Chilterns if their local HS2 infrastructure is benefitting them. What has the Ordsall Chord done for Manchester?

I promise you even with this £72 million the Castlefield Corridor will still be a mess, and Manchester's surban trains will also still be a mess thanks to prioritisation of long distance services from further afield, like Liverpool.

 

[josh-j]

Just because Manchester does sometimes get more than other areas it doesn't mean it should have projects cut - it means other areas should get improvements as well!

Unfortunately this unnecessary rivalry just helps the government get away with further cuts and lack of investment. It shouldn't be a competition for who gets funds - funds should be properly allocated everywhere as needed. No surprise that the government likes to conduct competitions and accept bids fo vital investment, furthering this divisive state of affairs.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Yes but it's all still a drop in the ocean. If they don't want to overspend they should sort out the structural problems which are also down to flawed political ideology. We have ROSCOs siphoning huge sums of money off into tax havens, then claim there's nothing to be done and railways are too expensive so we can't build them.

When the government say "we can't afford this", what they really mean is "we want to keep as much money as possible flowing to our rich mates and lobbyists, so we can only commit the bare minimum to public services".

I honestly don't think government works like that, as you'll find if/when Labour get a turn on the bridge.
Covid, and other recent special events, took away all the easy money and more.

If you read June's Modern Railways you'll find Roger Ford thinks the Roscos are the only part of the industry keeping it sane at the moment.
Are you against leasing aircraft, ships and containers too?
It's how businesses, and governments, balance their long-term capital flows, and in the UK it keeps the cost of rolling stock off the government's debt.
Foreign railways also lease stock - it's a worldwide trade.

 

[josh-j]

It keeps the cost off the government debt yes, but that isn't necessary. Government debt is serviced at a much better rate than leasing costs; it is a net loss to do things this way. It's agenda driven; it isn't done this way to save money.

A large body like a national government is ideally placed to buy expensive assets and thereby avoid leasing fees and other abstractions. I'm not saying Labour would be perfect by default (I mean Christ, PFI..) but I do think the present lot are experts in getting that money flowing out of the public purse and into obscure offshore locations, some of which through the ROSCOs. So for them to then say there's no money for infrastructure is pretty insulting.

 

[tbtc]

“Why do politicians hate railways” people ask… then you look at how little we can deliver for tens of millions of pounds of infrastructure and… I can’t blame them if they feel heavy Rail didn’t deliver great value for money TBH!

Whilst the rest of Northern England makes do with tiny schemes (an extra platform at Leeds by sacrificing the car parking, merging two short platforms at Newcastle to create one slightly longer one etc), we see yet more invested in Manchester that’ll only create more demands for more Mancunian projects, since each previous project around the city has just created new problems

What has the Ordsall Chord done for Manchester?

Increased the paths available for local trains on the Stockport corridor by diverting TPE services away from the Piccadilly “throat”… e.g. doubling the Buxton frequency… that kind of thing?

I promise you even with this £72 million the Castlefield Corridor will still be a mess, and Manchester's surban trains will also still be a mess thanks to prioritisation of long distance services from further afield, like Liverpool.

If Manchester will still be a mess then a lot of the reasons for that are to do with the messy combination of through services (especially to the airport/ castlefield)

I’ve said this before but look at other cities, e.g. the West Midlands doesn’t suffocate local capacity by trying to run through Birmingham Airport services from Walsall/ Bromsgrove… or through University services from Coventry/ Wolverhampton… They make the most of capacity… whereas the north west of England would rather keep trying to run unrealistic service patterns for the sake of a tiny number of people who want to get from Stockport to Bolton or from Southport to Castlefield…

You know that phrase that “There’s no Such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes”?

Well Manchester is a case of “bad timetables and bad service patterns” Rather than “bad infrastructure”

Because it is not London?
Historically Manchester always get compromised for projects that needs funding.
e.g. the proposed underground, airport metrolink western loop, NPR, etc

If Manchester is “compromised” then what word would be appropriate for places like Newcastle/ Leeds?

Just because Manchester does sometimes get more than other areas it doesn't mean it should have projects cut - it means other areas should get improvements as well!

Unfortunately this unnecessary rivalry just helps the government get away with further cuts and lack of investment. It shouldn't be a competition for who gets funds - funds should be properly allocated everywhere as needed. No surprise that the government likes to conduct competitions and accept bids fo vital investment, furthering this divisive state of affairs.

This is true… but the problem is that we keep getting the Mancunian argument about how hard done by the city is, if only it had the same infrastructure spending as London, London gets a disproportionate amount of the national “cake” etc…

…But then when it’s pointed out that Greater Manchester gets a disproportionate amount of the northern “cake” (look at the past twenty years, the heavy train electrification, the tram extensions, tens of millions of pounds on infrastructure like Ordsall etc) compared to places like North East England/ Yorkshire over an equivalent period and were get told it’s “unnecessary rivalry” And we shouldn’t be so envious… (but it’s fine when Mancunians are envious of London, right?)

If you read June's Modern Railways you'll find Roger Ford thinks the Roscos are the only part of the industry keeping it sane at the moment.
Are you against leasing aircraft, ships and containers too?
It's how businesses, and governments, balance their long-term capital flows, and in the UK it keeps the cost of rolling stock off the government's debt.
Foreign railways also lease stock - it's a worldwide trade.

It feels worth pointing out that lots of modern buses are leased, because First/ Stagecoach etc find it more effective than purchasing vehicles outright… same with a lot of business vehicles… British Rail were leasing locomotives back in the 1960s… it’s nothing new and it’s nothing unique to railways… but it’s convenient whipping boy for people who are desperate to separate things into Good Guys (“proper railwaymen” etc) and Bad Guys

 

[WatcherZero]

“Why do politicians hate railways” people ask… then you look at how little we can deliver for tens of millions of pounds of infrastructure and… I can’t blame them if they feel heavy Rail didn’t deliver great value for money TBH!

Whilst the rest of Northern England makes do with tiny schemes (an extra platform at Leeds by sacrificing the car parking, merging two short platforms at Newcastle to create one slightly longer one etc), we see yet more invested in Manchester that’ll only create more demands for more Mancunian projects, since each previous project around the city has just created new problems

But that Manchester got a fraction of whats been spent on Leeds station alone which in the last decade has had has had a £17.3m Southern Entrance, £161m capacity program, and now a £46.1m program for the streets surrounding the station funded by Network Rail and delivered through the CA.