...your point being? Such a scenario is usually 50/50 fault split; signaller for setting the route and the driver accepting it. And it happens from time to time, so the risk should be accounted for in the design.
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Wigan to Bolton electrification officially given go ahead
- Thread starter GRALISTAIR
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...your point being? Such a scenario is usually 50/50 fault split; signaller for setting the route and the driver accepting it. And it happens from time to time, so the risk should be accounted for in the design.
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RailUK Forums
What matters with Govt funded schemes is not actually the cost but whether the program funded is delivered to time, within the agreed budget and performs well when reviewed.
All Govt decisions are politically motivated - that's democracy, not corruption.
THE Railway promised to deliver GW electrification for £874M but then presented the Treasury with a bill £2000M in excess of this, causing other worthy but un-named schemes to be delayed or lost.
NR must not fail this time, especially for Lancashire.
WAO
johncrossley
Established Member
Why do you think spending millions on an already heavily subsidised train service is good (as I do), but you are ideologically opposed to spending relatively modest amounts on local bus services? There is inconsistency in your postings.
Would agree with others that this electrification extension is about finding a home for the remaining 9 surplus 323s rather than letting them to go to waste so Northern operate the entire 43 units. The case was made and we got there eventually. It's good to see the days of the Northern "random unit generator" and high operating costs with micro-fleets are gradually coming to an end.
NorthWestRover
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Totally off topic I know, but I'm intrigued where this was. Do you mean the line from Glazebrook up through the coalfields to Wigan? I'd be astounded if there was something in Warrington.
Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
The cost does matter if the overall budget is being constrained by the treasury as it leaves less for other projects but lets see how things playout after the public spending review.
daodao
Established Member
There is a difference between one-off capital investment in rail infrastructure on well-used lines, which should reduce running costs, and recurrent expenditure on subsidising poorly used bus services.
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Even if the poorly used bus service is better value for money than the well-used train service? Given the enormous difference in opex for trains over buses this isn't exactly rare!
Indeed so. The former is usually several orders of magnitude higher than the latter.
And it all comes out of the same piggy bank.
No connection N from Warrington Central other than the separate LNWR terminus (Warrington Dallam Lane, closed when Bank Quay was opened in 1837, was a coal yard until the 1960s, http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/w/warrington_dallam_lane/index.shtml), attached map from the Ian Allan Pre-Grouping Atlas and Gazetteer, Fifth Edition £4.50 dated 1976.
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LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
It must have been a sharp uphill chord up to the CLC route (which was on a viaduct at that point).
It would have been a nightmare to operate with any frequency, with 4 tracks on the WCML with the slow lines on the outside.
The recent Liverpool & Manchester Railway Atlas shows the link from the CLC leading into Dallam Steel Works sidings and only an indirect link to the WCML which served the same site.
I now see that you're right. I was looking at old OS maps. I'm not a railway history buff.
I'm not the person who originally posted about this curve but I supported him in #108 - wrongly, I now see.
A line turned north off the Warrington Central line just before (going west) the bridge over Froghall Lane. It crossed Froghall Lane by a separate bridge of its own which apparently still exists (according to Google satellite view) but carries no track today. It went through what is now Dalewood Close and the west end of Eustace Street where there are relatively new houses.
I took it for a link to the WCML but, looking more closely at the maps I consulted on www.old-maps.co.uk , it remained separate from the WCML, went under Bewsey Road going parallel to the WCML, and ended at Dallam and Bewsey forges (what is shown there depends on what date map you look at).
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They could just go to Preston
That reminds me of the time an old hand took a wrong route and ended up in the goods at Northwich, he got on the phone and said “we’ve f’d up Bobby” the signaller responded with “how do you work that out” so he said “well, you’ve f’d up offering me the route and I’ve f’d up taking it”.
Purple Orange
On Moderation
Plus train length is always a misleading metric. Trains on the district line are roughly the same length as a the equivalent of a 5-car 323 or 331.
If stations to Wigan are to be extended to allow 6-car trains, how many other stations on the Alderley Edge and Stalybridge prongs of the triangle need to be extended? Would it just be Alderley Edge?
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If you wanted to travel between Westhoughton or any station to the west as far as Southport or Kirkby to or from Lostock or any station north as far as Buckshaw Parkway or vice versa, you would use the Wigan platforms at Lostock, either to alight or change trains. The alternative is reopening the Dicconson Lane branch, but this wouldn’t serve Horwich Parkway.
If you don’t want people driving to Lostock, then don’t provide any parking. Sometimes on the railway, certain pieces of infrastructure aren’t actually of benefit to the places where they are located. The Burscough Curves would be of no benefit to Burscough, which already has direct services to Southport, Preston, Wigan and Ormskirk, while Southport doesn’t.
Pete_uk
Established Member
I'm guessing some cascaded stock will be used for services?
None of those are massive flows, nor is going via Bolton particularly onerous anyway.
Yes, I get that. I'm just struggling to see any significant non-Lostock flow that does benefit, given it's just replacing a change at Bolton with change at Lostock (which is only a journey time benefit if a connection into the previous train becomes possible).
The only journey that becomes materially easier is Lostock towards Wigan. Which not that many folk really want to do (given Westhoughton is nearby as an alternative anyway). Although it would have been personally handy for myself on many occasions.
C J Snarzell
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As I alluded to in my previous post - the TfGM are investing alot in improving travel across Greater Manchester.
The Wigan to Bolton line is quite a busy passenger route. One of my friend's lives not far from Hindley Station and he has commented that it is now a 'hot spot' for commuters into Manchester. The station carpark was always rammed with vehicles before the Covid pandemic.
In the last few years, areas like Hindley have become a magnet for house buyers. Hindley is still an affordable area to live and alot of 'out-of-towners' have plumped for the cheaper house prices and are prepared to commute daily into central Manchester.
Also, if anything goes wrong in Atherton or Walkden, the Westhoughton/Bolton line becomes an express route for services heading to Salford and Manchester Victoria, so I suppose it makes sense upgrading it.
I'm wondering if dear old Ince Station will get a bit of a make over with the electrification programme? It looked a little neglected when I last passed through it.
CJ
The Wigan to Bolton line is quite a busy passenger route. One of my friend's lives not far from Hindley Station and he has commented that it is now a 'hot spot' for commuters into Manchester. The station carpark was always rammed with vehicles before the Covid pandemic.
In the last few years, areas like Hindley have become a magnet for house buyers. Hindley is still an affordable area to live and alot of 'out-of-towners' have plumped for the cheaper house prices and are prepared to commute daily into central Manchester.
Also, if anything goes wrong in Atherton or Walkden, the Westhoughton/Bolton line becomes an express route for services heading to Salford and Manchester Victoria, so I suppose it makes sense upgrading it.
I'm wondering if dear old Ince Station will get a bit of a make over with the electrification programme? It looked a little neglected when I last passed through it.
CJ
childwallblues
Established Member
Thanks Snowball for confirmation. I am sure it was there when I travelled the route on a regular basis in 1972/73. Probably taken out with WCML electrification.
chorleyjeff
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I should think the more Ms Nandy is on the raduio and tv the happier are the tories. She comes across as a patronising Miss Hindsight to us a short distance from Wigan constituency.
Here is snip from 1911 6"=1mile OS map from National Library Scotland maps site
Bank Quay stn is off the snip to the south
Edit. On looking closer does it actually connect to the WCML?????
C J Snarzell
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Good old Nandy Pandy - she was definitely having her two penn'ith yesterday in the media about Dominic Raab's handling of the Afghanistan crisis.
CJ
Grumpy Git
On Moderation
Isn't that her job as Shadow Foreign Secretary?
stephen rp
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I think Network Rail leave it in place as a sacrificial buffer to stop high vehicles hitting the running line bridge alongside it.
The Northern Sparks report had Calder Valley and the CLC as the electrification priorities, but Wigan-Bolton was already in the pipeline. With present CLC service pattern of 2 locals plus Northern to MIA, and EM to Norwich you'd think 25 miles between Allerton and Trafford Park FLT would be a better business case than 13 miles where two of the three present services go beyond the wires. Losing Northern's express slot to TPE for their Cleethorpes service lessens the case for the CLC, and the other "Manchester Recovery" nonsense of splitting the Liverpool-Manchester locals at Warrington Central doesn't help. It does feel "political" rather than "practical".
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wireforever
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The CLC has been used as a diversion route from Liverpool Lime Street to London.I was on Sankey station awaiting a train to Manchester and a class 57 passed thru pulling a pendolino it was then going to end south I believe via Manchester Piccadilly
Yes, but that wouldn't happen nowadays as the route via Earlestown is electrified - so you could either run via Earlestown and Warrington, or Earlestown and Piccadilly.
You are virtually never going to make the business case for an investment/upgrade on the basis of diversionary capability.
Is the Dicconson lane branch the line that went from Dobb brow to black rod? If so it’s unlikely it will ever open again as the M61 cuts through it at the blackrod side. There is also a stretch that has been submerged for years, you can see it to the left when heading towards westhoughton after going over crow nest.
Was it not a goods line?
PDG1949
Member
Who do you think's likely to get the contract for the electrification work ?
Work is likely to be split up these days so more firm are able to do certain parts e.g. Bridge rebuilds being let as a separate contract, platform and station works let as as a separate contract. Then a possible split of electrification into electrification civils (e.g. piling; Murphy and VanElle can do these bits but not other bits of electrification) and the rest of electrification.
The lines connected, but not using BR tracks. There was a once a daily freight trip between the lines using the Rylands company's private tracks. This had ceased by 1960 because of a dispute over demurrage charges between Rylands and British Rail. Britsh Rail started charging for demurrage, Rylands retaliated by charging for track access.
All from an 80 year old memory, so apologies if anything incorrect or ommitted.
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