Should Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) be built via Bradford and what other upgrades should occur?

[Glenn1969]

Both

 

[Bald Rick]

Both

Well when Huddersfield - Dewsbury is done it will reduce journey times for all passengers on the corridor, significantly improve performance (through reduced reactionary delay) and provide electric services - quieter smoother etc. I can’t remember now, but suspect there is also capacity for some additional services.

When the whole Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds corridor is done, there will be further significant reductions in journey time and a significant uplift in capacity. All details of that are in the NPR output specification.

 

[Glenn1969]

I tried to find that and can't. The document I read just said options are still being considered. How is it proposed that Bradford and Halifax passengers benefit? Our line was mooted as being wired 40 years ago when Doncaster and Aire/Wharfe wiring was first proposed but got cut from the final scheme, presumably to save money.

 

[Grimsby town]

If NPR was to go via Bradford it would run in a tunnel pretty much directly from Manchester to Bradford with no benefit to the rest of the Calder Valley line. If I'm honest apart from Halifax or Bradford the Calder Valley doesn't serve anywhere too important.

I imagine what the express is referring to is a new tunnel from Manchester Piccadilly to around Marsden before running on upgraded lines to Huddersfield and Leeds. There could be ways of serving Bradford and Halifax within that by running trains to Manchester via Huddersfield.

 

[Purple Orange]

If NPR was to go via Bradford it would run in a tunnel pretty much directly from Manchester to Bradford with no benefit to the rest of the Calder Valley line. If I'm honest apart from Halifax or Bradford the Calder Valley doesn't serve anywhere too important.

I imagine what the express is referring to is a new tunnel from Manchester Piccadilly to around Marsden before running on upgraded lines to Huddersfield and Leeds. There could be ways of serving Bradford and Halifax within that by running trains to Manchester via Huddersfield.

This is how I read in to it. I doubt the government will scrap NPR in it’s entirety, but it will be a mix of new build and upgraded lines. As for the benefits for places like Halifax, there was never intended to be any benefits. If NPR was to be a completely new line via Bradford, it’s services would still be relieving the Huddersfield line, with no changes on the current line via Halifax.

 

[fishwomp]

TBH I am glad if a new build line of NPR proportions is cancelled. These projects take far too long to bring any benefit, not necessarily the construction but certainly the planning and approval process. Witness the uproar about the relatively simple Cambridge to Bedford, and a timetable pushed back several years.. let alone HS2. Benefits today (be ≤ 1 parliament!) go further and are more likely for approval.

I propose instead half a mile of new build: Interchange to Forster Square. It looks doable to me, lot of ex railway land, just enough to squeeze a pair of tracks slightly east side of straight line drawn between. The shopping centre would lose a few shops, but a combined station built midway between the two would be a winner for the city centre. Connectivity improves (Shipley/Aire/Wharfs valleys - Manc routes and Huddersfield), Calder Valley services can approach at faster speed as it won't be a terminus and they can run through to Leeds via Shipley, so the extra distance of the route might be free from a time perspective.

I'd also reopen the Wortley west curve, but I can't figure out a good reason to yet!

 

[Glenn1969]

This is how I read in to it. I doubt the government will scrap NPR in it’s entirety, but it will be a mix of new build and upgraded lines. As for the benefits for places like Halifax, there was never intended to be any benefits. If NPR was to be a completely new line via Bradford, it’s services would still be relieving the Huddersfield line, with no changes on the current line via Halifax.

But it was planned by TfN/WYCA for services to share the infrastructure Leeds to Bradford which would have brought substantial benefits and the Interchange rail station would have been replaced

 

[LittleAH]

As for the benefits for places like Halifax, there was never intended to be any benefits. If NPR was to be a completely new line via Bradford, it’s services would still be relieving the Huddersfield line, with no changes on the current line via Halifax.

And this is fundamentally an issue with what's happened with Bradford, you've got the City Council announcing a city centre station without knowing what the route is selling a vision, with literally no say in the matter. You then have TfN and others pushing the benefits for areas that are never going to see the benefits, such as the Calder Valley, and you're left in a situation where there is outrage about something that was never confirmed as to be happening.

This is even taken from the Bradford City Council website:

No decisions have been made about the exact route for the rail line into and out of the new station, and there are no immediate implications for traders at St James’s Wholesale Market.

Transport for the North are no better, with their pointless social media videos stating they want Hull electrification to start in 2024.

But it was planned by TfN/WYCA for services to share the infrastructure Leeds to Bradford which would have brought substantial benefits and the Interchange rail station would have been replaced

No, it was a vision or an ambition. Just because someone's done a document doesn't mean it will happen.

 

[Glenn1969]

I viewed the Express article as being about the Transpennine Route Upgrade being greenlit. I think that is all we will get

I also think it won't be announced until after the Batley and Spen by election a week on Thursday

 

[tbtc]

I guess the question is "what is Northern Powerhouse Rail/ HS3/ TPR upgrade actually for".

At the moment, Manchester - Leeds is around fifty five minutes.

A direct line from the buffers at Piccadilly to the western edge of the platforms at Leeds is 35.5mi, so the fifty five minute journey time seems quite slow as the crow flies. I could see the point of spending all of this money if it meant something closer to half an hour in duration (not easy, given the twists and turns necessary to get from the Irwell to the Aire, especially given the Pennines and the fact that the eastern side of the Pennines is land that flows into the Calder rather than the Aire, so there's another hill to negotiate once you are on the Yorkshire side - comparisons with things like Reading - London along the fairly flat Thames valley are a waste of time here - the question needs to be about how to best link Manchester and Leeds rather than using unrealistic benchmarks)

Now, that crow flying between Piccadilly and Leeds obviously isn't following the route that the trains currently take - plot a course via Alexandra Park in Oldham, the Tesco Express on Halifax Road on the edge of Huddersfield, passing a stone's throw from Cleckheaton town centre and the back of the IKEA at Birstall. That's the direct route. Manchester - Oldlham - suburban Huddersfield - Cleckheaton - Birstall retail park - Leeds.

So, if you want a proper fast route then that's one starting point. Unrealistic that it'd go exactly that way, sure, and incredibly unrealistic to have stations at places like Cleckheaton, but a direct line is not far from central Huddersfield, maybe two miles. Running a straight line from Manchester to Huddersfield and Huddersfield to Leeds would only be a few hundred metres longer (than running through that Tesco Express).

Bradford though... Bradford is a long way from the crow's route. Bradford would be a much bigger diversion (e.g. Forster Square is north of Leeds station). And then there's the fact that Bradford is in a valley of it's own, a dead end that meets the Aire Valley at Shipley. So more of a diversion required, or more cost to get it under another hill.

So the benefits of "putting Bradford on the map" have to be seen against the time penalty for Manchester - Leeds passengers. How many more hundreds of millions of pounds would it cost to have a longer slower route via Bradford and how much of a time penalty would there be to the point where there's not much time saving (especially compared to just taking the Huddersfield/ Dewsbury stops out of the existing line or actually electrifying that line)?

As for the "Dead End Terminus" at Bradford... I don't think that there's much of a time penalty - the distance from Mill Lane to the southern end of the Interchange platform is around three hundred metres (around seven hundred metres from Ripley Street to the platform, since Ripley Street is where you'd be branching off?)... so it's not much doubling back - and the time taken for a driver to change ends is pretty negligible at a busy city centre station (annoying at somewhere like Battersby but you have a number of people alighting/ boarding in Bradford, so you'd have a few minutes of dwell).

As I've said before, a "Bradford Crossrail" would be a Solution In Need Of A Problem - there's no significant demand from one side of the city to the other - it's just a combination of local people wanting a lot of money thrown at the place and enthusiasts who are members of the Bufferphobic Community (you know the ones, they can't stand dead ends, they want to extend everything to everywhere - they hate the idea of HS2 stations being dead ends - they hate re-opening a line but stopping short of somewhere else, e.g. the Waverley line isn't good enough because it doesn't go through fifty plus miles of empty countryside beyond there until it meets another railway at Carlisle)

A better thing for Bradford would be electrifying the line from Leeds to (at least) Halifax - but where's the fun in modest improvements like that, when we can get the crayons out and design a High Speed network that links one side of Bradford with t'other?

 

[Glenn1969]

I guess the question is "what is Northern Powerhouse Rail/ HS3/ TPR upgrade actually for".

At the moment, Manchester - Leeds is around fifty five minutes.

A direct line from the buffers at Piccadilly to the western edge of the platforms at Leeds is 35.5mi, so the fifty five minute journey time seems quite slow as the crow flies. I could see the point of spending all of this money if it meant something closer to half an hour in duration (not easy, given the twists and turns necessary to get from the Irwell to the Aire, especially given the Pennines and the fact that the eastern side of the Pennines is land that flows into the Calder rather than the Aire, so there's another hill to negotiate once you are on the Yorkshire side - comparisons with things like Reading - London along the fairly flat Thames valley are a waste of time here - the question needs to be about how to best link Manchester and Leeds rather than using unrealistic benchmarks)

Now, that crow flying between Piccadilly and Leeds obviously isn't following the route that the trains currently take - plot a course via Alexandra Park in Oldham, the Tesco Express on Halifax Road on the edge of Huddersfield, passing a stone's throw from Cleckheaton town centre and the back of the IKEA at Birstall. That's the direct route. Manchester - Oldlham - suburban Huddersfield - Cleckheaton - Birstall retail park - Leeds.

So, if you want a proper fast route then that's one starting point. Unrealistic that it'd go exactly that way, sure, and incredibly unrealistic to have stations at places like Cleckheaton, but a direct line is not far from central Huddersfield, maybe two miles. Running a straight line from Manchester to Huddersfield and Huddersfield to Leeds would only be a few hundred metres longer (than running through that Tesco Express).

Bradford though... Bradford is a long way from the crow's route. Bradford would be a much bigger diversion (e.g. Forster Square is north of Leeds station). And then there's the fact that Bradford is in a valley of it's own, a dead end that meets the Aire Valley at Shipley. So more of a diversion required, or more cost to get it under another hill.

So the benefits of "putting Bradford on the map" have to be seen against the time penalty for Manchester - Leeds passengers. How many more hundreds of millions of pounds would it cost to have a longer slower route via Bradford and how much of a time penalty would there be to the point where there's not much time saving (especially compared to just taking the Huddersfield/ Dewsbury stops out of the existing line or actually electrifying that line)?

As for the "Dead End Terminus" at Bradford... I don't think that there's much of a time penalty - the distance from Mill Lane to the southern end of the Interchange platform is around three hundred metres (around seven hundred metres from Ripley Street to the platform, since Ripley Street is where you'd be branching off?)... so it's not much doubling back - and the time taken for a driver to change ends is pretty negligible at a busy city centre station (annoying at somewhere like Battersby but you have a number of people alighting/ boarding in Bradford, so you'd have a few minutes of dwell).

As I've said before, a "Bradford Crossrail" would be a Solution In Need Of A Problem - there's no significant demand from one side of the city to the other - it's just a combination of local people wanting a lot of money thrown at the place and enthusiasts who are members of the Bufferphobic Community (you know the ones, they can't stand dead ends, they want to extend everything to everywhere - they hate the idea of HS2 stations being dead ends - they hate re-opening a line but stopping short of somewhere else, e.g. the Waverley line isn't good enough because it doesn't go through fifty plus miles of empty countryside beyond there until it meets another railway at Carlisle)

A better thing for Bradford would be electrifying the line from Leeds to (at least) Halifax - but where's the fun in modest improvements like that, when we can get the crayons out and design a High Speed network that links one side of Bradford with t'other?

That was supposed to happen when Doncaster and Aire/Wharfe were wired but it got cut from the final scheme, presumably to save money. I said I thought the time penalty the current layout causes is 8/10 minutes which is hardly negligible

 

[tbtc]

That was supposed to happen when Doncaster and Aire/Wharfe were wired but it got cut from the final scheme, presumably to save money

There were lots of things that could have been done when the ECML was wired (Newcastle to Sunderland, the "old" route at Selby, that incredibly trivial headhunt at Morpeth that stops the Newcastle - Morpeth service being operated by EMUs)

I said I thought the time penalty the current layout causes is 8/10 minutes which is hardly negligible

You think it takes ten minutes longer? Looking at a Leeds to Manchester train this evening...

Realtime Trains - 1J31 2019 Leeds to Manchester Victoria

Realtime Trains provides live realtime running information for the Great British railway network using open data.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

... which (based on the WTT) gets from

20:31:00 - Hammerton Street Junction
20:34:00 - Mill Lane Junction
20:36:30 - Interchange (a)
20:39:30 - Interchange (d)
20:41:00 - Mill Lane Junction
20:43:30 - Low Moor

Three minutes doesn't seem an unreasonable dwell at a city centre station (whether the driver changes ends or not) IMHO

So I don't know how you'd trim ten minutes off that journey through Bradford - I'd agree that a ten minute time penalty would be "hardly negligible", but I just can't get the maths to add up to ten minutes - maybe you could claim three minutes for the time taken between Mill Lane Junction and back again but nowhere near ten minutes.

 

[edwin_m]

A better thing for Bradford would be electrifying the line from Leeds to (at least) Halifax - but where's the fun in modest improvements like that, when we can get the crayons out and design a High Speed network that links one side of Bradford with t'other?

Interesting point there - a tunnel to an underground station in Bradford would cost far more than electrifying the Calder Valley, which would probably make quite a difference to journey times on the hilly bit through Halifax. It would also create the opportunity for Manchester-Bradford trains to run via the potential new route and diverge at Huddersfield. Which would people prefer?

 

[LittleAH]

I viewed the Express article as being about the Transpennine Route Upgrade being greenlit. I think that is all we will get

Well that's not what the article states, as below:

Instead the green light would be given to a series of upgrades worth around £10 billion on the “Dingle route”, including the electrification of the transpennine line between Manchester and Leeds.

This will involve building a new hub station in Huddersfield which will see hundreds of homes in the Yorkshire town compulsorily bought and demolished.

TRU has a budget of £2.9bn. This would give TRU at least an extra £7bn and as previously stated in the Yorkshire Post the via Huddersfield route cost £13bn, £4bn less than via Bradford.

Interesting point there - a tunnel to an underground station in Bradford would cost far more than electrifying the Calder Valley, which would probably make quite a difference to journey times on the hilly bit through Halifax. It would also create the opportunity for Manchester-Bradford trains to run via the potential new route and diverge at Huddersfield. Which would people prefer?

Also, could make more sense having a brand new fast spur between Huddersfield and Bradford, potentially following the old Pickle Bridge alignment, rather than the windy nature of going through Brighouse and Halifax.

 

[Glenn1969]

Interesting point there - a tunnel to an underground station in Bradford would cost far more than electrifying the Calder Valley, which would probably make quite a difference to journey times on the hilly bit through Halifax. It would also create the opportunity for Manchester-Bradford trains to run via the potential new route and diverge at Huddersfield. Which would people prefer?

Probably electrification

 

[Meerkat]

Why would a new Hudd station be needed (post current TRU plans) and where??

 

[LittleAH]

Why would a new Hudd station be needed (post current TRU plans) and where??

It wouldn't. Huddersfield to Westtown will be 100/110mph and the Huddersfield rebuild will have 4 through platforms, which would be more than enough to regular fast services passing through it, along with the two bays. The scale of the work to gain the speed and capacity enhancements needed between Manchester and Leeds will be west of Huddersfield.

 

[edwin_m]

It wouldn't. Huddersfield to Westtown will be 100/110mph and the Huddersfield rebuild will have 4 through platforms, which would be more than enough to regular fast services passing through it, along with the two bays. The scale of the work to gain the speed and capacity enhancements needed between Manchester and Leeds will be west of Huddersfield.

It's hard to see how a new station would fit in Huddersfield, with or without demolition of housing, without several miles of new approach tracks that would replace much of what is (we hope) about to be upgraded under TRU. The only reason I can think it might be needed is if they decide to make NPR capable of taking 400m trains, perhaps as a the London-Leeds route instead of the HS2 eastern leg. I've already posted elsewhere that this would cause major capacity problems on the HS2 western leg.

But we must remember, as someone has just posted on another thread, that this is the Express and needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

 

[nr758123]

There's a report in today's YP which is a bit more informative, although it still leaves a lot of gaps to be filled in by informed guesswork. Link is https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/new...vernment-considers-scaling-back-plans-3279867

Unlike the Express they do at least have enough local knowledge to know that Dingle is a town on the west coast of Ireland, a district of Liverpool and a family in a Yorkshire-based soap opera; but that there's a place called Diggle about halfway between Manchester and Leeds. Also unlike the Express they are not part of the appalling Reach plc group.

 

[Glenn1969]

Until something official is published it's all guesswork. Cynic in me says it will be bad news for Bradford and published the day after the Batley by election

 

[WAO]

Perhaps it's dawning on our movers and shakers that the North is a network of settlements with even the big cities mostly only c35 miles from their neighbour. A single new high speed line will leave most behind and in fact worsen their economies. What is needed is a general upgrade of capacities and speeds of the existing lines which are mostly in the only places that the rugged Pennine geography allows.

Bradford has potentially the best link to Manchester in the L&Y line, gently curved and graded throughout, much of the alignment probably capable of 125mph already. Only two track though, so would need some cleverly sited loops.

WAO

 

[BrianW]

Both

Best response yet IMHO.
I think the government was stung by Chesham etc and wants and needs to be seen to be loved both north and south, red wall, yellow wall, blue wall, ...
My guess is a number of 'linked' upgrades, presented as Northern Powerhouse improving connectivity for ALL those northern places- Halifax, Huddersfield, Bradford, Bolton, Blackpool, Northallerton, ...
Not necessarily faster trains but more frequent AND more reliable, and electric for the carbon-free commitments to be given at COP26
Escalating costs of HS2 and Crossrail will be blamed.
One commutable interconnected conurbation: Liverpool- Manchester- Leeds, a bit like London sizewise? with a big potential travel-to-work area reaching Hull, Nottingham-Derby-Chester.
And lots of new 'affordable' housing around 'railcentres'- Warrington, Wigan, Wakefield ...

 

[LittleAH]

It's hard to see how a new station would fit in Huddersfield, with or without demolition of housing, without several miles of new approach tracks that would replace much of what is (we hope) about to be upgraded under TRU. The only reason I can think it might be needed is if they decide to make NPR capable of taking 400m trains, perhaps as a the London-Leeds route instead of the HS2 eastern leg. I've already posted elsewhere that this would cause major capacity problems on the HS2 western leg.

But we must remember, as someone has just posted on another thread, that this is the Express and needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

There wouldn't be a new station, it would be the one put forward as part of the TWAO, which can accommodate 200m trains easily. No way will 400m trains be required over the pennines. And I suspect the eastern leg of HS2 will definitely go ahead, given that's where the majority of the benefits come from.

Whether or not it's The Express, government leaks have been forthcoming to favourable newspapers since this government under Johnson got in. Plus it's been rumoured in rail circles that the Bradford option was off the cards months ago, as mentioned the Yorkshire Post article from back in November 2020

 

[fishwomp]

I guess the question is "what is Northern Powerhouse Rail/ HS3/ TPR upgrade actually for".
[..]

Possibly the most sensible question. It appears to be for getting people from one place to another faster, but given Manchester/Leeds are so close already, reducing the time any further just increases the relative %-age of time spent walking to the station, waiting for the compulsory reservation (if not turn up and go?) and your safety margin for it, along with time spent on the crappy slow local service connecting to it etc etc. The periphery of Liverpool, York etc won't be the majority of the passengers. In fact many passengers also come from the intermediate stations like Huddersfield - so making a faster service on the existing route has highest value (or at least highest cost benefit) - IMHO.

As I've said before, a "Bradford Crossrail" would be a Solution In Need Of A Problem - there's no significant demand from one side of the city to the other - [..]

I've always thought Bradford's a problem - but that's less to do with the railways, more to do with the need for regeneration.

A better thing for Bradford would be electrifying the line from Leeds to (at least) Halifax - but where's the fun in modest improvements like that, when we can get the crayons out and design a High Speed network that links one side of Bradford with t'other?

Careful now with the Crayonistas comment, the Crayonistas run the country currently, and I've got a new crayon and I'm prepared to use it!

 

[Wolfie]

The Express (ugh!) is, I think, making links that don't exist except in the Westminster bubble.
I don't doubt there are big decisions that need to be made about NPR and its relationship to the existing "Dingle" (Diggle!) route.
HS3 in its "all new/via Bradford" guise might well be considered unaffordable in the current climate.

But to lay it at the door of the HS2 Nimbys in Chesham & Amersham seems far-fetched.
HS2 has all-party (bar the Greens and UKIP) support, and is proceeding whatever Chiltern MPs might think.
There might be local issues over construction which are hard to judge from a distance, but it would have been the same for a motorway (and was with the M40).
Taxpayers are already funding lengthy tunnels to avoid disturbing the leafy Chiltern lanes.
As I understand it, it's the proposed relaxation of planning regulations on housing which is the main debate in the area, not how to stop HS2.
There is also hostility to the "levelling-up" agenda as it plainly means taking money/priority away from prosperous southern areas.

You better believe that HS2 was, together with the planning regulations, a major factor in the by-election result.
Re your last para firstly the South is reluctant to pay more tax as well as higher rail fares to bail out the North. It's seen down here as "levelling down" for us. Secondly, there are other political issues in play, not least of which is that Chesham and Amersham is a cosmopolitan, remain voting area with absolutely zero affinity for Red-Wall areas and contempt for Boris' populism.
There are at least 30-40 similar seats where the Tories will be in trouble should the current situation continue. Not to mention, given the Tory punishment of London for its temerity in re-electing Sadiq Khan instead of Boris' placeman, the probable complete Tory wipeout coming as a backlash in London.

 

[JKF]

A new ‘fast’ alignment via Bradford could have other benefits, such as freeing up the existing route for use as a rapid transport corridor - I’ve long been of the opinion that successful tram-type systems have fared better when they’ve taken on existing alignments (as Manchester and Nottingham have), and that the failure of Leeds to get a decent rapid transport system has been largely because it‘s always focused on forcing a new build route through congested and nimby-infested Headingley. Bradford-Leeds would be more regenerative and a technically easier staring point to get a system up and running, success would make a case for the harder stuff that can then become phase 2. It’s built-up nearly the whole route with plenty of district centres or former station sites that would benefit.

The reason for NPR going through Bradford is because it’s a city of nearly half a million people, technically more than Manchester if you don’t count the surrounding urban areas. It more than warrants a rapid intercity service, and would be exactly the kind of regenerative scheme that is at least talked about (perhaps not sincerely) by the current government. Being a transport backwater doesn’t help the city.

It’s notable how fast services after the 90s electrification were a significant boost to Aire Valley towns like Shipley, Bingley and Saltaire, a short easy commute to Leeds made them popular places to live. Bradford-Leeds in 10-15 minutes would likely have a similar effect.

 

[Bald Rick]

Bradford-Leeds in 10-15 minutes would likely have a similar effect.

It wouldn’t take much to enable Bradford - Leeds in 15 minutes now. Electric trains and cut out New Pudsey. Certainly not a new line.

 

[Glenn1969]

It's Leeds- Bradford-Halifax in 30 minutes (which should be possible given the distance) that needs a new line

 

[JKF]

For added context, Bradford is larger than Bristol, Norwich, Nottingham, Newcastle. You wouldn’t bypass those cities.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Jun 2021 ==

It's Leeds- Bradford-Halifax in 30 minutes (which should be possible given the distance) that needs a new line

I do wonder if some of the Leeds New Line could be rehabilitated as part of such a route. Gildersome tunnel is only half -filled with colliery spoil...

 

[Meerkat]

For added context, Bradford is larger than Bristol, Norwich, Nottingham, Newcastle. You wouldn’t bypass those cities.

Bristol is bypassed, and Nottingham is bypassed by HS2.
And those places aren’t next door to somewhere with loads of connections.