Petition for Manchester Piccadilly platforms 15 & 16

[Greybeard33]

As for Manchester there are no inter city services from Victoria

Are not the TPE services from Victoria to Liverpool, Leeds, York, Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Edinburgh inter city?

 

[Glenn1969]

Think they are viewed as Regional Express

 

[GRALISTAIR]

——that once led to the Red Hill carriage sidings —-.

Do you mean Red Bank Paul?

 

[158756]

We are where we are - there is zero point in speculating what 'might have been' had more enlightened decisions been taken in the past. There is zero chance of the Manchester Arena being moved - it is one of the most successful venues in the country, thanks to its city-centre location and excellent rail communications.

You might think that, but there is actually a plan to build a rival arena next to Manchester City's ground. The council are backing it in the belief, mistaken in my opinion, that the city can support two large arenas. If it turns out it can't, the existing Arena site might become vacant very quickly. Unfortunately for the railway it'll be worth a fortune for other development nowadays.

 

[Greybeard33]

Platforms 15/16 offer short to medium term relief, with a significantly improved passenger environment and the ability to recess and regulate services.

Exactly. Piccadilly is the worst bottleneck in the corridor and has dangerously overcrowded platforms, so P15/16 are needed now. Much more costly flying junctions or tunnels could potentially increase capacity further, but that is not an argument for doing all or nothing. "Politics is the art of the possible".

 

[Killingworth]

As I read all these ideas I cast my mind back to when trains terminated at stations like St Pancras, Kings Cross, London Bridge, Paddington Liverrpool Street, Waterloo and Victoria. More than 100 years ago an underground system was built to connect them, much of it below sea level and the River Thames. It's now ancient and in need of expensive maintenance and upgrading to improver capacity, but it works. More recently north-south Thameslink has been opened and is being used as an example of how things should be done in the north - but without it being done underground?

Biliions are being spent on east-west Crossrail, the critical bits underground.

When will the penny drop? There is no satisfactory solution for transporting millions of people into, through and around Manchester on the surface. It will. cost truly billions, but a serties of tunnels to connect north and south, east and west, is going to have to be built sooner or later. The nettle has to be grasped if rail capacity is to be materially increased. Keep the trams on the surface, but get this through traffic underground.

Of course it won't happen. No money. More important priorities. I'll go back to sleep. It was just a dream

 

[Purple Orange]

Think they are viewed as Regional Express

Not in the mind of fare paying passengers, which is what counts. A seat on board a 125 mph capable train from Liverpool to Edinburgh, that looks and feels just like the 125 mph capable trains from/to London, is intercity,

 

[Jozhua]

Not a good enough plan to build a huge expensive project for the shorter term. How can building these platforms help the capacity of the city for the next 20 years, a longer term plan is needed e.g. flyover construction or look to where we started e.g. Manchester Victoria that is 40% of the size it was in 1992.

This project is both for short and long term benefit, in fact I'd argue that proves its worth. The fact it is needed today and would be put to good use, shows how much it needs to happen.

How will HS2, HS3 or even HS4 or whatever hot air the Dft want to tout going to help with the cross city local commuting services? What about the lack of Manchester bound services that cannot terminate from the West? At least the 6 through platforms at Victoria provided good capacity for terminating services that would quickly return on their original path.

Exactly ^

For me, the only time I use Castlefield is to connect from the North West of Manchester to services going southbound/eastbound.

How much do you think the MEN site is worth?
And Victoria is not the best place for traffic to go.

As much as people want to restore this idea of multiple independent stations in Manchester, all resources should be focussed on concentrating all services into the Castlefield Corridor.

It is far better than Victoria in terms of engagement with other public transport, especially Oxford Road, and ideally I want passengers to be able to change from every train service to any other train service in one jump.

Make the Clapham Junction of the North West essentially.
I would take it as far as preferring HS2 Classic Compatible services to the North West run via Manchester Airport and providing a connection to the Styal Line, so that those trains can all run via Oxford Road.

So, yeah they've been doing this and I don't think it has worked out too well so far...

Your idea would probably need platforms 15,16,17,18,19,20...

But you are right in the fact Castlefield and beyond is the area many passengers want to go coming in from the West vs Victoria.

Hopefully we'll get 3/4 extra paths, with the addition of a terminal bay at Oxford Road, along with considerably more reliability. These can be divvied up among the local commuter routes. Perhaps one extra Liverpool, Ordsall Chord and Bolton direction, with the Airport, Termination at Oxford Road and some place in Cheshire looking at things east wise.

Look at London, do you want to have a focus on a single station there? Manchester may double in size in the next 50 to 70 years where is your plan? Are we only doing the short term these days? Unless you have a budget of multiple billion Manchester needs more than one key station. Victoria former land is worth a great deal I concur is shows what a strategic failure selling off the land in the early 90's was. Has anything been learned from this lack of planning I doubt it....

London has an existing mass transit system in the tube and is still spending billions more on Crossrail. Plus, Thameslink bridges the North/South devide between the stations. Also Kings Cross, Euston and St Pancras are basically next to each other!

Victoria is still an important station and I reckon there's room to squeeze a couple more trains in an hour, perhaps by adding terminating platforms at the west side, beyond the building where currently sidings are. That and longer trains, which are coming in the form of the TPEX Novas and Northern 195/331

I don't think the importance of Manchester as a place to change trains should be underestimated. Most routes from anywhere to the west of Manchester need a change in Manchester to get to anywhere in Yorkshire and the North East. It's largely irrelevant which of Piccadilly or Victoria are more convenient for what, as one or the other will always be better for some people. Although a large chunk of the city centre is slap bang in the middle of them! Being able to change to other routes is important though, and a tram or bus between the two is slow and inconvenient. Through rail services from Victoria to Piccadilly was a great idea, for convenience and splitting passenger load. It needs improving, not scrapping in my opinion.

This is true! Ordsall Chord was never a terrible idea as part of the original scheme. However, when the vital capacity improvements needed to ensure the extra Ordsall Chord traffic wouldn't cripple the network was cancelled, the Ordsall Chord has never lived up to its full potential and the Castlefield Corridor has been in continuous chaos.

Metrolink is good for travel within GM, but just doesn't cut it as a solution to get across the city really. In fact, I'd say the city centre sections of Metrolink are it's weakest part, both Capacity-Wise and Speed-Wise.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Do you mean Red Bank Paul?

Indeed I did. How age catches up with you...

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Metrolink is good for travel within GM, but just doesn't cut it as a solution to get across the city really. In fact, I'd say the city centre sections of Metrolink are it's weakest part, both Capacity-Wise and Speed-Wise.

This totally disregards the advantages now available to the users of the Manchester Metrolink system in the city core area that were not available prior to its introduction:-

Shudehill and Piccadilly Gardens both offer connections to adjacent bus stations.

Exchange Square, Market Street and St Peters Square offer facilities for visitors, shoppers and city centre workers.

 

[mmh]

This totally disregards the advantages now available to the users of the Manchester Metrolink system in the city core area that were not available prior to its introduction:-

Shudehill and Piccadilly Gardens both offer connections to adjacent bus stations.

Exchange Square, Market Street and St Peters Square offer facilities for visitors, shoppers and city centre workers.

It's not ignoring that, it's simply pointing out that the city centre sections of Metrolink are slow and crowded, which they are.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It's not ignoring that, it's simply pointing out that the city centre sections of Metrolink are slow and crowded, which they are.

I have yet to hear complaints from fellow travellers, especially noting the number of jaywalking pedestrians or those with headphones on listening to music or those captivated by what is shown on the screens on the "smart?" phones that form a daily bane of life for drivers of these trams in the city core.

 

[Clip]

I have yet to hear complaints from fellow travellers, especially noting the number of jaywalking pedestrians or those with headphones on listening to music or those captivated by what is shown on the screens on the "smart?" phones that form a daily bane of life for drivers of these trams in the city core.

For many of them its the only solution but lets be honest cross city on the trams is slow. Much slower than a heavy rail solution.

Of course it won't happen. No money. More important priorities. I'll go back to sleep. It was just a dream

With the amount of money thats been thrown at Manchester in the last 10-15 years from developers - if the council had the sense to put a levy on them and other businesses then im pretty sure they couldve borrowed the money for building of whatever they wanted.

I mean ive even paid for the Olympics and businesses here have contributed towards crossrail so why dont other places do the same? If they do then i apologise in advance

 

[sportzbar]

It's not ignoring that, it's simply pointing out that the city centre sections of Metrolink are slow and crowded, which they are.

Slow and crowded they may be but (as a frequent user of the service between Picc and Vic), with a tram every 12 mins and a journey that takes around 10 mins I'd say from experience its a more reliable way to cross between the two stations than using the rail link.

 

[The Ham]

You might think that, but there is actually a plan to build a rival arena next to Manchester City's ground. The council are backing it in the belief, mistaken in my opinion, that the city can support two large arenas. If it turns out it can't, the existing Arena site might become vacant very quickly. Unfortunately for the railway it'll be worth a fortune for other development nowadays.

However any future development would have to demonstrate how it would expect people to get to/from it. They may then be willing to provide land space for additional platforms so that they can show that they are able to get a lot of people in and out by rail.

Yes they'd lose quite a bit of space, however if they provide retail units with connectivity to the station then the losses would be made up by the extra footfall past the retail units.

 

[Mogster]

I have yet to hear complaints from fellow travellers, especially noting the number of jaywalking pedestrians or those with headphones on listening to music or those captivated by what is shown on the screens on the "smart?" phones that form a daily bane of life for drivers of these trams in the city core.

At least the cross city railway totally avoids the traffic armageddon situations that occur periodically in central Manchester. The trams just end up joining in and the network becomes paralysed. Then there’s the weekly instances of someone trying to drive out of the city via the tram tracks and beaching their car, don’t get me started on that...

 

[B&I]

Slow and crowded they may be but (as a frequent user of the service between Picc and Vic), with a tram every 12 mins and a journey that takes around 10 mins I'd say from experience its a more reliable way to cross between the two stations than using the rail link.

There are low bars, and there are low bars

 

[B&I]

However any future development would have to demonstrate how it would expect people to get to/from it. They may then be willing to provide land space for additional platforms so that they can show that they are able to get a lot of people in and out by rail.

Yes they'd lose quite a bit of space, however if they provide retail units with connectivity to the station then the losses would be made up by the extra footfall past the retail units.

Space for a huge new circulation space over the platforms, and a Liverpool Street-style development above that, I would have thought. It would not be physically possible for it to be darker and less attractive than the present platform 3-6 area.

 

[B&I]

As I read all these ideas I cast my mind back to when trains terminated at stations like St Pancras, Kings Cross, London Bridge, Paddington Liverrpool Street, Waterloo and Victoria. More than 100 years ago an underground system was built to connect them, much of it below sea level and the River Thames. It's now ancient and in need of expensive maintenance and upgrading to improver capacity, but it works. More recently north-south Thameslink has been opened and is being used as an example of how things should be done in the north - but without it being done underground?

Biliions are being spent on east-west Crossrail, the critical bits underground.

When will the penny drop? There is no satisfactory solution for transporting millions of people into, through and around Manchester on the surface. It will. cost truly billions, but a serties of tunnels to connect north and south, east and west, is going to have to be built sooner or later. The nettle has to be grasped if rail capacity is to be materially increased. Keep the trams on the surface, but get this through traffic underground.

Of course it won't happen. No money. More important priorities. I'll go back to sleep. It was just a dream

Manchester does have an existing equivalent to Thameslink in the form of the Victoria-Ordsall-Castlefield-Piccadilly line, or at least it would if long distance trains were taken off it. You might think that, properly developed, this would be a useful local route through the city, serving stations within a short distance of most of the city centre ans connecting to its 2 main long distance stations, though a surprising number of people on here seem to feel life without a direct service to Oxford Road is not worth living

 

[B&I]

You might think that, but there is actually a plan to build a rival arena next to Manchester City's ground. The council are backing it in the belief, mistaken in my opinion, that the city can support two large arenas. If it turns out it can't, the existing Arena site might become vacant very quickly. Unfortunately for the railway it'll be worth a fortune for other development nowadays.

Added development around the Emptyhad might provide a justification for a new station on the Phillips Park line in addition to Metrolink, providing somewhere for local services from west of Victoria to go (particularly if accompanied by extra terminating platforms at Piccadilly)

 

[_toommm_]

Manchester does have an existing equivalent to Thameslink in the form of the Victoria-Ordsall-Castlefield-Piccadilly line, or at least it would if long distance trains were taken off it. You might think that, properly developed, this would be a useful local route through the city, serving stations within a short distance of most of the city centre ans connecting to its 2 main long distance stations, though a surprising number of people on here seem to feel life without a direct service to Oxford Road is not worth living

The Ordsall Chord would be great as Manchester's version of the Cardiff Bay shuttle, as you said if the long distance services came off it.

 

[Purple Orange]

Manchester does have an existing equivalent to Thameslink in the form of the Victoria-Ordsall-Castlefield-Piccadilly line, or at least it would if long distance trains were taken off it. You might think that, properly developed, this would be a useful local route through the city, serving stations within a short distance of most of the city centre ans connecting to its 2 main long distance stations, though a surprising number of people on here seem to feel life without a direct service to Oxford Road is not worth living

Exactly. That corridor is a metro system waiting to happen. P13-16(!) could be a separate network from the main shed. Actually it might be worth grouping P10-12 in there too as part of that metro network, with P1-9 dedicated to national rail, alongside the HS2 and NPR platforms.

 

[Jozhua]

It's not ignoring that, it's simply pointing out that the city centre sections of Metrolink are slow and crowded, which they are.

Yes, that was my main point. The areas and facilities they serve are absolutely fine.

I have yet to hear complaints from fellow travellers, especially noting the number of jaywalking pedestrians or those with headphones on listening to music or those captivated by what is shown on the screens on the "smart?" phones that form a daily bane of life for drivers of these trams in the city core.

Yes, but the streets the trams navigate are far too busy as it is. The section of Market Street next to Primark is an accident waiting to happen. People are crushed into a tiny section of pavement, inevitably spilling over to the tram tracks. Trams wizz by centimetres away from pedestrians on the street, with the driver having limited view down the full train.

This is my issue though, the trams have to navigate tight city streets and are typically crowded. The ticketing system does also not link into the NR network as well as it should.

Manchester does have an existing equivalent to Thameslink in the form of the Victoria-Ordsall-Castlefield-Piccadilly line, or at least it would if long distance trains were taken off it. You might think that, properly developed, this would be a useful local route through the city, serving stations within a short distance of most of the city centre ans connecting to its 2 main long distance stations, though a surprising number of people on here seem to feel life without a direct service to Oxford Road is not worth living

Where are all the long distance trains to go? Non Ordsall Chord TPE services on the WCML make sense to use Castlefield. There isn't enough capacity at Victoria or Piccadilly for this stuff, meaning we're back to square one of building more platforms.

 

[HSTEd]

I am a lot confused about why we are trying to draw a hard line between local and long distance trains.

There aren't really long distance trains as they understand them in the rest of the world in the UK now.
About the only ones are things like the Highland Chieftain/Northern Lights/Caledonian Sleeper.

Our railway operates a compact, high density network for the most part.
HS2 will make this even more clear by cutting travel times on the prime "intercity routes" such that they become far more like regional services elsewhere.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Yes, but the streets the trams navigate are far too busy as it is. The section of Market Street next to Primark is an accident waiting to happen. People are crushed into a tiny section of pavement, inevitably spilling over to the tram tracks. Trams wizz by centimetres away from pedestrians on the street, with the driver having limited view down the full train.

I just cannot believe that you are not aware that pavements exist on BOTH sides of the island platform of Market Street. One on the Debenhams side and the other on the Primark side. I honestly think the conversation that views the Manchester Metrolink system as just something of a connection between the Piccadilly and Victoria stations totally ignores the fact that this tramway system in the core area of the city fulfils far more useful needs for other purposes than heavy rail connection.

I would be interested to know the annual passenger footfall at the following inner city core tram stops:-
Exchange Square
Shudehill
Market Street
Piccadilly Gardens
St Peters Square
Deansgate-Castlefield

Look at how other locations have opened and extended new tramway systems in Croydon, Sheffield, Nottingham, Birmingham and Edinburgh and the annual passenger usage on these. Links to heavy rail stations are often noted. Even the Blackpool Tramway now has a modern fleet of trams and their system now includes a connection with Blackpool North railway station.

Tramways have made their mark to fulfil supplementary city centre travel needs that did not exist in recent times, noting Blackpool never gave up its trams as others once did.

 

[Killingworth]

Manchester does have an existing equivalent to Thameslink in the form of the Victoria-Ordsall-Castlefield-Piccadilly line, or at least it would if long distance trains were taken off it. You might think that, properly developed, this would be a useful local route through the city, serving stations within a short distance of most of the city centre ans connecting to its 2 main long distance stations, though a surprising number of people on here seem to feel life without a direct service to Oxford Road is not worth living

That's the whole point of what I was saying. Manchester does not have Crossrail or Thameslink routes beneath the centre. In congested cities that's the only way it can be done to provide fast connections. Tunnerls can have all sorts of flyovers twisting below ground. I was in Oslo recently where the main station is near the sea, but a tunnel runs beneath the city for over 2 miles. It's only 40 years old but is proving inadequate! On the modern fast line to Oslo Airport the Romerike Tunnel is over 9 miles long. Norwegians tunnel everywhere. (Oslo is smaller than Manchester.) The Swiss have been tunnelling for longer ditances and for well over a century.

We do tunnelling, but make it seem very hard work. However, Crossrail shows it can be done, eventually, at a price! 13 miles of tunnels runing east to west below London. Why not across and below Manchester? The geology below London is difficuit and it's mostly beow sea level and the Thames. Our ancestors managed some long railway tunnels, including the undergrounds in London and Glasgow, with smaller sections in Liverpool and more recently in Newcastle.

Instead of messing about wiith complex little schemes threadiing lines between surface buildings with conflicting junctions and Victorian infrastructure, go under, brand new. Forget all the nostalgic yearning for reopening tottuous old lines on the surface into the centre - go under all the way to a Central Manchester fully electrified central hub.

Where's the vision? The post Brexit Great Britain can surely aspire to more than patching up all these old tracks witn a patchwork of Heath Robinson additions?

HS2? I'd consider Criss-Cross Manchester, CCM, of more use to the north!

 

[Jozhua]

I just cannot believe that you are not aware that pavements exist on BOTH sides of the island platform of Market Street. One on the Debenhams side and the other on the Primark side. I honestly think the conversation that views the Manchester Metrolink system as just something of a connection between the Piccadilly and Victoria stations totally ignores the fact that this tramway system in the core area of the city fulfils far more useful needs for other purposes than heavy rail connection.

I would be interested to know the annual passenger footfall at the following inner city core tram stops:-
Exchange Square
Shudehill
Market Street
Piccadilly Gardens
St Peters Square
Deansgate-Castlefield

Look at how other locations have opened and extended new tramway systems in Croydon, Sheffield, Nottingham, Birmingham and Edinburgh and the annual passenger usage on these. Links to heavy rail stations are often noted. Even the Blackpool Tramway now has a modern fleet of trams and their system now includes a connection with Blackpool North railway station.

Tramways have made their mark to fulfil supplementary city centre travel needs that did not exist in recent times, noting Blackpool never gave up its trams as others once did.

I'm aware pavement runs on both sides and on both sides it is overcrowded and dangerous!

Anyway, my point isn't the merits of Metrolink as a whole, but as an alternative for heavy rail. I think Metrolink is a fantastic service and what has been created with the limited funding available is a proud achievement for Manchester.

However, for the purposes of this conversation, we were analysing it's ability to move people between Piccadilly and Victoria, in place of improved Castlefield capacity. This, it does a Mediocre job of at best. Metrolink serves Manchester itself better than it serves connecting passengers trying to get across the city.

 

[B&I]

That's the whole point of what I was saying. Manchester does not have Crossrail or Thameslink routes beneath the centre. In congested cities that's the only way it can be done to provide fast connections. Tunnerls can have all sorts of flyovers twisting below ground. I was in Oslo recently where the main station is near the sea, but a tunnel runs beneath the city for over 2 miles. It's only 40 years old but is proving inadequate! On the modern fast line to Oslo Airport the Romerike Tunnel is over 9 miles long. Norwegians tunnel everywhere. (Oslo is smaller than Manchester.) The Swiss have been tunnelling for longer ditances and for well over a century.

We do tunnelling, but make it seem very hard work. However, Crossrail shows it can be done, eventually, at a price! 13 miles of tunnels runing east to west below London. Why not across and below Manchester? The geology below London is difficuit and it's mostly beow sea level and the Thames. Our ancestors managed some long railway tunnels, including the undergrounds in London and Glasgow, with smaller sections in Liverpool and more recently in Newcastle.

Instead of messing about wiith complex little schemes threadiing lines between surface buildings with conflicting junctions and Victorian infrastructure, go under, brand new. Forget all the nostalgic yearning for reopening tottuous old lines on the surface into the centre - go under all the way to a Central Manchester fully electrified central hub.

Where's the vision? The post Brexit Great Britain can surely aspire to more than patching up all these old tracks witn a patchwork of Heath Robinson additions?

HS2? I'd consider Criss-Cross Manchester, CCM, of more use to the north!

It perplexes me as well that we have so much more difficulty in this country with certain (actually, make that any) infrastructure, compared to most other advanced countries. As the same laws of physics apply here as elsewhere, I assume it.must be something to do with our political, administrative and economic systems

 

[B&I]

I am a lot confused about why we are trying to draw a hard line between local and long distance trains.

There aren't really long distance trains as they understand them in the rest of the world in the UK now.
About the only ones are things like the Highland Chieftain/Northern Lights/Caledonian Sleeper.

Our railway operates a compact, high density network for the most part.
HS2 will make this even more clear by cutting travel times on the prime "intercity routes" such that they become far more like regional services elsewhere.

Don't know about other people, but one of the points I am trying to make is that we need additional infrastructure to create more of.a distinction between.local and long distance trains. In far too many places, the same trains are expected to provide both local and long distance services, making a good job of neither. Where separate local and long distance services do exist, they are often forced to share the same tracks, to the detriment of capacity and workability

 

[B&I]

Where are all the long distance trains to go? Non Ordsall Chord TPE services on the WCML make sense to use Castlefield. There isn't enough capacity at Victoria or Piccadilly for this stuff, meaning we're back to square one of building more platforms.

Into a tunnel and under the city centre. Assuming we don't want to see radical service cuts to a service which is already inadequate for a city of its size, Manchester needs new infrastructure