Liverpool Road and the Ordsall Curve.

platforms 15 and 16 are already in the plans for pic, next to 13 and 14. no other work to take place between pic and densgate.

 

Do we know what these new vehicles are ? Desiros ? Or a new type ?.. I hope they are not London overground 378's... Nice in summer.. Cooooold in winter and no loos!

 

They've only just announced this procurement so no, but i don't think there's any risk of 378's being ordered for the kind of outer suburban/long distance work they might see on Thameslink/GWML/MML/TPE - however Southern could guarantee an order of Electrostars from Bombardier if they ask for compatibility with their existing fleet.

Of course Desiros for the North West are already on their way, 40 vehicles/10 units for Edinburgh-Manchester Airport services will start arriving late next year.

Chris

 

Eeeee..

edinburgh to Manchester on one of these ?
British Rail Class 350 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Having travelled on both the /1 and /2 variants on the Birmingham - Liverpool service I find them more roomy and comfortable than either the Voyager or Pendelino offerings from Virgin and would not be averse to using them on the longer Manchester Airport - Edinburgh / Glasgow services. I understand that minor internal changes will be made for the longer distance duties and I look forward to trying them in 2014.

 

It's also worth remembering that the service is already operated by Desiro units, albeit the diesel Class 185, so as they'll be getting a similar interior the main change for passengers will be the extra carriage, shorter journey times and lack of engine noise/vibration.

Chris

 

It's actually the Palace Hotel, which used to to be the Refuge Building. two images from Google street view where the line crosses Oxford Road

 

Good luck knocking down the palace hotel ! And taking out UMIST's campus..

the ultimate solution for Manchester would be taking the whole line underground, probably less costly than all the enquiries, protests etc that would be raised... Strangely enough this suggestion was made.... Ohh years ago... And a station at Arndale was already built for it.

But maybe an alternative could be...


a underground line in parallel from Piccadilly to Deansgate rising to surface in a junction to ordeal lane and Salford, and also to Liverpool/Salford Crescent, and at Piccadilly end to southbound (and maybe yes Franks Blind lane idea too.. With subsurface platforms for Piccadilly, Oxford Road and Deansgate.

 

Thanks very much. Remember i am a stranger to the area. I made the mistake of only eyeballing from the junction in the west as far as Oxford Road as I saw four tracks there and did not look further east. :mmph:

It still does not look insuperable as far as the western bit is concerned as far as Oxford Road. I assume stopping trains there give a break up in the sections that means that one could leave Oxford road to Piccadilly alone. Other commenters noted and thanks.. I don't actually see the issues mentioned as insuperable. It just depends whether we are talking London flows here or otherwise. Getting a few Pacers through (or other trains with few carriages) does not add up.

Is splitting and joining a possibility (see what is being done at Nottingham and Salisbury and on the Southern)?

 

Such an idea(not a full underground between Deansgate and Piccadilly) was in the options displayed at the recent consultaions. I made reference to this in post #129.
http://www.ordsallchord.co.uk/images/downloads/AppendixB_Initial_Alignment_Options.pdf (third page)

 

I'd be very surprised if widening/double decking/tunnelling the Castlefield Corridor was considered while there remains so much potential for electrification, much longer trains and running services via Victoria - tram-train might also be used in the future to help take some of the strain.

That certainly correlates with platform occupancy at Piccadilly being the underlying capacity constraint on the line, and why an extra pair of platforms are seen as the way to increase capacity.

Chris

 

I see, but an underground option through to Piccadilly surely wouldnt be that much more to cost ? You should see what they did to Antwerp station.. an absolute feast of engineering ! and a perfect solution.

 

Have you noticed how many roads would be blocked by this proposal. I'd be interested to see how you would deal with the road traffic flows.

Regards

 

How many were longer than 3 coaches? Running piddly little trains all the time doesn't help matters.

 

The three options shown in http://www.ordsallchord.co.uk/images/downloads/AppendixB_Initial_Alignment_Options.pdf have all been rejected by the planning team as not being workable.

 

As this is a preservation discussion site, could I suggest something I read on another blog? It said that if people wanted to save a Grade 2 structure which had similar examples elsewhere, (thus not unique), they should be prepared to cough up for them. I don't know if the corner of the white hotel (Palace) or others are even listed, (one doubts whether multi storey car parks have many friends) but if one sees what our forefathers did when they wanted some extra space for a new project, - it makes you wonder if we are sometimes too precious about these matters?

 

In modern day europe the Dutch are the masters at this.. if it's in the way.. move it or demolish it.
Better still the chinese approach.. conflict is allowed but wont stop the job even for the dead.
Grave concern for building works | The Sun |News

Bit of this in the UK and HS2, Heathrow's new runway and a direct line through manchester will be done in a few years.

 

There has been a good deal of comment on this thread about the possibility or necessity of widening the formation from Piccadilly to Deansgate Junction. Nothing beats a site inspection but for those too far away, satellite photographs, properly used, can give a good appreciation of what might be involved. For accuracy, I would recommend looking at the Manchester City Council planning service interactive map. If you reduce the timespan for registed applications to the lowest possible, "last seven days", you will get an OS base pretty well uncluttered. Zooming in to approximately 1:1250 (or greater if you want) will give a clear indication of what space is available.

However, I cannot see where the argument for widening comes from if the whole problem is platform capacity at Piccadilly. There are four through platforms at Oxford Road and, as has been explained at length, the proposal to create four through platforms at Piccadilly will allow alternate occupancy to be practised there also. If the intermediate railway were quadrupled, the limitations would still effectively be the capacity of the four-platform occupancy system at Oxford Road and Piccadilly. I accept that four tracks would be nice to have and make operations more robust but they are not necessary, certainly not at the cost in money and disruption. Future-proofing is fine but I have seen too many (non-railway) projects grow legs until they collapse under the weight of the cost.

As I have posted previously, the real capacity-loser is stopping trains at Deansgate because every stop there effectively will lose one of the newly-created platform slots at Oxford Road and Piccadilly. There is little alternative to continuing the current practice of having very few services stop there and putting up with the capacity loss. If one is looking for a radical alteration the most promising may to rebuild Deansgate some 300m west, beyond Deansgate Junction, with four platforms, two on each route as at Cheadle Hulme or Kidsgrove. Strict parallel working will be needed at Deansgate Junction and there would be a lesser need for such at the new junction, which I shall call Water Street Junction, with the Ordsall Chord but I see no serious capacity problems there as all the Warrington and Trafford Park movements will have gone.

With the whole length from Piccadilly eastern approaches to Salford Crescent or Victoria being accepted as a slow-speed railway, traffic can be kept moving provided it is presented on time. If not, there will be signal delays but, provided that operators don't try to be too clever and booked paths don't exceed 75% of the theoretical capacity, these will be managed.