Merseyrail Expansion

[urbophile]

People only ever want to go to Town? Nonsense. People want to go everywhere. They want to go to Aintree, and Manchester, and anywhere. That's why we run railways there.

Not in sufficient numbers. The major traffic flow from Liverpool suburbs has always been, and will always be, to the city centre. Even in London peripheral routes are second-class.

 

[8A Rail]

Yeah, I said I agree. That's what "at first" means.

The point of the line is to get people to transfer stations like Broadgreen, Aintree and South Parkway. More of this "if the line doesn't go directly to Central with no stops in-between, then no-one will EVER use it" nonsense... I'm yet to hear a good argument as to why Scousers can't make one interchange on a journey, or why people there deserve to have no choice other than cars because we aren't bulldozing houses or digging behemoth tunnels to bee-line them to Town.

That still leaves a lot of people in that orange area, ignoring how cramped both the trains and the tracks would be at rush hour, as opposed to the fully segregated route of the Extension line!

Not once did I ask for this. In fact, I have not even mentioned buffers once, and I've advocated for a South Parkway dual terminus instead.

Yeah, you're right. Not only do I want that, I've been literally begging and pleading for it in this thread.

That's the point of a PLAN.
If we say "let's get to Gateacre", they can take their time and waste all of the money (on CEOs' yachts) and then cancel halfway through.
If we say "let's finish the whole line, all the way to Aintree, X electrified miles per year" not only do they have a goal to meet but it's spread out over a reasonable time so service can be ran further as the track progresses, and running services can raise further funds.
Saying "it would be hard so don't even think about it" is a perfect recipe to get the broken, battered, destroyed and defiled railways of modern Britain.

Mmmm true but you did insert a map / line diagram in a previous post (no 289 on here) where there WERE buffer stops inserted with neither line connected! Liverpool South Parkway is not meant to be a Terminus, nor it should be.

Again, how many people wish a particular district in Liverpool / Merseyside to actually visit other than family / friend / work reasons? I do not think enough to justify considerable expenditure on a loop line that just serves outer districts only. The sensible option is good electric transport (i.e. buses) providing a reliable service to serve those particular needs and give current examples that serve various districts are routes No 60 and No 81.

So given I live in Whiston and I wish to get to Aintree, your suggestion is get a train to Broadgreen and change over to outer extension line to Aintree, and same for return journey? Yes I imagine? But for any person (looking at the future) it is easier and far far quicker to get into an electric car from / by the house front door and drive straight there via the M57, to the relevant destination in Aintree.

Don't get me wrong, I like some of your thoughts but you got to first and foremost be practicable, sensible, logically possible to achieve, assuming there is any money to do such things and remember every location in the UK would also require something out of a non existent bottomless money pit for their own projects. Let us keep to things that 'may' be achievable within the limited money that could be offer as well as the political will to do it also. Sadly the latter changes by the minute these days, what is a good idea today, changes tomorrow, quite literally!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Right, we need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. The audacity of someone from Aughton bloody Park to lecture someone who was born on a council estate that people are only poor because of their mindset. What is this, the 1880's?!
Thanks for your input, for all it was worth...

There's a very large difference between individual circumstances and cities. Inward-looking cities don't do as well as outward-looking ones. Liverpool has improved in this regard but the mentality is still there.

Economically (and in terms of transport networks, to be on topic about it), the North West would do better acting as one, but Liverpool can't handle being second fiddle to Manchester, so the conurbation continues to be far weaker than the West Midlands which does work as one without all that resentment.

So given I live in Whiston and I wish to get to Aintree, your suggestion is get a train to Broadgreen and change over to outer extension line to Aintree, and same for return journey? Yes I imagine? But for any person (looking at the future) it is easier and far far quicker to get into an electric car from / by the house front door and drive straight there via the M57, to the relevant destination in Aintree.

Or if wanting to do it by train, into Lime St, walk to Central and back out on the Ormskirk line. It's not that horrible a journey.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I'm yet to hear a good argument as to why Scousers can't make one interchange on a journey, or why people there deserve to have no choice other than cars because we aren't bulldozing houses or digging behemoth tunnels to bee-line them to Town.

Sadly it's not just a Scouse thing, it's a British people thing. Unlike our continental cousins railway authorities here have for a long time now put comparatively little effort into providing and delivering useful and efficient connections across the rail network. And even if they genuinely wanted to most of our major interchange stations don't have sufficient platforms to allow cross-platform connections between, for example, a fast train overtaking a slower one. Such an arrangement would be ideal at Warrington Central but there is no space for it.

In short it is little wonder that the vast majority of rail travellers here, certainly away from central London, tend to consider only those journey opportunities available by through trains. For anything else the private car is seen as absolutely preferable. And given that as a country we keep electing governments who have little interest in using public funds for improvements to public transport it should hardly be a surprise that solutions tend to be as cheap as possible. As such don't be knocking bus services: they're not normally as quick as trains but they tend to be much better at getting people closer to where they are actually travelling to.

It's rather depressing to admit that if you want to have high quality public transport on your doorstep you are much better off living somewhere like Switzerland or the Netherlands because it's not happening here any time soon.

 

[daodao]

Simply the Northern Line just carries on to Gateacre, much easier. Don't need a platform four unless you envisage two lines going to Gateacre. What is the point of getting off and on to another train when it can just carry on to / from Southport, you do not need a separate service. Just need the Network Rail to resignal the CLC line in due course, demolish the HX Control Box and the trackbed is then free to reach Gateacre. Then the problems commence, funding for starters!

Agree that we need an improved local service between Lime Street and Earlestow, preferably with the second train per hour continuing al least to Manchester (Victoria). The present hourly service is inadequate, and all too often has 2-3 hour gaps when Northern cancels services.

Some people need to remember that lines closed - even before Beeching - because not enough people used them. One such line was the CLC line beyond Gateacre to Aintree (and originally Southport Lord St.) . Relatively few people want to travel around the "rim" of Liverpool - the only major "target" is the city centre, and the journey time from most CLC Loop stations was too long to be attractive. Also, the location of some of the stations was less than ideal relative to where people lived (e.g. Knotty Ash, even West Derby) . Implementing dreams is expensive, and uses money that is not going to be available. Will people vote for a city region mayor who wants big increases in council tax to pay for grandiose schemes ?

Well stated.

The only Merseyrail expansion that is even worthwhile considering (other than additional stations on currently electrified lines) is the re-extension of the ex-CLC line service from Central to Hunt's Cross as far as Gateacre, as was originally intended when this line closed in 1972. This can be achieved by running the battery electric class 777 units on a service from Headbolt Lane to Gateacre. A few more class 777 units might need batteries installing so that there are enough such units for service resilience.

Other proposed extensions discussed on this thread are either "pie-in-the-sky" and/or outwith Merseyside.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sadly it's not just a Scouse thing, it's a British people thing. Unlike our continental cousins railway authorities here have for a long time now put comparatively little effort into providing and delivering useful and efficient connections across the rail network. And even if they genuinely wanted to most of our major interchange stations don't have sufficient platforms to allow cross-platform connections between, for example, a fast train overtaking a slower one. Such an arrangement would be ideal at Warrington Central but there is no space for it.

People actually do interchange on Merseyrail, though, just like they do on the Tube - simply because 4tph is frequent enough that if you miss it it isn't that important. Frequency (and fare flexibility) really does promote interchange.

It's rather depressing to admit that if you want to have high quality public transport on your doorstep you are much better off living somewhere like Switzerland or the Netherlands because it's not happening here any time soon.

For all we whine about their staff attitude and approach to people not holding tickets, Merseyrail is an S-Bahn of German standard, in some ways better (e.g. German systems are close to staffless bar the driver which can make personal safety worse). It is an island of relative goodness in the UK, though, and e.g. Manchester really suffers in comparison, Metrolink is not as good and the diesel suburban services are just rubbish.

 

[urbophile]

For all we whine about their staff attitude and approach to people not holding tickets, Merseyrail is an S-Bahn of German standard, in some ways better (e.g. German systems are close to staffless bar the driver which can make personal safety worse). It is an island of relative goodness in the UK, though, and e.g. Manchester really suffers in comparison, Metrolink is not as good and the diesel suburban services are just rubbish.

Quite. However there is one big, half-of-the-city-sized gap, which is the lack of a Metro service south-east of the Headbolt Lane line and north-east of the Hunts Cross one. If the National Rail services via Mossley Hill, Huyton, St Helens etc provided a Metro frequency that would help (though still leaving many suburbs trainless). Incorporating them physically into Merseyrail via the Wapping or other tunnels would be superficially attractive, but would tend to import delays into a closed system from outside. Better to treat such services as a discrete section of Merseyrail. There has been talk of re-using the Wapping tunnel, but wouldn't the Waterloo (is that the other one?) be better? Again I don't know how feasible it would be to build a station (maybe a terminus) where that line runs within walking distance of Lime Street. I've not been round there for a while but the former coach station could have been a good site perhaps. Maybe that opportunity has gone.

But coming down to earth for a while: extend to Gateacre by all means. That seems doable.

 

[daodao]

Quite. However there is one big, half-of-the-city-sized gap, which is the lack of a Metro service south-east of the Headbolt Lane line and north-east of the Hunts Cross one. If the National Rail services via Mossley Hill, Huyton, St Helens etc provided a Metro frequency that would help (though still leaving many suburbs trainless). Incorporating them physically into Merseyrail via the Wapping or other tunnels would be superficially attractive, but would tend to import delays into a closed system from outside. Better to treat such services as a discrete section of Merseyrail.

But coming down to earth for a while: extend to Gateacre by all means. That seems doable.

I agree.

It shouldn't be too difficult to run services every 15 minutes from Lime Street to South Parkway and to Huyton, with 4 tph to St Helens Shaw Street.

 

[urbophile]

I agree.

It shouldn't be too difficult to run services every 15 minutes from Lime Street to South Parkway and to Huyton, with 4 tph to St Helens Shaw Street.

The problem would be probably fitting them all into Lime Street (or the approach tracks).

 

[daodao]

The problem would be probably fitting them all into Lime Street (or the approach tracks).

One would need 16 paths per hour:

• 8 tph for the line to South Parkway (4 tph stopping at all stations), of which 4 would continue via the CLC line and 4 via Runcorn; the Liverpool Lime Street to Chester service would have to call at all stations.
• 8 tph for the line to Huyton (4 tph stopping at all stations), of which 4 would continue via St. Helens Shaw Street and 4 via St. Helens Junction.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Will people vote for a city region mayor who wants big increases in council tax to pay for grandiose schemes ?

People will vote Labour in the LCR no matter what. It's more a question of what you can convince Steve Rotheram to do in order to fund the transport improvements.

 

[CaramellDansen]

There's a very large difference between individual circumstances and cities. Inward-looking cities don't do as well as outward-looking ones. Liverpool has improved in this regard but the mentality is still there.

Okay, Cilla. Whatever you say.

Mmmm true but you did insert a map / line diagram in a previous post (no 289 on here) where there WERE buffer stops inserted with neither line connected!

Sorry, I meant to show that one service would use a crossover to stop at one platform, and another service would do the same for the other platform from the other direction! It represents services, not physical lines. I see now where the confusion came from!

Liverpool South Parkway is not meant to be a Terminus, nor it should be.

Why? If the line did come down from Norris Green and terminate at Hunts Cross, what would they do if they wanted to board a service going via Runcorn? Every line Hunts Cross serves, South Parkway serves them and then some! LSP is an even greater terminus if we decide to run a Merseyrail service down from Lime Street via Mossley Hill! Plus, if the service frequency was lower for the Suburban line, the number of conflicting movements per hour across the City line (via Halewood) would be greatly reduced!

it is easier and far far quicker to get into an electric car

That's nice in theory when thinking about one destination from one house. Now let's consider everybody gets in their car, because it's the 'obvious choice'! Let's see what that would look like!

Oh no...

Let us keep to things that 'may' be achievable within the limited money that could be offer as well as the political will to do it also

Saying "you must limit your thoughts to fit within the wishes of those who control money" is A) a fantastic way to never, ever get improvements in life and experience only decreases in economic prosperity, B) a very worrying ideological standpoint for a thinking, dreaming, living person to hold, and C) not very convincing. How can we achieve our greatest dreams when we aren't even allowed to discuss the bare minimum?
'Being practical' is one thing, but allowing the restrictions of capitalist-imperialist class society to control even what you are allowed to discuss is, like... a really bad sign.
This isn't a personal attack on you, or a judgement of character. My point is that you should be able to think outside of your masters' wishes, and demand more than starving poverty. Give it a go!

How does the saying go? "You have nothing to lose but your chains", or something?

But coming down to earth for a while: extend to Gateacre by all means. That seems doable.

As a starting point, I agree. However, if we get 10% of what we demand, wanting Aintree and getting Gateacre is a hell of a lot better than asking for Gateacre and getting... well, getting what Merseyrail does best: no improvement.
If you get behind what I'm saying:
Worst case scenario, we get what you're saying.
Best case scenario, we actually get worthwhile coverage!

As you said:

Quite. However there is one big, half-of-the-city-sized gap, which is the lack of a Metro service south-east of the Headbolt Lane line and north-east of the Hunts Cross one. If the National Rail services via Mossley Hill, Huyton, St Helens etc provided a Metro frequency that would help (though still leaving many suburbs trainless). Incorporating them physically into Merseyrail via the Wapping or other tunnels would be superficially attractive, but would tend to import delays into a closed system from outside. Better to treat such services as a discrete section of Merseyrail.

I must say, though, wouldn't reserving the route via Broadgreen like I'm suggesting both cover these areas (segregated, so no external delays) and be a more effective use of rolling stock, by being able to tweak the frequency and length of the vehicles according to need without affecting the rest of the system? (There also wouldn't need to be power changeovers on behalf of the driver, and different colours on the map could help passengers make much greater sense of what the lines are for, instead of being a clutter of 4 or 5 "Northern lines" everywhere.)
I think I'm starting to give up on Wapping tunnel as a scheme for now. I've not heard so much about the Waterloo / Victoria tunnel(s), but I think they probably share similar situations.
Widening the Lime Street cutting is something that might be feasible (design-wise), but the cost (urgh...) and especially damage to heritage are things that could probably prevent it.

I've not even mentioned the benefit of the Suburban route bypassing Liverpool for the Aintree race days! Granted, it's not a common occurrence, but I can imagine taking the strain off the central lines and letting services go direct to Aintree from outside of the city could be a great benefit! If the line was OLE electrified to Liverpool South Parkway like I hope (and like it used to be between LSP and Hunts Cross a decade ago!), intercity electric services could even reverse at LSP and go straight into Aintree!

 

[Mr. SW]

I think I'm starting to give up on Wapping tunnel as a scheme for now. I've not heard so much about the Waterloo / Victoria tunnel(s), but I think they probably share similar situations.
Widening the Lime Street cutting is something that might be feasible (design-wise), but the cost (urgh...) and especially damage to heritage are things that could probably prevent it.

Wapping and Victoria/Waterloo tunnels need a lot of work to get them up to standard. I wouldn't even bother widening the Lime Street Cutting and its associated tunnels. I was going to expand the approach to Lime St, I would drive a new tunnel about 30 metres south of the existing cutting. But before I did that, I would take a serious look at the other tunnels first, because if you're going to fiddle about with tunnelling, I suggest it would be cheaper to look at the existing holes.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Bletchleyite mentioned in post #276 that you cannot have both battery and OHLE capability due to the design of the units - it's one or the other. You could segregate some units to a battery/3rd rail route, but Merseytravel are against this because it causes issues with battery wear IIRC.

Isn't the limiting factor dual voltage capability rather than OHLE? If future extensions to Merseyrail were forbidden from using 3rd rail but were still segregated from other rail operations they could use 750v DC overhead and still have traction batteries installed, as no transformer would be required.

 

[Lloyds siding]

Isn't the limiting factor dual voltage capability rather than OHLE? If future extensions to Merseyrail were forbidden from using 3rd rail but were still segregated from other rail operations they could use 750v DC overhead and still have traction batteries installed, as no transformer would be required.

The 777s really would look like trams then!

 

[AlastairFraser]

Isn't the limiting factor dual voltage capability rather than OHLE? If future extensions to Merseyrail were forbidden from using 3rd rail but were still segregated from other rail operations they could use 750v DC overhead and still have traction batteries installed, as no transformer would be required.

Wouldn't 750v OHLE limit speed significantly?

 

[HSTEd]

Wouldn't 750v OHLE limit speed significantly?

It might limit power draw but doesn't take that much power to reach 75mph.

Plus you could always just use overhead conductor bar.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Wouldn't 750v OHLE limit speed significantly?

Maybe it would- but the point I was making was that the limitations on how many different configurations a single unit can have are down to space- there's room for either a traction battery or a transformer but not both. This doesn't affect different methods of current collection providing the voltages are the same, as no transformer would be required. If there was a need for it, a pantograph could be fitted to the battery units to use (hypothetical) 750v DC overheads.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Maybe it would- but the point I was making was that the limitations on how many different configurations a single unit can have are down to space- there's room for either a traction battery or a transformer but not both. This doesn't affect different methods of current collection providing the voltages are the same, as no transformer would be required. If there was a need for it, a pantograph could be fitted to the battery units to use (hypothetical) 750v DC overheads.

That's fair. It's perhaps an alternative for shorter low speed extensions.

It might limit power draw but doesn't take that much power to reach 75mph.

Plus you could always just use overhead conductor bar.

As for power, decent point.
As for a DC overhead conductor - wouldn't that be difficult clearance wise?

 

[Mr. SW]

This may amuse...

Railways in and Around Merseyside. | Tunnel leading into Liverpool Central from Hunts Cross. | Facebook

Tunnel leading into Liverpool Central from Hunts Cross.

www.facebook.com

Interesting. Development of Central Station.

Liverpool Central Project Development - Find a Tender

www.find-tender.service.gov.uk

 

[CaramellDansen]

Interesting. Development of Central Station.

Big if true!

 

[OutdoorM]

Big if true!

Indeed, but I do wonder how / why they don't already have a plan for solving current capacity issues at Central?

The original planners in the 60's & 70's seemed to have most things sorted to take into account future growth capacity. And we have known about the limitations for decades.

But that said, even if it means money going into friends pockets, then as long as we can begin to move forward then it should be good

 

[CaramellDansen]

Indeed, but I do wonder how / why they don't already have a plan for solving current capacity issues at Central?

The original planners in the 60's & 70's seemed to have most things sorted to take into account future growth capacity. And we have known about the limitations for decades.

Class. Scousers are poor, they don't get nice things.
Money. Why spend money on the Northerners when I have a yacht I want to buy?

 

[AlastairFraser]

Indeed, but I do wonder how / why they don't already have a plan for solving current capacity issues at Central?

The original planners in the 60's & 70's seemed to have most things sorted to take into account future growth capacity. And we have known about the limitations for decades.

But that said, even if it means money going into friends pockets, then as long as we can begin to move forward then it should be good

I think it's because they focused on improving the City Line and the failed Merseytram scheme, while sticking Merseyrail on the back burner for many years (although it's not a particularly bad system functionality wise).

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Indeed, but I do wonder how / why they don't already have a plan for solving current capacity issues at Central?

The original planners in the 60's & 70's seemed to have most things sorted to take into account future growth capacity. And we have known about the limitations for decades.

But that said, even if it means money going into friends pockets, then as long as we can begin to move forward then it should be good

The need for this scheme, or something very much like it, was clearly identified in 2014 and might well have been completed by now had central government not pulled the plug in 2019, thereby ensuring that both of the North-West's great cities got equal treatment. But there was only so long that it could be delayed: without it it's only a matter of time before Central's station managers would have to use London Underground style temporary closures to deal with overcrowding below ground.

 

[Mr. SW]

Old, but worth a read.

https://api.liverpoolcityregion-ca.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/LCRCA_RAIL_STRATEGY_MAY18.pdf

New.

Liverpool Strategic Futures Advisory Panel: Final report

www.gov.uk

Horrid little map though, you have to zoom in.

 

[urbophile]

I notice that 'Liverpool Baltic' now appears on the line diagram on the Northern line platforms at Central. That could be encouraging, if slightly confusing because work seems nowhere near starting.

I wonder how long the station name will survive. 'Liverpool Central' makes sense to distinguish it from Birkenhead Central, and to identify the main Merseyrail station in the city. 'Liverpool Lime Street' is of course the main terminus for passengers elsewhere in the country, but 'Lime Street' alone is used on the Wirral line. Moorfields or James Street don't usually get the 'Liverpool' prefix. So why should Baltic? Some countries (eg Italy) make a point of prefixing the city name to the individual station name, for all stations within the city limits. British custom has never been to do that, otherwise we'd have Liverpool Sandhills, Liverpool Kirkdale, Sefton Bootle Oriel Road (!), Knowsley Kirkby etc. If Merseyrail becomes (officially or otherwise) distinct from the national network there would be even less justification for it.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Some countries (eg Italy) make a point of prefixing the city name to the individual station name, for all stations within the city limits. British custom has never been to do that, otherwise we'd have Liverpool Sandhills, Liverpool Kirkdale, Sefton Bootle Oriel Road (!), Knowsley Kirkby etc

We wouldn't get Sefton Bootle Oriel Road or Knowsley Kirkby: that's because Sefton and Knowsley are the names of the local authorities, while the names of the towns the stations are in are Bootle and Kirkby. And the Bootle stations already include the town name, in the way that apparently the Italians do.

 

[CaramellDansen]

Moorfields or James Street don't usually get the 'Liverpool' prefix.

They probably should! I think it would make sense to show which stations are for the city centre!
Also, I've always said Liverpool James Street, but I think that's just because I'm weird...!

 

[BrianW]

They probably should! I think it would make sense to show which stations are for the city centre!
Also, I've always said Liverpool James Street, but I think that's just because I'm weird...!

So, is London Paddington for the 'city centre'?