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Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) - Latest plans & speculation

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Ianno87

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I dont know, do you?

By 1854 two hundred and eighty four people per year were dying on the nations railways, around 80% of them in train collisions and around 10 in construction. I would hazard fewer people died in their construction than their operation.

But we do construction these days with the objective of killing and injuring exactly nobody.

"We did it in 'X' time in the 19th century" isn't really relevant to modern construction.
 
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WatcherZero

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Indeed safety standards have improved in both construction and operation. As have construction tools....

A diamond blade saw on a digger will cut through sandstone at a rate of about a meter a minute. And rock crushing or drilling tools can easily demolish a rockface.

73c5d51401dd281e79e7b86363615895[1].jpg
 

Skie

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Liverpool has many of the oldest railway tunnels in the world, many still in use, precisely because of the stability and ease of working on the sandstone shelf the city sits on. NR reconfigured the station with some passive provision for HS2 works, and this is one element. 400m platforms for P1/P2 can be fit into the space currently occupied by the single bore tunnel that only serves P1. In theory this bit of the cutting can be widened too, as there isn't a lot on top of it other than someone's garden. But 2 platforms might be enough.

Merseytravel and NR are doing a lot of thinking about how they take best advantage of what a full reconstruction of Liverpool Central offers them. You don't get a chance to dig out a huge hole in the centre of a city to add more platforms and join it to existing tunnels (with existing passive provision) either side of a mainline terminus very often!
 

Bletchleyite

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Merseytravel and NR are doing a lot of thinking about how they take best advantage of what a full reconstruction of Liverpool Central offers them. You don't get a chance to dig out a huge hole in the centre of a city to add more platforms and join it to existing tunnels (with existing passive provision) either side of a mainline terminus very often!

Liverpool Central seems to have been quite lucky in that nobody ever put anything significant on top of it; all there is is the station building, a few Network Rail modular buildings and a car park. If it was London, it would have been fully built on by now.
 

Ianno87

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Indeed safety standards have improved in both construction and operation. As have construction tools....

A diamond blade saw on a digger will cut through sandstone at a rate of about a meter a minute. And rock crushing or drilling tools can easily demolish a rockface.

View attachment 86155

And how do you get rid of the volume of material? It doesn't just evaporate.
 

Ianno87

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Stick it on, er, a train? :)

Not being able to dig a hole in the ground is not a reason not to do building work.

How do you load it in a deep cutting? Think, for example, of the conveyors etc used by Crossrail. Where does one of them fit in the cutting? You can't just pack it away again every Sunday night...

And even if that was practical, the rate of loading the train (and despatching it to be replaced with another) acts as the limitation on construction pace, not the fancy digging machinery.
 

Elecman

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Liverpool Central seems to have been quite lucky in that nobody ever put anything significant on top of it; all there is is the station building, a few Network Rail modular buildings and a car park. If it was London, it would have been fully built on by now.
It has that unfinished hotel apartment block half built on the far end of the NR yard
 

Purple Orange

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Does it actually say there will be an extension at Lime St? The HS2 plan has it served by 200m trains, and I can't see NPR needing longer than that.

The line to Liverpool will also be a HS2 line and there appears to be an assumption that Liverpool will be served by 400m trains if the line is built. Reality will probably reveal a line that is partially new build and partially on existing track and also 200m HS2 trains will be the norm. I wouldn’t be surprised if the new line links to the WCML to Lime Street just north of Runcorn.
 

Bletchleyite

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The line to Liverpool will also be a HS2 line and there appears to be an assumption that Liverpool will be served by 400m trains if the line is built.

An assumption by whom? The HS2 service patterns I've seen have Liverpool served by 200m trains at 2tph, one running as 200m throughout, one carrying a semifast Lancaster portion which is taken off at Crewe.
 

matacaster

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Just how much do you think could be done in a 76 hour weekend? considering taking the block, getting the equipment in, getting the rock out, making sure everything was stable and then opening the railway back up again? Bear in mind we have about 7 bank holidays a year. You would be looking at going out as far as Gt Newton St to get 400m and a throat in.
I guess this is speculative(for which I apologise) but would it be possible to have extra tracks on a mezzanine deck above existing tracks?
 

edwin_m

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I can't remember where I read this, but I believe the current thinking behind the Leamside Line is to leave existing passenger services alone and use this for freight (so that the fast lines between York and Newcastle can be used for passenger services and nothing else). There are options to also use this for new local passenger services, either T&W Metro or National Rail, which hopefully could be fit in with freight.

But, as far as I can tell, the option of diverting long-distance services on to the Leamside Line has got nowhere.
I think that's the case. Sending the freight via Leamside makes sense, and compared to reinstating it the cost of a new curve at Bensham for Tyne Yard and doubling the south to east curve at King Edward Bridge south is tiny. You could probably even build a new yard somewhere near the old Follingsby site and sell off Tyne Yard for housing.
The line to Liverpool will also be a HS2 line and there appears to be an assumption that Liverpool will be served by 400m trains if the line is built. Reality will probably reveal a line that is partially new build and partially on existing track and also 200m HS2 trains will be the norm. I wouldn’t be surprised if the new line links to the WCML to Lime Street just north of Runcorn.
An assumption by whom? The HS2 service patterns I've seen have Liverpool served by 200m trains at 2tph, one running as 200m throughout, one carrying a semifast Lancaster portion which is taken off at Crewe.
400m to Liverpool is a nice to have but probably not worth spending hundreds of millions on. The little-used extra pair of tracks between the Ditton area and Edge Hill is a fairly obvious option to look at, but from there I wonder if a new tunnel would be better than trying to widen the cutting. By putting this far enough to the south so that it doesn't affect the existing, it could come into the existing high-numbered platforms and straighten them out at the eastern ends. However 400m from the buffer stops would be well beyond the existing throat, so would require a lot more of the construction to be in a new cutting (with property demolition) or tunnel.

I realise the above is speculative, but this thread is based on an official NPR proposal that isn't public knowledge yet, so I'd say we're entitled to speculate a little about what it might include.
 

Purple Orange

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An assumption by whom? The HS2 service patterns I've seen have Liverpool served by 200m trains at 2tph, one running as 200m throughout, one carrying a semifast Lancaster portion which is taken off at Crewe.

An assumption appears to have been made within the forum. If people are talking about 400m platforms in Liverpool, they must also assume 400m trains. I agree that 200m is all that is officially mentioned.
 

Bald Rick

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An assumption by whom? The HS2 service patterns I've seen have Liverpool served by 200m trains at 2tph, one running as 200m throughout, one carrying a semifast Lancaster portion which is taken off at Crewe.

True, but that was on the basis of there not being a dedicated line into Liverpool. If a dedicated line to a dedicated new station is built (both shared with NPR) that can change the service spec.

There are several conceivable alignments for Liverpool–Warrington–Manchester Airport–Manchester.

But Manchester–Bradford–Leeds? That's hard without serious tunnelling. A route along the Calder Valley/Rochdale Canal corridor seems obvious... but it's not a wide valley and much of it is already built up. Even then, you'd need to branch off somewhere near Halifax to make for Bradford, at which point the tunnelling starts.

If this ever goes ahead, it's great news for (a) Peel Group and (b) tunnelling contractors.

It’s serious tunnelling. More serious than any tunnelling ever before in this country, by a long way. It makes HS2 look like the Waterloo and City.
 

Senex

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There are several conceivable alignments for Liverpool–Warrington–Manchester Airport–Manchester.

But Manchester–Bradford–Leeds? That's hard without serious tunnelling. A route along the Calder Valley/Rochdale Canal corridor seems obvious... but it's not a wide valley and much of it is already built up. Even then, you'd need to branch off somewhere near Halifax to make for Bradford, at which point the tunnelling starts.

If this ever goes ahead, it's great news for (a) Peel Group and (b) tunnelling contractors.
To use both the Calder Valley route and go via Bradford centre seems to involve some serious extra mileage to be traded off against the higher speeds. Heading direct towards Bradford or taking the direct path via (more or less) Huddersfield would both involve very serious tunneling and would indeed be great news for the contractors. But it wouldn't be more, or more difficut, tunneling than has been done in other parts of Europe over the years, or in other parts of the world. Doesn't it rather depend, though, on what the new line is planned for? If it's to be a mixed-traffic railway, then the tunnels are going to be needed to get acceptable gradients. But if the idea is a purely passenger line, then we've see that 1:40 or even steeper is entirely practicable, which might cut down the amount of tunnel needed by quite a lot (always dependng, of course, on how much was needed for environmental reasons).
 

matacaster

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Long tunnels mean either lots of escape shafts, or three tunnels.




Maybe a minute longer, with a changeover ‘driver’.
How much time would a non-stop hs2 London to leeds via Manchester piccadilly take if there was a through route thru piccadilly as against a need for rversal there?
 

The Planner

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How much time would a non-stop hs2 London to leeds via Manchester piccadilly take if there was a through route thru piccadilly as against a need for rversal there?
Depends on what the through route dwell time would be, i suspect it wouldnt be less than 3 or 4 at somewhere like Piccadilly. If there is another driver waiting you could arguably do the reversal in the same time. If not then it depends on the length of train, but 5 or 6 I would expect.
 

bluenoxid

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Very deep, and, notably, with buildings on the top, each with a highway standard access road to it. Building new tunnels under the Pennines could conceivably lead to building a lot of roads on them.

Whilst a vocal minority might (will) oppose them, I think that many residents and travellers would appreciate those roads if they link population centres
 

Dr Hoo

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Presumably you would end up with a 'Roman style' dead-straight road 'shadowing' the dead-straight base tunnel deep underneath. Then someone might suggest not bothering with the railway and just building the new direct trans-pennine road on its own. :D
 

ABB125

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Whilst a vocal minority might (will) oppose them, I think that many residents and travellers would appreciate those roads if they link population centres
But that would mean joined up thinking, and doing slightly more than the minimum possible! "We could move this access road a few metres easy to link up with the existing road, and we could make it longer at that end to join with that other road. But we don't need to, and it'll cost slightly more, so we won't.

Presumably you would end up with a 'Roman style' dead-straight road 'shadowing' the dead-straight base tunnel deep underneath. Then someone might suggest not bothering with the railway and just building the new direct trans-pennine road on its own. :D
Or sticking the road in a tunnel as well...

Did someone say Manchester to Sheffield? :D
 

edwin_m

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Whilst a vocal minority might (will) oppose them, I think that many residents and travellers would appreciate those roads if they link population centres
They would go to wherever the ventilation shaft was and no further. However, there are several places where the Pennines can be crossed with a relatively short section under unpopulated moorland, and even this is crossed by several major roads. A straight line route between Manchester and Bradford would cross the Pennine ridge close to where the M62 and A672 do, and would then pass under the Ripponden valley. In either direction from there are the A58, A640, and A62 at spacings of not much more than a mile, and the tunnel could be curved slightly to put it under one of those if necessary.
 

Ianno87

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Whilst a vocal minority might (will) oppose them, I think that many residents and travellers would appreciate those roads if they link population centres

Or you accidentally create rat-runs in areas not known for comprehensive road connections!
 

Bald Rick

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Whilst a vocal minority might (will) oppose them, I think that many residents and travellers would appreciate those roads if they link population centres

Normal procedure is that they’d be private roads. You don’t want any Johnny come lately driving up to a headhouse.
 

WatcherZero

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The diagram is confusing me with the lack of a key; "3" makes it look like a Sheffield/M1 parkway station is being proposed for HS2 again.

"Connecting Sheffield to HS2 and on to Leeds"

Yeah difficult to see what they are going for from the map.
 

Ianno87

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Apart from trees & other vegetation, plus maybe some removed bridges or crossings, there are not a lot of obstructions on the Low Level line between Warrington and the approaches to Broadheath / Altrincham **. However, between Fiddlers Ferry and the Warrington area, there are numerous curves that makes the line unsuitable for high speed running . Also, the line fits between the Sankey Canal and the River Mersey over that section, so there is no easy option to rebuilt the line with a straighter alignment.

(** - I think there is some obstruction of the old trackbed in the Lymm area.)

Although if everything is stopping at Warrington, you wouldn't need to engineer the surrounding area to such a high speed anyway.
 

Camden

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An assumption appears to have been made within the forum. If people are talking about 400m platforms in Liverpool, they must also assume 400m trains. I agree that 200m is all that is officially mentioned.
The 400m from Crewe bodge is a nod to the concerns raised over overcrowding. This is something that HS2s own reports pointed out a number of years back. It was always bizarre that we as a country should build this new railway line, and yet one of the key cities it's meant to serve be stuck with limited capacity, let alone limited capacity that was acknowledged as being problematic. Especially contrasted to the vast over provision elsewhere.

Liverpool's traffic to Birmingham and London has boomed since then, so the issues will be known to be even more acute.

If (it's a big if) this project happens, it would be bizarre to develop a new Liverpool station and not have it developed to the highest specification, so that bodges can be replaced with normality and other missing aspects (such as trains to Birmingham) can be implemented.

The trackbed of this old LNW line has completely disappeared east of Sinderland Crossing. There would also be major conflict with Sustrans, as the route west of Sinderland Crossing is part of the Transpennine cycle route.

The bottom line is there is a good existing railway between Liverpool and Manchester - the original intercity line via Chat Moss. The journey time could be reduced to 30 minutes non-stop by using electric trains and cutting out the intermediate stop. There is no need to spend vast sums of money on an alternative route.
That assumes the purpose is simply to connect together Liverpool and Manchester.

The NPR line was an idea invented in Liverpool, as a means of getting the city onto HS2 properly. That you can use it to also create a new route to Manchester via Warrington simply adds more value to the infrastructure needed.

Warrington area already suffers a large amount of physical damage from HS2. At least this line would put its centre 15 minutes from both Liverpool and Manchester city centres, and 10 minutes from an airport.
 
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LNW-GW Joint

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This document has some illustrations of what they did for the Gotthard base tunnel
Presumably a Pennines base tunnel could use a similar approach (if for once it was built using tried and tested technology instead of trying to be "innovative" or "world beating").
Note: there don't seem to be any escape tunnels - passengers are expected to escape to a fireproof area at one of the two special stations and will eventually be picked up by a recovery train

A Pennine tunnel probably wouldn't be on the scale of the new Gotthard base tunnel (57km/34 miles) and is likely to be in 2 or 3 shorter segments.

A better model might be the Ceneri Base Tunnel, just opened on the Gotthard route to complement the longer Gotthard Base Tunnel further north.
It is 15.4km (9.6 miles) long and is twin single bores (built without TBMs) with cross-passages, taking 10 years to build.
Rescue is by special rescue trains.
Tunnel speed is 250km/h (155mph).
Ceneri Base Tunnel - Wikipedia

Another recent one is the Romerike tunnel east of Oslo - 14.5km/9 miles) and took 5 years to build 1994-99.
Double track, two intermediate shafts and a maximum depth of 120m - the M62 has a maximum elevation of 372m.
Tunnel speed is 210km/h (130mph).
Romerike Tunnel - Wikipedia
 

Purple Orange

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The 400m from Crewe bodge is a nod to the concerns raised over overcrowding. This is something that HS2s own reports pointed out a number of years back. It was always bizarre that we as a country should build this new railway line, and yet one of the key cities it's meant to serve be stuck with limited capacity, let alone limited capacity that was acknowledged as being problematic. Especially contrasted to the vast over provision elsewhere.

Liverpool's traffic to Birmingham and London has boomed since then, so the issues will be known to be even more acute.

If (it's a big if) this project happens, it would be bizarre to develop a new Liverpool station and not have it developed to the highest specification, so that bodges can be replaced with normality and other missing aspects (such as trains to Birmingham) can be implemented.


That assumes the purpose is simply to connect together Liverpool and Manchester.

The NPR line was an idea invented in Liverpool, as a means of getting the city onto HS2 properly. That you can use it to also create a new route to Manchester via Warrington simply adds more value to the infrastructure needed.

Warrington area already suffers a large amount of physical damage from HS2. At least this line would put its centre 15 minutes from both Liverpool and Manchester city centres, and 10 minutes from an airport.

Yes agreed, if you’re going to build a station, build it properly. I half agree with you about the “big IF” the project is built. It would not surprise me if NPR is built in a manner that HS1 was built, whereby the last leg in to London ran on existing infrastructure to Waterloo (although new platforms were built) with the remainder of HS1 built to St. Pancras at a later date.

Therefore east of Manchester there will be a connection to the existing line to facilitate Leeds services in to the Piccadilly HS2 platforms and in the west a link from HS2 through Warrington to north of Runcorn, with the existing line in to Lime Street used. Then at a later date, after NPR services have been established, will a new station in Liverpool be built and a new line across the Pennines.

I completely agree with your last three paragraphs. In many ways, although a faster line between the two city centres would be great, it doesn’t need to be faster but at least just as fast. Rather the number of fast services needs to be more frequent and if whether it is 30 mins via Chat Moss, or 30 mins via Warrington & Manchester Airport is neither here nor there.
 
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