Potential ways round the Castlefield problem

[Philip]

With the problems outlined on the other thread about putting London trains through Castlefield to join up with Scotland services, what possible ways are there around this to allow through running between north and south Manchester without impacting on reliability, or at least providing Bolton and Salford with the necessary services to the south?

Both of these places are big enough to warrant direct services to both London qnd Birmingham; Salford also has the Media City factor strengthening its case. Running via Denton into Victoria is an option, also how about running Crewe to Wigan and then reversing to join the upgraded Westhoughton line and then onto Bolton and Victoria? How much time would this add to the journey compared with via Wilmslow or Stoke?

Any other possible ways round the Castlefield problem, other than those mentioned?

 

[The Planner]

Why do Bolton and Salford need regular direct services to Birmingham as well as London and what quantifies "big enough" anyway? Running to Wigan and reversing is barking mad.

 

[willgreen]

Running via Denton

bingo

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Running via Denton into Victoria is an option

Could be nice to get the people on that line "frequent" service back although I don't know how much capacity there is on that line, pretty sure it's one overgrown track and already runs on some freight.

Running to Wigan and reversing is barking mad.

I mean platform 1 exists, it can fit a decent length train, but at the point that you're reversing there you might as well just get off and hop on a Pendolino.

Why do Bolton and Salford need regular direct services to Birmingham

There's already decent connections at Wigan / Piccadilly for both of those areas, Mediacity in itself also has the tram which from there all go to Piccadilly.

 

[javelin]

Could be nice to get the people on that line "frequent" service back although I don't know how much capacity there is on that line, pretty sure it's one overgrown track and already runs on some freight.

The OP is talking about long distance services to London, so it is unlikely the service would provide local stops at Denton and Reddish South anyway.


As to the OP, there is no solution that doesn't require the treasury getting out the cheque book. With the current infrastructure, the last thing that is needed is more long distance services.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

The OP is talking about long distance services to London, so it is unlikely the service would provide local stops at Denton and Reddish South anyway.

The main London services go from Wigan and Piccadilly (for Manc), why not have a local train that then goes fast after Stockport or Crewe?

 

[javelin]

The main London services go from Wigan and Piccadilly (for Manc), why not have a local train that then goes fast after Stockport or Crewe?

Because if it is slowed down by local stops there would be next to no benefit to a direct London service, over a change at Wigan or Piccadilly.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Because if it is slowed down by local stops there would be next to no benefit to a direct London service, over a change at Wigan or Piccadilly.

Less connections can be a big advantage for people travelling with heavy luggage.

 

[py_megapixel]

Because if it is slowed down by local stops there would be next to no benefit to a direct London service, over a change at Wigan or Piccadilly.

Not normally one for "direct trains from everywhere to everywhere" but in the specific case of Bolton to London I think there would be some merit to it. Changing from P13/14 to main trainshed at Piccadilly is an unpleasant experience because of the overcrowding and, in the case of passengers with mobility impairments or those carrying lots of luggage, the fact that you end up on a bridge which only has lifts to some platforms. Meanwhile, in Wigan, you'd have to change stations - I appreciate they are close together, but it's still far from convenient.

I do agree, however, with your earlier comment that there would be no point in running via Denton.

• For one thing, it would more than double the journey time between Stockport and Manchester.
• For another, the Denton chord has no electrification, so you'd need to order some 125mph bi-modes, which would carry diesel engines back and forth along their entire route of almost 200 miles, unused other than for a tiny 5-mile detour from the electrified route
• Once you had all that sorted out, you'd have to find a path across the entire station throat at Piccadilly, that being exactly the sort of move the construction of the Ordsall Chord was supposed to eliminate
• Except now it's even worse: because it's running through rather than reversing, there is only one platform (14) it can be routed into, so it would also have to line up with that platform being available

---

Maybe a sensible compromise would be reinstating through running from Blackpool to Hazel Grove. That would turn the rather inconvenient connections in Manchester or Wigan into a few steps across the island at Stockport, as well as making it easier for people in the Stockport area to reach the northern WCML. It would also hopefully allow the diagrams to be rearranged to end this nonsense of Sprinters terminating at Hazel Grove.

 

[HSTEd]

If we are building infrastructure to solve this problem, I'm not sure any peripheral options really beat spending the money to cut Castlefield wider (in railway terms).

Half the length of the corridor is adjacent to streets (not buildings) or is in the middle of a mostly abandoned University campus.

Sure it would be expensive, but a four track Castlefield has infinitely more value than most of the alternative solutions, and given how expensive infrastructure is these days, any solution si going to be very expensive.

If you really wanted to avoid land take, you could double deck the middle section, or stick it in a tunnel if you really wanted.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Meanwhile, in Wigan, you'd have to change stations - I appreciate they are close together, but it's still far from convenient.

On Sundays go into Northwestern and when electrification is done 323s will go into Northwestern.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Partially agree. The three examples you quote all benefit from fixed formations and to some extent, exclusive use of track. Castlefield is different, including freight. If we can't fit in all the trains that customers need, the answer is not an Andy Burnham cut to services, but an increase in capacity, even if that means sending freight west to a new link on the WCML.

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.

Freight is a bit neither here nor there as there isn't much of it - one or two paths an hour maybe? (checks Realtime Trains - it's about that).

(1) was (sort of) being pursued as policy by way of Northern Powerhouse Rail and the Fiddler's Ferry line, and nominally still is but feels a bit in doubt at the moment.

 

[Austriantrain]

Sure it would be expensive, but a four track Castlefield has infinitely more value than most of the alternative solutions, and given how expensive infrastructure is these days, any solution si going to be very expensive.
If you really wanted to avoid land take, you could double deck the middle section, or stick it in a tunnel if you really wanted.

If you need to tunnel, surely it would be more useful to have a cross-city tunnel Piccadilly to Salford Central, with branches to Chat Moss and the Bolton line (not, incidentally, for long-distance services, more for regional-express) and use Castlefield as an S-Bahn for the CLC and towards Victoria only (ok, accelerated CLC services would still have to go that way)?

 

[The Planner]

It would be a big old tunnel, and it would need to go towards Crescent more than Central. To get it down and back up I reckon you would be around the 3 mile mark in length, it would have to avoid the HS2 one as well on the approach to Picc.

 

[Austriantrain]

It would be a big old tunnel, and it would need to go towards Crescent more than Central. To get it down and back up I reckon you would be around the 3 mile mark in length, it would have to avoid the HS2 one as well on the approach to Picc.

Sure, but would a tunnel under the Castlefield corridor - as suggested by the post I replied to - any easier?

And I would think it vastly more useful in comparison, even though neither of the two are going to happen - nor any major investment into the corridor at all.

 

[Topological]

Give the TPE Scotland services to Avanti and extend from Manchester Airport to London via Crewe. That would not need more paths. Only makes sense if the train is additional to the 3tph from Piccadilly though as I cannot see how it could have an advertised Piccadilly stop for London passengers (It may be that the path makes it unattractive enough for no one at Piccadilly to want to use it as a London service). The Cumbria Northern can then go via Chat Moss to balance the fact the TPE no longer does.

I am not sure that this solves the Castlefield problem per se though.

 

[507020]

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.

I strongly favour option 2. It is local services, e.g. Southport that would make the best use of a tunnel, but some current Metrolink services on former heavy rail lines should also use this tunnel in order to run proper train lengths, which limits the extent to which this tunnel can relieve Castlefield. Services to Scotland/Wales etc can continue to serve Castlefield indefinitely.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I strongly favour option 2. It is local services, e.g. Southport that would make the best use of a tunnel, but some current Metrolink services on former heavy rail lines should also use this tunnel in order to run proper train lengths, which limits the extent to which this tunnel can relieve Castlefield. Services to Scotland/Wales etc can continue to serve Castlefield indefinitely.

Personally I more favour the S-Bahn-Manchester idea (probably would be called Bee Rail or something), which is option 1. The stations are conveniently located for local passengers.

My plan would be that Castlefield would be exclusively short distance services, something like:

4tph Liverpool via CLC, 2 of which terminate Oxford Road, 2 of which run to the Airport. I favour those being the only CLC services with 2 of them stopping one side of Warrington and 2 the other.
2tph Blackpool North-Airport
2tph Stalybridge-Airport via Ordsall
2tph Stalybridge-Buxton via Ordsall
2 freight paths

All operated using 3 or 6-car CAF formations, or similar formations of the new bi-modes. I'm open to exactly what the services would be, but the key is that they're simple, short to medium distance, no First Class, no seat reservations (these stipulations because they massively speed boarding), and are operated using units with wide doors at thirds in formations big enough that overcrowding doesn't cause delay.

The other part of it would be a major rebuild of Victoria into a proper InterCity station for the long distance services like Windermere and Scotland to go there instead (with facilities comparable to Piccadilly), though some would go onto NPR via Fiddlers Ferry if that is built. The 4tph around Ordsall would provide convenient interchange alongside the trams. All trains would call at all three Castlefield stations.

 

[507020]

4tph CLC, 2 of which terminate Oxford Road, 2 of which run to the Airport

I don’t agree with this either. All services should be banned from terminating at Oxford Road unless there is an incident since it consumes more than double the capacity of running through (although this is only possible dependent on capacity beyond Piccadilly)

You cannot completely block Castlefield in both directions multiple times an hour for a terminating train, compromising capacity and making the service unusable for passengers with the loss of connectivity with Piccadilly in the process and the Southport service certainly shouldn’t be doing this.

For the Ordsall Chord, I would suggest the most important service to use it would be the Blackburn via Todmorden, giving Blackburn, Burnley and Rochdale a direct service to Manchester Airport.

I have also heard many complaints about the loss of the Blackpool North - Hazel Grove service, with passengers opting to simply use a large part of the M60 and M61 instead. This is clearly much more valuable than 2x Blackpool North - Manchester Airport, as opposed to e.g. Southport or Windermere, with opportunities existing to change at Bolton or Preston from the Blackpool North - Hazel Grove. This is also an ideal local service to make use of a tunnel.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don’t agree with this either. All services should be banned from terminating at Oxford Road unless there is an incident since it consumes more than double the capacity of running through (although this is only possible dependent on capacity beyond Piccadilly)

The Oxford Road rebuild was designed to make this not the case. Though if there's capacity you could run all four through to somewhere, though I'd not want to seek to overload the "Flughafen-S-Bahn". Perhaps you could run the other two to the north facing bay at Stockport, though it'd limit them to three car.

But I'm happy to tweak with it bar that I do believe it's good to make them half hourly pairs. The big key is - nothing long distance nor with significant delay-importing interaction with other services (so the Norwich is *right out*), nothing with reservations, nothing with First Class, nothing with end doors, and everything with enough capacity so boarding is fast.

If you're up for building stuff, I suppose an Ordsall West Chord could allow you to retain the fast-slow pattern on the CLC but send the TPE and the EMR via Victoria and Denton. But TBH I think Liverpool-Sheffield would just have to be a casualty, with those two services being cut back to Piccadilly main trainshed. I suspect you'd make more people happy by making the Liverpool-Manchester service finally acceptably good and with enough capacity.

 

[startingaparty]

Why can't some of the routes which go through the Castlefield Corridor, particularly Blackpool North and Southport, instead go to Manchester Victoria?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why can't some of the routes which go through the Castlefield Corridor, particularly Blackpool North and Southport, instead go to Manchester Victoria?

They can, but you don't want to break too many fairly long-standing connections. Since the 90s people have built up their lives around the service from Preston going to Castlefield.

Victoria however is less of a constraint and could be rebuilt, particularly if the railway purchased and closed the Arena which is old and tatty anyway. Thus the long distance services requiring longer layovers and with more imported delays would be better off there. Plus people making longer journeys tend to have more slack to be able to get from Victoria to where they're going.

 

[HSTEd]

Why can't some of the routes which go through the Castlefield Corridor, particularly Blackpool North and Southport, instead go to Manchester Victoria?

Because spreading out stations destroys connectivity.

Money no object we would want a station at which all trains in the Manchester area stop, even if they also have other stops at other city centre stations.

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.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Because spreading out stations destroys connectivity.

Money no object we would want a station at which all trains in the Manchester area stop, even if they also have other stops at other city centre stations.

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.

To be fair, with the lower demand and lower frequency of the 1990s it did, bar the Norwich delaying CLC locals, work fairly well, and "everything important on Castlefield" meant easy interchange. It's just not kept up. It started breaking when North Western Trains implemented frequency increases in summer 1998, was compounded by the removal of permissive working at Piccadilly, then the opening of Ordsall whacked it with a massive lump hammer sending bits flying everywhere.

 

[507020]

The Oxford Road rebuild was designed to make this not the case. Though if there's capacity you could run all four through to somewhere, though I'd not want to seek to overload the "Flughafen-S-Bahn". Perhaps you could run the other two to the north facing bay at Stockport, though it'd limit them to three car.

But I'm happy to tweak with it bar that I do believe it's good to make them half hourly pairs. The big key is - nothing long distance nor with significant delay-importing interaction with other services (so the Norwich is *right out*), nothing with reservations, nothing with First Class, nothing with end doors, and everything with enough capacity so boarding is fast.

If you're up for building stuff, I suppose an Ordsall West Chord could allow you to retain the fast-slow pattern on the CLC but send the TPE and the EMR via Victoria and Denton. But TBH I think Liverpool-Sheffield would just have to be a casualty, with those two services being cut back to Piccadilly main trainshed. I suspect you'd make more people happy by making the Liverpool-Manchester service finally acceptably good and with enough capacity.

As I understand it, all through services at Oxford Road are now booked to use platforms 2 and 4 and obviously terminating services at platform 5, but given the amount of disruption that necessitates the use of platforms 1 and 3 on a daily basis, I have zero confidence that the Oxford Road remodelling will be successful. If anything, by prioritising terminating services rather than as I suggest abolishing them, with only 2 through tracks, any issue will block the line completely until it can be resolved.

Liverpool - Sheffield can be sent via a reopened Cadishead viaduct. Problem solved. No more Castlefield congestion or overcrowding, but obviously this requires separate Liverpool - Manchester and Manchester - Sheffield provision.

To be fair, with the lower demand and lower frequency of the 1990s it did, bar the Norwich delaying CLC locals, work fairly well, and "everything important on Castlefield" meant easy interchange. It's just not kept up. It started breaking when North Western Trains implemented frequency increases in summer 1998, was compounded by the removal of permissive working at Piccadilly, then the opening of Ordsall whacked it with a massive lump hammer sending bits flying everywhere.

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.

 

[Bletchleyite]

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.

One thing I would like to see done, accepting this, is to swap the ends of 13 and 14, as the 13 end is quite a bit wider, so it'd help against platform congestion (this would obviously need a selection of "car stop" signs laying out so the back wasn't off). The 13 end is far less busy as there are only two destinations so most people board the next train.

 

[HSTEd]

Good luck getting permissive working through a modern risk assessment process.

 

[CAF397]

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.

I believe the planned rebuild of Oxford Road saw the platforms extended towards Deansgate, and this allowed some sort of connection to Metrolink at the West End.

I think this is what's needed to improve paths.

 

[507020]

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.

I believe the planned rebuild of Oxford Road saw the platforms extended towards Deansgate, and this allowed some sort of connection to Metrolink at the West End.

I think this is what's needed to improve paths.

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.

But more importantly, all trains should serve Deansgate. It is absolutely catastrophic that the CLC stoppers now call at all stations from Lime Street to Oxford Road EXCEPT Hunts Cross and Deansgate, the 2 best interchanges along the entire route.

 

[The Planner]

Good luck getting permissive working through a modern risk assessment process.

Why? lots of recent re-signaling schemes have it.