First of all it is not waste going to a landfill site, but fuel going to power a new power station at Runcorn.
It's waste going to an incinerator, the steam from which is used to generate electricity.
There is no particular reason for it to be shipped to Runcorn instead of any number of other incinerators - including ones which would be accessed without reversals from Hazel Grove without using the main part of the Mid-Cheshire line.
Secondly that one trainload if put on the roads would require at least 30 or more LGVs to replace it, so if multiplied by a about five or six in a twenty four hour period that's an awful lot of additional large truck journeys added to already congested roads.
Considering there are only five round trips on the Altrincham line that would have to be replaced by road transit (Assuming no attempt was made to divert the depot flows) you would only be having a maximum of ~150 lorries per day extra.
That sounds like a lot but considering that in Manchester they would be spread over several sites with easy motorway access, it is hardly likely to be catastrophic (Northenden is adjacent to the M60/M56, as is Bredbury - don't know about Bindle Heath). Its roughly a lorry every half hour at each site - which given the normal comings and goings at a refuse depot is tiny.
As far as I can tell the waste is shipped to the Viridor plant in Runcorn - which also has dual-carriageway access through the chemical plant to which it is adjacent. Which almost certainly has a large quantity of lorry traffic as it is.
This is not as if we are pumping dozens of 44 tonners through residential streets or something like that.
And if you don't want long distance lorry moves you can always shuttle the containers to the MSC and carry them to the plant via Barge.
I really must disagree with your view on this matter. If you see how many waste containers are shipped from the waste compaction depots, which are rather large sized items, each of these would require HGV haulage. It is better for all concerned that such large items are kept off the roads and transported by rail as at present.
And so any scheme which inconveniences these relatively minor freight flows must be scotched immediately?
Whilst we squander valuable track space moving freight which is only economic for rail transport because of collosal central government subsidies.
Yes this is unlikely, and would also make any 25kV electrification much more difficult. Hence the preference for a dual-voltage vehicle.
At which point the collosal capital cost for the 25kV installation kills the scheme and we get nothing at all.
This is inherently dangerous - it will cause Network Rail to demand that all tram train proposals are 25kV even when it makes no sense for the scheme (is anyone seriously thinking that there would be a large flow suitable to justify electrification using 25kV in our lifetimes - and before someone goes on about how I should support using 25kV because of my pro-electrification stance, a 750V system achieves virtually everything a 25kV one does), this will in turn prevent any schemes from occuring at all.
Why? You've already said that there isn't the capacity for this, and there probably isn't the demand either.
There is not capacity only because of the insistence on retaining a heavy rail capacity for the benefit of a handful of trains per day.
Demand is entirely different - we have no real idea what would happen if there were five services per hour per direction between Altrincham and Northwhich, and another bunch between Stockport and Altrincham or the Centre of Manchester.
And we will never find out because of the freight requirement, meanwhile the Mid Cheshire line does not improve because of pathing restrictions through Stockport and awful end to end journey times because of its silly detour.
The freight trains have a similar average speed to the passenger once the stations are taken into account, so regular intervals of 20 or even 15min would be possible. Passengers would still have to refer to a timetable, but it would be a much better timetable than today's.
Without tramway electrification, which won't happen unless the route is taken off Network Rail, the scheme would never proceed and thus there will be no improvements in the timetable.
Why not, if it turned out this was the best solution? They put up 1,500V DC OLE for T&W Metro.
It would cause them to have to provide non-standard maintenance assets which would cost them money. T&W would never have gotten its equipment put up today - it only did because Railtrack was never going to electrify anything again so standardisation was not an issue.
Indeed it was talking about ripping gear down.
Slow moving freight trains? Metrolink trams are limited to 50mph and most tram-trains to 60mph. Freight can at least match that. Freight trains on the Mid-Cheshire are only slow moving when they are running on yellows, because they have caught up the stopping passenger service in front.
The problem is that they do catch up with the service in front - so have to drastically slow or stop, and then are caught flat footed by the vehicle behind them because they are unable to accelerate rapidly enough after the service in front gets away from them again.