Would a Victoria - Piccadilly Eastern loop be a good idea?

[Waverley125]

With the Ordsall cord finally under way, trains approaching Victoria from the East will be able to circle round Manchester CC and leave South West.

But would facilitating the opposite (trains leaving Piccadilly eastwards and heading NW through Victoria) be a good idea also?

By reopening the Miles Platting to Ardwick line you could connect the two via Etihad campus. That would allow services from Preston / Blackburn and beyond to pass through Victoria while getting them off the TP line, and avoid clogging up the throughs at Victoria.

 

[30907]

The line (or trackbed, for the curve towards Pic) is there, but it's rather a long and slow way round (about 3x as far as Pic-Ordsall-Vic).

 

[Tomnick]

It'd all come at the cost of a lot of conflicting moves across Piccadilly station throat too, defeating one of the objects of the whole exercise.

Edit: the above is, of course, nonsense if you were proposing running them into the low numbered platforms to terminate, in which case it might make sense...if the intermediate demand around the 'loop' justified it.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Do I take it that this proposal will see the end of the Ardwick Curved Elevated Arterial Forest that has been establishing itself slowly but surely on top of the former railway viaduct that once carried railway goods services ?

 

[edwin_m]

The HS2 line is planned to emerge from tunnel in the container park, goes under Ardwick station and rises up to pass over the Mancunian Way. To do this it must slice through the Curved Elevated Arterial Forest, probably at such a height that reinstatement of tracks would be impossible.

 

[ianhr]

I think the Philip's Park line (Miles Platting to Ashburys) is included in the electrification scheme. I assume this is for ecs? Routing trains to Piccadilly platforms 1, 2 & 3 this way from Blackpool, Preston, Man Vic could reduce conflicting movements to the west of Manchester and take pressure off the South Jct line through Oxford Road. It would need reinstatement of the curve at Ardwick though. What is condition of the viaduct on the curve? I think there are some bridges missing?

 

[The Planner]

Fag packet dream this one I am afraid, not going to be done.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I think the Philip's Park line (Miles Platting to Ashburys) is included in the electrification scheme. I assume this is for ecs? Routing trains to Piccadilly platforms 1, 2 & 3 this way from Blackpool, Preston, Man Vic could reduce conflicting movements to the west of Manchester and take pressure off the South Jct line through Oxford Road. It would need reinstatement of the curve at Ardwick though. What is condition of the viaduct on the curve? I think there are some bridges missing?

The Northern Rail services to Glossop/Hadfield, New Mills and Marple Rose Hill and the First TPE service to Hull are but some of the services that currently use the low-numbered platforms 1,2,3 at Manchester Piccadilly. What do you propose should happen to these services in order to accommodate those services stated in your posting ?

 

[Joseph_Locke]

Fag packet dream this one I am afraid, not going to be done.

Yep; been there, authored the study report: massive gap in viaduct, horrid junction works at Ardwick, why bother, Blackpools all go to through to Airport, tediously slow, HS2, much better ways to spend £20-30m, etc.

 

[ianhr]

Yep; been there, authored the study report: massive gap in viaduct, horrid junction works at Ardwick, why bother, Blackpools all go to through to Airport, tediously slow, HS2, much better ways to spend £20-30m, etc.

Agreed the resulting Ardwick junction would be horrendous, splitting 4 ways at almost the same point: towards Longsight, Ashburys, TPE depot & Philip's Park.

I don't think it is a particularly realistic plan but someone 'set the hare running'. Manchester's rail problems do need some creative solutions though. The late BR re-organisation of the Windsor Bridge chord, Salford Crescent, downgrading Man Vic & diverting so much traffic over the MSJ & through P13/14 at Piccadilly has NOT been an unmitigated success. The result has been too much traffic concentrated on the inaccessible P13/14 while the terminal platforms at Piccadilly often seem underused, at least the higher numbers 9, 10, 11,
12.

 

[edwin_m]

I think the Philip's Park line (Miles Platting to Ashburys) is included in the electrification scheme.

Mainly for ECS, particularly TPE going in and out of service at Victoria and going to the Ardwick depot. There was also some talk of new EMU stabling in the Guide Bridge area but I don't know if that is happening.

It also provides an electrified diversionary route for TPE between Stalybridge and Philips Park without having to transfer services from Victoria to Piccadilly.

 

[BurtonM]

One potential use of such a chord would save Northern having to send ECS runnings through Ashton to Stalybridge, then reversing and running via Guide Bridge to Piccadilly, in order to get a train there from Newton Heath TMD.

 

[edwin_m]

One potential use of such a chord would save Northern having to send ECS runnings through Ashton to Stalybridge, then reversing and running via Guide Bridge to Piccadilly, in order to get a train there from Newton Heath TMD.

There's a much shorter route than that by reversing at Ashburys.

 

[ianhr]

I suppose there is the potential to send 1tph or more from the Hope Valley line via Marple & Philip's park to Man Vic and beyond with a possible new station to serve the Man City/Etihad stadium development. With more trains being routed through Man Vic again there will be plenty of connectivity there to destinations north and west. For a few years there was a Nottingham-Glasgow train this way, I'm not sure how well used it was.