Transpennine Upgrade : Manchester/Leeds

[62613]

9 hours ago, Suzie said:

I guess it would have helped if Covid had not destroyed ridership on the trains reducing the urgency of capacity improvements which is what they are really canning.

If my two fairly recent trips on TPE trains are anything to go by (Stalybridge - Greenfield on 21/08; full and standing, mid morning, and 23/10 Stalybridge - Huddersfield, fairly full slightly earlier in the day) ridership levels are fast returning to normal.

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

I've been through Piccadilly on three Saturdays recently and all trains I travelled on were quite well filled including one f&s on the Hope Valley service. Not quite as big a crowd on Piccadilly as 2 years ago but travellers seem to be returning.

[Zomboid]

9 minutes ago, 62613 said:

If my two fairly recent trips on TPE trains are anything to go by (Stalybridge - Greenfield on 21/08; full and standing, mid morning, and 23/10 Stalybridge - Huddersfield, fairly full slightly earlier in the day) ridership levels are fast returning to normal.

 

I think that broadly speaking, leisure travel has bounced back pretty well. It's commuting which is slower to come back. And now many people have worked out how to work effectively from home it could be a long time before it does get back to where it was.

[62613]

33 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I think that broadly speaking, leisure travel has bounced back pretty well. It's commuting which is slower to come back. And now many people have worked out how to work effectively from home it could be a long time before it does get back to where it was.

Yes; both those occasions were Saturday morning. We may find that services through the day return to something like where they were before, but that the number of rush hour services reduces, due to there being less demand; a point that was made a few pages back, IIRC

[4630]

My sense is that rail commuter volumes are significantly up over the past couple of months along the Huddersfield line (TPE services) and the Calder Valley line (Northern Trains services).

 

That covers services eastbound to Leeds/York and westbound to Manchester/Liverpool, for both TPE and Northern Trains.

 

This is based on multiple direct on-train journeys at what would be classed as peak commuting times of the day, and also car park observation in that several station car parks are now much busier again, full at a couple of stations and it can be difficult to find a space.

[SHMD]

I commute from Stalybridge to Man-Picc and return - when I am in the country that is. (Currently north of Milan in Ispra.)

 

Stalybridge enjoyed a busy commuting service to Man-Picc and Man-Vic with quite a few options to Oxford-Rd and Salford - BUT this was pre-Covid and post-"high-intensity" log-jam.

 

Now there are only three trains an hour to Manchester but two of the returning services set off at near enough the same time. So now, basically a half hourly service.

 

Trains are definitely busy to full - with any cancelled service, (and they now cancel a service instantly rather than letting it complete the diagram), being dangerously over full. (My definition of "dangerously full" is when passengers are left on the platform despite their best determined efforts to get on and the numbers left are higher than 20 stranded.)

 

I have (and keep) observing, the passing trains through Stalybridge, which are usually less than 10% loaded !!!

I really am trying to be neutral in this assessment - but what's worse is that they used to stop and now trundle slowly through as there is now so much slack in the diagrams since the high-intensity running was abandoned.

 

 

Kev.

 

[96701]

Could the markings be drainage associated? New catch pits etc to put the track drainage where the OLE isn't?

[ess1uk]

good news in today's announcement?

 

[4630]

13 minutes ago, ess1uk said:

good news in today's announcement?

 

 

On the basis that as suggested it will now be full electrification between Leeds and Manchester, rather than having a gap in the wires between Stalybridge and Huddersfield, then yes that part is certainly good news.

 

But, as they say, the devil will be in the detail of which so far there isn't too much yet in the public domain, besides the headlines. 

Edited November 18, 2021 by 4630
spelling

[woodenhead]

On 09/11/2021 at 16:18, 4630 said:

I'm not getting my hopes up just yet as I believe that Network Rail's Transport & Works Act (T&W Act) application for the work between Dewsbury and Huddersfield hasn't been formally approved yet.

 

Whilst at Colne Bridge, east of Huddersfield, on 9th November 2021 to photograph Rail Operations Group's 37611 taking a pair of TransPennine Express Mark5 Nova 3 sets to Scarborough - photos here for anyone interested - I noticed some prominent markings on the ground adjacent to the bridge that I was standing on.

 

 

 

I'm a regular visitor to this location and I believe these markings are new, as I don't recall them being there on my last visit.

 

This bridge, which provides vehicular access to part of Yorkshire Water's treatment works, along with several others to the west between Colne Bridge and Huddersfield are proposed for replacement under the latest Network Rail plans currently being considered under the T&W Act application.  Contractors were drilling bore holes around this bridge 2-3 months ago on one of my visits.

 

Google maps reference for the location here.

 

Can anyone with I presume a civils background, or an informed source, provide an answer to what the markings might be an indicator for.

 

 

 

 

It's where the Government buried HS3

[APOLLO]

Report here

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1034359/integrated-rail-plan-for-the-north-and-midlands-print.pdf

 

Brit15

[jamie92208]

I've just read through the plan and it is a typical curates egg, eg good in parts.  However it does give full electrification from York to Manchester with some other improvements  promisrd such as a) a 4 track section between Leeds and York, b) Improvements at Leeds and c) 3 andfour tracki g between Leeds and  Manchester all the above to i clude gauge enhancements for intermodal  freight.   By 2040, when I will be getting towards my 90's there will be a high speed .ine from Warrington to some point east of Standege via Piccadilly.  I hope I live to see it but it does nothing for the severely speed restricted railway between Leeds and Dewsbury.

 

Jamie

 

 

[woodenhead]

This is the current HS2 route from Crewe to Manchester, I think the 'new' Warrington to Stalybridge via the Airport and Manchester is a revised HS2 route that also supports higher speed Liverpool to Leeds services

The HS2 route as shown doesn't support heading east, it faces west, it also doesn't suit any acceleration of the Liverpool to Leeds services.

 

So would the Government leave HS2B western leg alone with the same routing, or might they incorporate it into a Liverpool to Manchester route?  If the latter then it means investment on the Widnes route to Warrington and a spur to connect with a HS2 route from Crewe to connect to the airport and then Manchester but if they leave HS2b as is and build a new route then the HS2 station in Manchester will still need to become a through station with another new line out east towards Stalybridge and Standedge (where the new route ends)

[Flittersnoop]

If I lived in Bradford I would be pretty miffed. Electrifying the line through Pudsey is just a sop.

 

Was the now-cancelled new station in Bradford going to fill the the Forster Square - Exchange gap?

[PenrithBeacon]

With my tax-payer hat on I'm delighted that this ludicrously expensive railway has been cancelled. I accept absolutely the need for vastly improved rail infrastructure in the north of England but HS2 is not the way to do it.

[4630]

31 minutes ago, Flittersnoop said:

If I lived in Bradford I would be pretty miffed. Electrifying the line through Pudsey is just a sop.

 

Was the now-cancelled new station in Bradford going to fill the the Forster Square - Exchange gap?

 

Electrifying the line through New Pudsey whilst taken at face value sounds useful, on its own it will IMHO be of only marginal benefit.

 

As currently timetabled, Bradford Interchange is a calling point (actually a reversing point because of the track configuration) for longer through Northern Trains services - presently Leeds-Chester, York-Blackpool North & Halifax-Hull.  It's these that currently provide all the services between Leeds and Bradford Interchange.  

 

What would be of greater benefit would be track and further signalling improvements, together with electrification over the full length of the Calder Valley line to Manchester, but that isn't included in the plan. 

 

As envisaged by Transport for the North, the now cancelled station in Bradford would have been new build on the site of the current St James Street Market and the former (and long closed) Adolphus Street Station site, with the eventual closure of the rail part of Bradford Interchange.  I don't think it ever got beyond the 'blue sky thinking' stage.  I've certainly never seen anything put in the public domain.

Edited November 18, 2021 by 4630
To aid clarity, hopefully.

[Northmoor]

26 minutes ago, Flittersnoop said:

If I lived in Bradford I would be pretty miffed. Electrifying the line through Pudsey is just a sop.

 

Was the now-cancelled new station in Bradford going to fill the the Forster Square - Exchange gap?

It's worth reading the report published today; it basically says that a single station likely to be useful to the people of Bradford, can't be fitted into Bradford.  The city suffers from its location some way to the North of a direct route between Leeds and Manchester, such that you either serve Huddersfield or Bradford and the Huddersfield route offers a better return.

[4630]

4 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

It's worth reading the report published today; it basically says that a single station likely to be useful to the people of Bradford, can't be fitted into Bradford.  The city suffers from its location some way to the North of a direct route between Leeds and Manchester, such that you either serve Huddersfield or Bradford and the Huddersfield route offers a better return.

 

From that point of view, and with due consideration to the good people of Bradford, that's where the plan released today is IMHO absolutely spot on. 

[woodenhead]

Looking at this map of the Liverpool to Leeds proposal

I think they are going to retain the present HS2b proposed alignment and use what is currently the route past the old Fiddlers Ferry powerstation, go under Warrington Bank Quay (where there was a station) and use the old Latchford-Lymm alignment to reach the HS2 route to Manchester.

 

That would be my choice

 

 

[PenrithBeacon]

http://news.sky.com/story/all-change-new-rail-plan-is-not-what-was-promised-but-could-it-be-the-right-one-12471656

[woodenhead]

46 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

With my tax-payer hat on I'm delighted that this ludicrously expensive railway has been cancelled. I accept absolutely the need for vastly improved rail infrastructure in the north of England but HS2 is not the way to do it.

I don't think many of us expected it to be delivered as promised and I actually quite like the new proposals.

 

For me one of the biggest recognitions is that a Parkway station at Toton really was a fudge because they wanted to please both Derby and Nottingham, actually p*ssed both off I bet.  DB won't be pleased, they still have to dispose of all that land that no-one wants again.

[jamie92208]

44 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Looking at this map of the Liverpool to Leeds proposal

I think they are going to retain the present HS2b proposed alignment and use what is currently the route past the old Fiddlers Ferry powerstation, go under Warrington Bank Quay (where there was a station) and use the old Latchford-Lymm alignment to reach the HS2 route to Manchester.

 

That would be my choice

 

 

It actually mentioned putting some previous low level p,atforms at Bank Quay back. Using what I think was the ex CLCroute is a good option.  As to Bradford, the real wasted opportunity was when they didn't build one through station where the new one shoppig centre is and close the existing two. I agree wholheartedly that the whole Calder Valley route needs electrifying.

 

Jamie

[woodenhead]

Given the actual logic being applied here to re-use old lines, I do also wonder if four tracking the route from Ardwick through past Guide Bridge may also be part of the plans for the Manchester to Standedge new route - that would have least impact on the city centre (which echos the reasons given for building a combined surface NPR/HS2 station).

 

And of course if you get to Stalybridge there is the old route to Standedge from there too  with a bit of bridge building, though I expect a new line may be more straightforward

 

Some might now be thinking, what about the rest of Woodhead, but I don't think that is still in anyone's plans.

Edited November 18, 2021 by woodenhead

[PenrithBeacon]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/18/revised-hs2-plan-viable-boris-johnson-rail?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

[Suzie]

Looks like someone did the sums and found that even with the eastern leg and the increased 33 minute Leeds Manchester time the fastest route south from Leeds to Birmingham was still via Manchester and the western leg, rather makes the full eastern leg seem a bit pointless.

 

All the proposed work would need to be done anyway at some point, so best to get it done first, and finish off the high speed Yorkshire section when the capacity improvement is required - when passenger numbers pick up sufficiently to fill 12-car EMUs.

 

What is currently upsetting passengers is overcrowding on very short 2-car and 4-car diesel trains, all a bit unnecessary when perfectly good EMUs are going for scrap because electrification has not been done.