How to solve capacity issues between Marsden and Huddersfield?

[Halifaxlad]

It would be pretty difficult to get to anywhere useful from Diggle either. There's a lot of development that would make continuing down the Tame valley very difficult, so you'd need a lot of tunneling anyway to continue towards Manchester. It's not immediately obvious how you'd do even that without demolishing large parts of Diggle, Dobcross or Uppermill. A new tunnel gives the flexibility to head directly towards Manchester if desired.

A while ago I was watching one of Gareth Dennis Rail Natters on Youtube. Ironically I think it was about how to be a good Crayonista. In it it did show various routes, its well worth a watch and might give you an indication of the considered route.

Personally I quite like his suggestion of routing it across or under the Moor, adjacent to the M62 then following the existing line to Rochdale into Manchester before tunneling under to reach Piccadilly.

 

[edwin_m]

A while ago I was watching one of Gareth Dennis Rail Natters on Youtube. Ironically I think it was about how to be a good Crayonista. In it it did show various routes, its well worth a watch and might give you an indication of the considered route.

Personally I quite like his suggestion of routing it across or under the Moor, adjacent to the M62 then following the existing line to Rochdale into Manchester before tunneling under to reach Piccadilly.

I did do an exercise at work several years ago on where a Manchester-Leeds high speed route might go. It involved taping together four OS maps and the use of a long ruler and marker pens (much to my regret there were no crayons in the stationery cupboard). I can't quote any results, and they would in any case be irrelevant because we weren't aiming for Marsden, but we learned with the help of those implements that a straight line between Manchester and Leeds would pass close to Delph.