Unfortunately so. They could have had 2tph Wigan - Bolton - Manchester Victoria - Stalybridge but fluffed it and send one of them to Manchester Oxford Road instead.
As a result, the Wigan - Golborne - Manchester Oxford Road - Hazel Grove has been binned.
Once again we have a station proposal with capital funding but no suitable service. Same as East Linton, Reston and Soham. We have got to stop doing this. It's unconscionable.
I think this remains unclear. If both Sheffield - Liverpool services call at Urmston, Irlam and Birchwood, 1tph stopper might have been OK. Sucks if you use Flixton though.
The greater cost is the loss of the extra slot for the Wigan North Western - Hazel Grove.
Good points
Particularly re the nonsense of some of the new stations that have been built (I've argued a few times that East Midlands Parkway could have worked well if it opened when the EMR 810s come into operation and the MML timetable is recast - building it at a time when Stagecoach were forced to try to accommodate calls with the limited standard class capacity than a four/five coach 222 had meant that there was little scope to provide more than a token service, which was very unattractive to motorists on the M1 (would you time your journey down the motorway knowing that there were 45 minute gaps for London bound services and gaps of sixty minutes if you wanted to get to Derby?)
Reston will be another fiasco (sadly)
Exactly; the document apparently bases a lot of its justifications on the percentage of respondents supporting a given outcome. Given how unrepresentative the respondents are - let alone how many questions were left unanswered - you could hardly have picked a worse data source if you tried.
It's blatantly obvious that a few hundred people from Southport (likely cajoled through the local RUG or MP) have basically steamrollered over anyone else's interests.
There is simply no way that the comparitively low volume of passengers from Southport to Castlefield (the document suggests a figure of 791 people, presumably per day) justifies sacrificing a second train per hour for the local CLC stations, or a second train per hour to the Airport for the much larger flow from York/Leeds/Huddersfield (2093 people per day).
Yes, of course they would be inconvenienced without a direct train to Castlefield. But at least they have the option of making a same or opposite platform change at Salford Crescent or Bolton - that luxury simply doesn't exist if you live near one of the CLC shacks that's losing half its service.
I suppose democracy really is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried
Agreed
I guess it's an insight into a lot of Government/ politics - an organised noisy minority will often get their way because others are too quiet/ disorganised to stand their ground
Indeed there is. It's at the top of page 23. And if you look closer at it you'll notice it does not contain any references to Hazel Grove.
But Hazel Grove could still be served with 2tph by Buxton DMUs, which, to answer the original question, would be four car not six.
It is implied (but not explicitly stated) that the service pattern at Hazel Grove will be (off-peak at least)
-1tph Hazel Grove-Piccadilly
-1tph Buxton-Piccadilly
I think at this point "how to serve Hazel Grove" then becomes a separate "question" to Castlefield, once it is split off from the corridor, hence why the report becomes slightly silent on it.
re the above two posts - I'm conflicted between "two trains to Buxton sounds good, at least once passenger numbers have recovered a bit more" and "really not wanting to go back to the days when the Hazel Grove line only saw one EMU a week, which is what would happen if all of the services stopping there were Buxton trains"
Still some dust to settle on that one
To be fair, it is difficult to listen to those who remain silent - be it through choice, apathy or the inability to speak out.
True, but I'd have hoped that those in charge would have paid more attention to the quantifiable passenger data, showing how many people are travelling between different points
I don't blame Southport people for being so protective of their preferred route - I'm unhappy with the people who've capitulated to an organised noisy minority
I have colleagues who live in Southport who I have regular arguments with. Why do you NEED a service down Castlefield? Because that is where all our jobs are. Okay but you work from home now? As do a lot of high salary jobs in that area (well the ones who commute to Manchester anyway). But we want a direct service for when we go in. Okay, why cant you change at Bolton or Salford or get the tram from Victoria or walk the 15 minutes from Victoria? Well because its not fair, in London they have an amazing transport network, why should we compromise because the north doesn't get investment? You are aware in London that people change trains and walk all the time to get to their final destination? Yeah but that is different.
At which point I give up.
I feel for those that live on the Southport line but I feel they are pandered to at the expense of others, but I suppose as we have said. You can't listen to those who are silent!
Good points - I think that people up here forget that the service from most stations in south east England is only to one London terminal rather than a choice (obviously there are a few exceptions, and a few junctions, but it's a lot "cleaner" than the mess of services around Manchester, given the comparative sizes)
We've indulged the Southport campaigners before though, so they'll always feel that they are "special" - it's a shame that this has messed up what could have been a tidier network (e.g. a simple four/hour from Wallgate to Victoria)
Actually overall this is a missed opportunity to consider a Nord-West-Takt
You keep on talking about these grand plans, but then have a massive blind spot for the 1998 timetable on the Southport line, which must (apparently) be set in stone!
The two services will be merged, so you will have a Liverpool-Cleethorpes instead of a Liverpool-Airport and Piccadilly-Cleethorpes.
There will still be 1 stopping train per hour Liverpool-Oxford Road, but due to Southport's lobbying the second tph will only run Liverpool-Warrington Central.
The Liverpool-Nottingham/Norwich and Liverpool-Cleethorpes will inevitably have to pick up some additional stops along the CLC to compensate for this - that will in turn reduce their capacity for long distance passengers, as well as the turnaround time (and hence reliability). Journey times will also be increased.
Agreed
If the plan is for the same operational unit to run both Liverpool - Sheffield services and for them both to be run by the same stock (e.g. six coach 185s) then there's less of an issue (because a westbound ex-Cleethorpes service can become an eastbound service train to Nottingham etc, so there's more scope to accommodate a handful of additional stops - all because Southport passengers are particular about which of the central Manchester stations their trains get to serve, meaning that the link between the cities of Sheffield and Liverpool must be slowed down to accommodate the local stations that would otherwise lose their Manchester trains since the path at Oxford Road has been reserved for Southport trains)
It's a bit like the old lady who swallowed a fly...
www.gov.uk
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