Potential ways round the Castlefield problem

[cle]

I can't see what we can propose that wouldn't be small fry. A change in government might see Andy Burnham more successful in his lobbying - or indeed return to government in some capacity - but for now we can't even get those piddly platforms at Salford Central built back up, let alone big civils like P15/16 or dreams of tunnels. Or a CLC Cornbrook station (or terminus!)

Or what I'd prefer - CLC to tram and Merseyrail.

But for now, it has to be service allocations, pairings, simplification at the loss of 'everywhere gets Vic, Picc and Airport' - and an understanding that more people use Manchester's railway to access Manchester, than to change. London, Paris, others have multiple stations - Manchester is a grown up now, and people can deal with it. And often places like Preston, Crewe, Stockport, Warrington and Wigan... will offer the same changes.

CLC loses all regional trains. 4-6tph (debate the patterns) all call at Deansgate, and all run to the Airport.
Southport - only to Victoria, same with Chester/North Wales.
Only 2tph from Bolton way to Piccadilly, and Airport.
Only other Airport services are 1-2 TPE. Pattern along there to be debates, but harmonized agnostic to whatever the service becomes west of Picc.
Wires to Rochdale to support EMUs from the west, in addition to Stalybridge, for Bolton and Wigan line services, Liverpool too.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If we were only allowed to have one station in addition to Piccadilly, I wouldn’t hesitate to close Oxford Road solely because we can’t afford to lose connectivity with the Metrolink and closing Oxford Road would certainly eliminate terminating services.

One of the biggest destinations in Manchester is the University campus, so don't be silly

What might make sense would be constructing a replacement between the two as a two platform station with an entrance and exit at both ends. Would require closing some roads though.

 

[Helvellyn]

If the Pic-Vic tunnel had been built in the 1970s how many services using Castlefield would have been using the tunnel instead?

 

[Bletchleyite]

If the Pic-Vic tunnel had been built in the 1970s how many services using Castlefield would have been using the tunnel instead?

Relatively few, it was more of a Metrolink substitute.

 

[507020]

Manchester is a grown up now, and people can deal with it. And often places like Preston, Crewe, Stockport, Warrington and Wigan... will offer the same changes.

Fair enough, but give us access to Preston, Crewe, Stockport, Warrington and Wigan. From most places, at least one of these is probably inaccessible and others are accessible only via Manchester, the main issue being Sheffield.

Southport - only to Victoria

Not at all.

One of the biggest destinations in Manchester is the University campus, so don't be silly

What might make sense would be constructing a replacement between the two as a two platform station with an entrance and exit at both ends. Would require closing some roads though.

That is primarily why Oxford Road exists, but doesn’t explain why it is so bad.

Would this hypothetical station have long platforms, that would allow 12 car trains to call in future? In that case it might be worth it.

Relatively few, it was more of a Metrolink substitute.

Given that it was a Picc-Vic tunnel, not an Alty-Vic tunnel, it was more of an Ordsall Chord substitute and would have carried the same services that should now be using the Ordsall Chord, if only there was capacity.

When the Metrolink was being planned, the Windsor Link had just opened and it was decided to free up Castlefield the first time by diverting Altrincham services literally into the street. If the Picc-Vic tunnel had happened but Metrolink hadn’t, these would still be using Castlefield.

 

[CAF397]

There's a disused Viaduct before Ardwick Jn that runs towards the Ashburys-Philips Park direction.

It would be a significant rebuild, but a few extra platforms on the Platform 1 side of Piccadilly, and you could run 2-3 trains per hour out of Piccadilly, towards Philips Park and Victoria towards some Bolton line destinations (Preston, Wigan, Southport).

The "only" capacity required at Piccadilly is to and from Ardwick Jn, and could be 'flighted'

 

[507020]

There's a disused Viaduct before Ardwick Jn that runs towards the Ashburys-Philips Park direction.

It would be a significant rebuild, but a few extra platforms on the Platform 1 side of Piccadilly, and you could run 2-3 trains per hour out of Piccadilly, towards Philips Park and Victoria towards some Bolton line destinations (Preston, Wigan, Southport).

The "only" capacity required at Piccadilly is to and from Ardwick Jn, and could be 'flighted'

HS2 also intends to build a few extra platforms on the low numbered side of Piccadilly and as much as I wouldn’t mind Southport - Piccadilly that way, crossing or sharing those might be problematic.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There's a disused Viaduct before Ardwick Jn that runs towards the Ashburys-Philips Park direction.

It would be a significant rebuild, but a few extra platforms on the Platform 1 side of Piccadilly, and you could run 2-3 trains per hour out of Piccadilly, towards Philips Park and Victoria towards some Bolton line destinations (Preston, Wigan, Southport).

The "only" capacity required at Piccadilly is to and from Ardwick Jn, and could be 'flighted'

I long thought that, other than for want of serving Ringway*, reinstating that and adding some more trainshed platforms to Picc would have made more sense than Ordsall. Then the likes of Southport and Blackpool could have served both Picc and Vic (though at the loss of Oxford Road).

* That is, the airport, I haven't said that for a while so thought I'd throw it in

 

[Manutd1999]

One big improvement is the plan to re-model Oxford Road to have 1x (or maybe 2?) central bay platforms, removing the current conflict where trains have to cross both lines to enter/exit the bay. With that in place, ~12ph through Castlefield should be fairly comfortable, with 2-4ph terminating at Oxford Rd.

There are basically two options, unless you're going to spend an absolute fortune 4-tracking it and providing flyovers for Ordsall Lane and the Chord.

1. Move the long distance services elsewhere, and turn it into something a lot more like Merseyrail, the Lizzie or Thameslink, as indeed it basically was up until the 1990s.
2. Move the local services elsewhere, and turn it into a long distance only piece of infrastructure.

It's impossible to please everyone, but I think a sensible compromise between these two extremes is possible with the current infrastructure.

I'd try to have everything paired up to run at half-hourly intervals:

2ph Oxford Road - Warrington
2ph Airport - Leeds - somewhere
2ph Hazel Grove - Bolton - Blackpool
2ph Airport - Bolton - Lakes/Scotland
2ph Airport - Liverpool (1x via Chat Moss, 1x via CLC)
1ph freight
1ph Liverpool - Sheffield

Southport and North Wales are the big losers. Southport would an even half-hourly service to Victoria instead. North Wales would either terminate at Victoria, or ideally be routed via the Mid Cheshire line to Piccadilly.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Another option that hasn't been suggested is to, 1) combine running Wigan/Southport in from the east and, 2) get rid of most of the Airport through services, and run them from Mayfield, with a footbridge and escalator from that station to P13/14 first plus the main station, rebuilding of that viaduct and Slade Lane Jn.

Mayfield could then be used as a potential tunnel portal for future services.

Sorry meant to say, Mayfield to Salford Crescent tunnel with a stop somewhere in the city centre.

 

[daodao]

One big improvement is the plan to re-model Oxford Road to have 1x (or maybe 2?) central bay platforms, removing the current conflict where trains have to cross both lines to enter/exit the bay. With that in place, ~12ph through Castlefield should be fairly comfortable, with 2-4ph terminating at Oxford Rd.



It's impossible to please everyone, but I think a sensible compromise between these two extremes is possible with the current infrastructure.

I'd try to have everything paired up to run at half-hourly intervals:

2ph Oxford Road - Warrington
2ph Airport - Leeds - somewhere
2ph Hazel Grove - Bolton - Blackpool
2ph Airport - Bolton - Lakes/Scotland
2ph Airport - Liverpool (1x via Chat Moss, 1x via CLC)
1ph freight
1ph Liverpool - Sheffield

Southport and North Wales are the big losers. Southport would an even half-hourly service to Victoria instead. North Wales would either terminate at Victoria, or ideally be routed via the Mid Cheshire line to Piccadilly.

Much of the above seems reasonable, apart from the 2tph Airport-Leeds-somewhere and the 2tph Airport-Bolton-Lakes/Scotland. The number one priority, as at @Bletchleyite has put forward, is to remove ALL long-distance services from the Castlefield route. These are all services from Cumbria/Scotland/North Wales/Yorkshire/North-East England, which should terminate at Victoria, or in some cases run through along the Chat Moss line if originating from the Standedge line. Services from Rochdale and beyond should be linked to services via Salford Crescent. I would mothball the Ordsall curve for scheduled passenger trains. Connections from Yorkshire to Manchester Airport could be maintained by terminating some Standedge line services at Piccadilly; passengers for Manchester Airport from north of Preston could change there.

The Castlefield line should be for local services within historic Cheshire/Lancashire only, ideally running on a half-hourly pattern. Apart from services to/from the CLC line, all the passenger trains should be electric only, so all services from Southport/Kirkby, Blackburn/Clitheroe and Barrow/Windermere should run to Victoria only. The only possible exception is a Liverpool-Sheffield service via the CLC line, Stockport and the Hope Valley, as such a service has no practical alternative routing. However, such a service should probably be self-contained, and not extend beyond Sheffield, otherwise delays could be imported from further afield, thus compromising the robustness of the timetable.

 

[Manutd1999]

The Castlefield line should be for local services within historic Cheshire/Lancashire only

Why would historical county boundaries have any impact on the service pattern?

part from services to/from the CLC line, all the passenger trains should be electric only

Agreed. My proposed services meet this criteria, assuming bi-modes can be used on the Leeds and Lake District services.

 

[AndrewE]

Surely the reinstatement of permissive working on P13/14 at Piccadilly, as is still commonplace in the main shed, is something that could be done immediately to massive increase capacity.

With longer trains it'd be of less benefit now - in the past you sometimes had three 2-car DMUs boarding at once there, but a single 6-car Blackpool would block it all anyway.

Those platforms always feel long to me, and aren't there signals half way along? That would allow 2 trains in each without permissive working. I'm surprised that 2 trains in a platform is is seen as an issue as we rarely get 6-car trains (in my experience) and increasing the units working local trains to 4 or 5 cars might be more economical than major infrastructure improvements.

 

[jfollows]

Those platforms always feel long to me, and aren't there signals half way along? That would allow 2 trains in each without permissive working. I'm surprised that 2 trains in a platform is is seen as an issue as we rarely get 6-car trains (in my experience) and increasing the units working local trains to 4 or 5 cars might be more economical than major infrastructure improvements.

The issue is that the first train usually occupies the overlap of the mid-platform signal, and therefore the following train can't be allowed into (or towards) the platform until the first train has departed and at least cleared the overlap.
https://www.simsig.co.uk/Wiki/Show?page=simulations:manchesterpiccadilly has more words on the subject.

I posted a diagram also at https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...row-express-type-shuttle.246415/#post-6156336

So the mid-platform signals only generally allow the following train to move forward slightly sooner than would have been possible without them.

 

[cle]

I don’t understand the Southport fetish. It’s a terminus of a fairly rural line beyond Wigan, which itself does require an intensive service from this, Kirkby and terminators. Means to an end. But it’s not a meaningful source of regular Manchester traffic or in its hinterland/TTW at all. It’s really slow. Nothing against the place itself but it’s bottom of the heap to this discussion.

Issue relocating Oxford Road is access from said road. The station forecourt does a good job, plus the steps up. If it was moved to a compromise location, it might need high capacity lifts, new very steep stairs and wouldn’t have the level boarding from the old Cornerhouse direction.

It’s also a corner of the city centre, beyond the Uni. Many many jobs and cultural attractions are within a 5-10 min walk.

North Wales - I think should consolidate at Victoria. There is already the Leeds-Chester so something to build upon, including a consistent Manchester terminus for WBQ, Frodsham etc - as its diesel, Rochdale or Bradford/Brighouse/Leeds beckon as onward solves. Via Northwich is too slow and leaves the aforementioned stations short.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I don’t understand the Southport fetish. It’s a terminus of a fairly rural line beyond Wigan, which itself does require an intensive service from this, Kirkby and terminators. Means to an end. But it’s not a meaningful source of regular Manchester traffic or in its hinterland/TTW at all. It’s really slow. Nothing against the place itself but it’s bottom of the heap to this discussion.

The Southport fetish actually works both ways. It's often an issue on this site to assume that the outer terminus of a route is the most important location being served by that route but that is often far from true. In this case Southport is operationally a convenient place to terminate but nearly all of the outward demand is from Burscough Bridge eastwards. While Covid has certainly changed demand patterns nevertheless there is still a demand for TTW services from Burscough/Parbold/Appley Bridge, all of which are beyond the Greater Manchester boundary, to Manchester city centre including destinations around Oxford Road, hence the continuing demand for a Castlefield service. If connections at Bolton/Salford Crescent could actually be relied on then it wouldn't be such an emotive issue but for the most part they can't.

As this is a speculative thread I would suggest the solutions which would actually make services through the corridor pleasant to use include some or all of the following: 4-tracking the corridor, cross-city tunnel, grade separating key junctions (including some further afield like Euxton), all-out electrification, no trains less than 4x23m in length. Sadly the reality is that Manchester is not London and will therefore not receive the level of DfT support needed to provide a quality solution. Instead different schemes around the north have to compete for whatever funding is available leading to a lot of "half-jobs".

 

[Bantamzen]

The Southport fetish actually works both ways. It's often an issue on this site to assume that the outer terminus of a route is the most important location being served by that route but that is often far from true. In this case Southport is operationally a convenient place to terminate but nearly all of the outward demand is from Burscough Bridge eastwards. While Covid has certainly changed demand patterns nevertheless there is still a demand for TTW services from Burscough/Parbold/Appley Bridge, all of which are beyond the Greater Manchester boundary, to Manchester city centre including destinations around Oxford Road, hence the continuing demand for a Castlefield service. If connections at Bolton/Salford Crescent could actually be relied on then it wouldn't be such an emotive issue but for the most part they can't.

That last bit actually got me thinking, is the problem all Castlefield, or is there also an element of a missing link on Metrolink? Because just like Castlefield, Metrolink has it's own chokepoint between St Peter's Square and Cornbrook and one that makes Deansgate all the more useful as an interchange from a variety of services from the north west.

Maybe a bit of outside-the-box thinking is needed. Keep in mind this is all in large, colourful Crayolas and is in no way costed other than in my frazzled mind, but perhaps a more north-south Metrolink line running from/through Salford, central Manchester, Oxford Road, the university and beyond. This would possibly relive a bit of pressure from Castlefield by offering another potential interchange point at Salford Crescent, reduce the pressure on Oxford Road for the university and possibly beyond. Then fewer services would need to use Deansgate, longer distance services could avoid both Deansgate and Oxford Road, plus as a bonus the Metrolink could run in a similar direction as the Styal Line to relive pressure on that too.

Wow, that was easy. Move over Burnham, let a Yorkshireman sort tha'problems...

 

[cle]

Oxford and Wilmslow Roads as Met has been looked at, and it was deemed almost too busy - i.e. it coulnd't replace all the buses, and there are too many of them to co-exist. A tram would likely skirt the campus down Upper Brook Street and end up at East Didsbury. Catchment spheres would be more 'mixed' - it might enable Mauldeth Road and Burnage stations to close however - solving some of the eternal stopping pattern debates on the Airport line.

I'd think this would be the only corridor in Manchester which could justify a light metro / tube line in Manchester - pick a Didsbury, and either west through to Northenden/Airport, or village and either to Parrs Wood, or all the way over to Stockport. Or a combination and fully take over airport local stops.

 

[HSTEd]

Oxford and Wilmslow Roads as Met has been looked at, and it was deemed almost too busy - i.e. it coulnd't replace all the buses, and there are too many of them to co-exist.

Those studies have made some assumptions that I am not sure are fully supported though, for example they did not consider short-turning services on Oxford Road in the vicinity of All Saints Park (which is far enough North to absorb all the uni related traffic from the south).

I think 20-25 double length trams an hour would do a substantially better job than the current bus arrangements, considering what a mess they are post-Coronavirus.

 

[cle]

The buses are a complete mess too, don't get me wrong. But where would 20+ trams all go at either end? You'd need East and West Didsbury branches Buses do disperse a little easier... and the stretch through Rusholme with a tram would be interesting. Withington is narrow too.

 

[HSTEd]

The buses are a complete mess too, don't get me wrong. But where would 20+ trams all go at either end? You'd need East and West Didsbury branches Buses do disperse a little easier... and the stretch through Rusholme with a tram would be interesting. Withington is narrow too.

They don't necessarily "have" to go anywhere, ultimately a very large fraction of traffic on the corridor is between Didsbury/Fallowfield and the Universities. There is no reason you cannot run short service tram shuttles in that area and only run a fraction of the trams beyond that.

A substantial fraction of the buses just stop in Didsbury after all. 143 and 147 stop at West Didsbury Metrolink, a kilometre after diverging from the (1)42 buses, and only 400m from that route. You could just have the tram route at the south end join the very end of the existing Didsbury line for the run to Parrs Wood, which allows you take much of the traffic from the 142s as well.

 

[Austriantrain]

Given that a large part of the Castlefield corridor is through soon-to-be-condemned university campus or adjacent to roads, I'd prefer to force a four track route through and be done with it.

How many more trains could be run on a four-tracked Castlefield corridor without grade-separating all those flat junctions at its western end? I suspect very few - and those grade-separations would likely be even more costly and complicated than the four-tracking itself.

Probably all of the capacity benefit that can be achieved with keeping these flat junctions could be achieved with „only“ two equivalent platforms per direction at Piccadilly, Oxford Road and Deansgate.

 

[HSTEd]

How many more trains could be run on a four-tracked Castlefield corridor without grade-separating all those flat junctions at its western end? I suspect very few - and those grade-separations would likely be even more costly and complicated than the four-tracking itself.

Four tracking would defacto grade seperate some of the junctions as the lines would be paired by use.

Once you rationalised away the access to the west from Victoria then you'd also have a lot more room.

 

[py_megapixel]

Four tracking would defacto grade seperate some of the junctions as the lines would be paired by use.

You'd then have to fudge the service pattern a bit to keep the Airport service consolidated in one place at Piccadilly, and I'm not sure this would be practical.

Maybe that's not important though - perhaps the best thing would be to just abolish TOC-specific fares between Picc/Oxford Rd and the airport (so everyone just gets the next train) and then have a big electronic sign which says "Next Airport train - platform X"

 

[Krokodil]

To solve the Castlefield corridor dilemma I would also throw into the mix whether Deansgate and Oxford Road are both required.

This is tricky, because Deansgate has the Metrolink connection, but Oxford Road sees more passengers board/alight/change.

But both stations add to the congestion.

Given the amount of time that I spend sat waiting at Deansgate for a platform at Oxford Road, it almost seems worth making all trains call there anyway, just to get rid of a few passengers and reduce the dwell time when you finally do move forward. Could do with a signal between the Deansgate Up Starter and the pair of crossovers just before Oxford Road, just to allow trains to pull a bit closer to the station while waiting.

as we rarely get 6-car trains (in my experience)

A (non-scientific) survey of RTT shows that of the nine trains per hour, four of them are often six coaches long (Blackpool, Blackpool, Cleethorpes, Windermere/Barrow).

Maybe that's not important though - perhaps the best thing would be to just abolish TOC-specific fares between Picc/Oxford Rd and the airport (so everyone just gets the next train) and then have a big electronic sign which says "Next Airport train - platform X"

Yes, that way when things run out of path the late-runner isn't stuck behind an on-time train waiting for its booked departure time - as soon as you've loaded you just go, if a passenger wanted to catch you it doesn't matter because there will be another one along in a minute. You also need to make all trains call at the intermediate stations. Then there's no "you know that this train doesn't stop at Burnage?" when things run out of path (the headphone-wearing public can't be relied upon to listen to announcements). As a side benefit these stations therefore gain the sort of metro frequency taken for granted in other cities. A five minute extension to the journey time between Manchester and the Airport is not worth worrying about.

Sharpening crayons, I'd split the CLC stopping services at Warrington Central (building turnback platforms if necessary). The western half would be served by extending Merseyrail services from Hunts Cross, the eastern half would be served by Metrolink tram-trains, crossing over via a new link at Cornbrook. That just leaves the 2tph Liverpool-Sheffield-(Cleethorpes/Norwich) as a fast service.

Close P5 at Oxford Road and use that to allow P4 to be extended so that four car trains can fit in without fouling the overlap of P3. You can then alternate platforms, having one train arriving as another departs from the adjacent platform.

 

[AndrewE]

A (non-scientific) survey of RTT shows that of the nine trains per hour, four of them are often six coaches long (Blackpool, Blackpool, Cleethorpes, Windermere/Barrow).

That is good to hear, they must have got a lot more units into servivce since I was last in the area.
Having said that, looking at last Thursday 4 of the 5 random barrow, cleethorpes and windermere trains I looked at were 3-cars

 

[rishtonlad]

When they introduced the 2nd Blackburn to Manchester via Darwen a few years back it would have been nice if it could have gone to Piccadilly instead of Victoria.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

When they introduced the 2nd Blackburn to Manchester via Darwen a few years back it would have been nice if it could have gone to Piccadilly instead of Victoria.

Interesting suggestion, but how exactly would this improve train running through Castlefield?

 

[Austriantrain]

Four tracking would defacto grade seperate some of the junctions as the lines would be paired by use.

Then you‘ll just add more major works to the south of Piccadilly, where you would need a 6 to 8-track approach and grade separation.

Once you rationalised away the access to the west from Victoria then you'd also have a lot more room.

Provided NPR gets built in full, you might get away with not running trains from Chat Moss to Victoria anymore. The Bolton line would still need access to Pic and Vic though.

The result would remain the same: enormous amounts of money for no commensurate benefit, in my opinion.

 

[daodao]

Provided NPR gets built in full, you might get away with not running trains from Chat Moss to Victoria anymore.

Fast trains from Liverpool Lime Street maybe, but are you suggesting that Newton-le-Willows, Patricroft and Eccles stations should close and that there would be no passenger trains from Chester via Warrington Bank Quay?