Metrolink coming to Bolton (?) - Shapps

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Brislington? I assume he means St. Annes Park, which is fairly near, not reopening the North Somerset line, much of which has been built over. It would have been useful as far as Whitchurch as a light rail line if the right of way had been protected, but too late now.

Who can ever forget "The Titfield Thunderbolt" which was set in the lower reaches of the Bristol and North Somerset Railway.

 

[DiscoSteve]

Do you mean the old RRB?
The council have halted work as they are not happy with the plans.

Keeping on OT, DafT have released a video this week featuring the proposed Bolton-Radcliffe train link.
Check it out, and stop it on the map.
Radcliffe appears to have moved, and gawd knows what is going on in Blackpool!

Placement does look a bit odd...

 

[plugwash]

I presume someone has taken a semi-schematic rail map and tried to cram the new lines in.

 

[WatcherZero]

Bolton directly north of Manchester thought?

The Bolton dot is where Heywood is.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Bolton directly north of Manchester thought?

The Bolton dot is where Heywood is.

But Heywood is already shown in its correct position on the schematic, so that cannot be so.

 

[WatcherZero]

Heywood is almost exactly north of Manchester, there are parts of Heywood industrial estate that are actually east of Manchester city centre.

 

[HSTEd]

Personally I would prefer to reserve the Atherton line as the north end of a full blown automated mini Metro along the lines of Copenhagen, but I suppose a tram route does sort of work.

Also the Atherton line technically goes to Bolton, in that it has a station at Westhoughton Daisy Hill which is in the correct borough!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Also the Atherton line technically goes to Bolton, in that it has a station at Westhoughton which is in the correct borough!

Do I spot a geographical error here? The Atherton line meets the Bolton to Wigan line at Crows Nest Junction, but Westhoughton is situated on the Bolton to Wigan line prior to Crow Nest Junction being reached.

 

[WatcherZero]

Daisy Hill is a station on the Atherton line which is in Westhoughton. As Xeno says Westhoughton station is on the Bolton line.

 

[Ianno87]

Do I spot a geographical error here? The Atherton line meets the Bolton to Wigan line at Crows Nest Junction, but Westhoughton is situated on the Bolton to Wigan line prior to Crows Nest Junction being reached.

Daisy Hill is a station on the Atherton line which is in Westhoughton. As Xeno says Westhoughton station is on the Bolton line.

However, the point stands that Daisy Hill railway station is located within Bolton.

 

[HSTEd]

Do I spot a geographical error here? The Atherton line meets the Bolton to Wigan line at Crows Nest Junction, but Westhoughton is situated on the Bolton to Wigan line prior to Crows Nest Junction being reached.

Oops, I meant Daisy Hill!

 

[edwin_m]

Do I spot a geographical error here? The Atherton line meets the Bolton to Wigan line at Crows Nest Junction, but Westhoughton is situated on the Bolton to Wigan line prior to Crows Nest Junction being reached.

A pedant writes: Crow Nest Junction. Only one crow.

 

[Peter Lanky]

If there is to be a Metrolink route to Bolton, then one has to ask the question of what such a line would achieve and who would it benefit. Having lived close to the Bolton Bury line near Darcy Lever station as a child, and taking into account the vast amount of housing since built at Little Lever and Bradley Fold, that building over the track bed was a massive error, but it has been done, and I don't see a way around it. Also the bridge over Lower Darcy St, only recently replaced by a footbridge, and the bridge from the end of the Burnden Viaduct to join to the main line would also cause problems. Even taking the line down Manchester Road from that point would have problems. If we managed to overcome these obstacles, it may well be useful for Bradley Fold into Bolton, but is there likely to be much demand from Bolton to Manchester along such a route? I doubt it unless heavily subsidised.
If a means of taking light rail along the main line through Farnworth was worked out, I again doubt that the take up would be worth it. Moses Gate is OK, but Farnworth station is too far from the centre of Farnworth for modern man to walk.
The idea of taking a line from the region of Walkden and using the old track into Great Moor Street sounded a good idea, but again there seems too much housing that has been built over the track, with no clear detour route.
Without much of the route being completely new whichever way one chooses, I can't see a viable way into Bolton that would make building a light rail cost effective.
I like the idea of converting the whole Atherton line from Salford into Wigan Wallgate to light rail, seeing as it's been little more than that for years with all the 'Pacers'.

 

[AMR]

The Bolton Metro link should be done before Stockport. That's a definite. But honestly if you just follow the railway line and make separate tracks with more frequent stations. Its not only going to be faster but also not that costly to people using it.

 

[ic31420]

The Bolton Metro link should be done before Stockport. That's a definite. But honestly if you just follow the railway line and make separate tracks with more frequent stations. Its not only going to be faster but also not that costly to people using it.

Faster and not that costly... compared to what?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The Bolton Metro link should be done before Stockport. That's a definite

In real life terms, does this Bolton line feature on any time based agenda at TfGM?

 

[AMR]

Faster and not that costly... compared to what

Costly was a bad choice of word, I meant that it would affect the amount of people it would serve if it went into town centres . Do what they did for Picc-Bury line. As that works well and is fast but the Airport line (Wythenshawe stopper) It takes a longer time for a lot less distance.

 

[Peter Lanky]

The Bolton Metro link should be done before Stockport. That's a definite. But honestly if you just follow the railway line and make separate tracks with more frequent stations. Its not only going to be faster but also not that costly to people using it.

I would have though that there would be a significant part of the existing railway line where there is no scope to add separate track.

All these capacity issues and congestion around Manchester could be solved by turning the whole argument on it's head and asking "Why do we insist on transporting huge numbers of people into city centres from surrounding towns in order for a good proportion of them to be doing little more than sitting at a desk pressing buttons."? In other word commuting. All these congestion problems have been caused by this obsession with commuting, which Covid 19 has proved is completely unnecessary in many cases as the work can be done from home, or in more locally located offices. It's not the answer to the question asked, but a campaign to reduce commuting must surely be a significant issue.

 

[Trackman]

I caught Granada news the other night by accident.
Burnham right at the end mentioned bringing Metrolink to Stockport and Bolton.
I think he was going on about tram-trains before, not sure. Before that it was the buses, which confused me.
Might be on catch-up or something.

 

[Gostav]

Does Metrolink have any tram-train plan to join the railway network? I think the construction work would be less than Sheffield tram-train project due to high level platforms are use.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Does Metrolink have any tram-train plan to join the railway network? I think the construction work would be less than Sheffield tram-train project due to high level platforms are use.

Rose Hill Marple, Hadfield and the Atherton Line are the ones that often get proposed with varying levels of official-ness.

 

[Journeyman]

Does Metrolink have any tram-train plan to join the railway network? I think the construction work would be less than Sheffield tram-train project due to high level platforms are use.

I'm guessing it would be pretty straightforward, given parts of Metrolink were initially heavy rail without much modification to infrastructure. You'd need vehicles with suitable crashworthiness and AWS/TPWS to run on Network Rail, and a system to make sure pure heavy rail vehicles don't end up on light rail infrastructure, and vice-versa.

 

[Purple Orange]

I'm guessing it would be pretty straightforward, given parts of Metrolink were initially heavy rail without much modification to infrastructure. You'd need vehicles with suitable crashworthiness and AWS/TPWS to run on Network Rail, and a system to make sure pure heavy rail vehicles don't end up on light rail infrastructure, and vice-versa.

I can just imagine a 68 roaring to a stop on Market Street!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I caught Granada news the other night by accident.
Burnham right at the end mentioned bringing Metrolink to Stockport and Bolton.
I think he was going on about tram-trains before, not sure. Before that it was the buses, which confused me.
Might be on catch-up or something.

On other website, reference is made that Burnham was speaking of a Metrolink line to Middleton as being a priority, so it looks like to use the old football pools adage....."Perm any 1 from 3"

 

[Wtloild]

I caught Granada news the other night by accident.
Burnham right at the end mentioned bringing Metrolink to Stockport and Bolton.
I think he was going on about tram-trains before, not sure. Before that it was the buses, which confused me.
Might be on catch-up or something.

He did acknowledge the lack of connectivity outside of central Manchester - that most journeys between outer boroughs are routed via the the centre.
Bolton which already has relatively good connection to Manchester might be better served by trams to Bury or Salford Quays.
Likewise Stockport to the airport.

 

[daodao]

He did acknowledge the lack of connectivity outside of central Manchester - that most journeys between outer boroughs are routed via the the centre.
Bolton which already has relatively good connection to Manchester might be better served by trams to Bury or Salford Quays.
Likewise Stockport to the airport.

Further Metrolink expansion is only worthwhile to serve key traffic generators. The centres of the ring of towns surrounding Manchester are now so rundown and degraded that it is no longer worth establishing rail/tram links between them primarily for the purpose of serving these town centres. IMO, it would be better concentrating on converting other heavy rail suburban/local routes in to central Manchester to Metrolink, e.g. the ex-GC lines SE from Piccadilly and the Atherton line. That would provide Metrolink services in the 3 boroughs (Stockport/Bolton/Wigan) not currently served by it.

 

[Peter Lanky]

Further Metrolink expansion is only worthwhile to serve key traffic generators. The centres of the ring of towns surrounding Manchester are now so rundown and degraded that it is no longer worth establishing rail/tram links between them primarily for the purpose of serving these town centres. IMO, it would be better concentrating on converting other heavy rail suburban/local routes in to central Manchester to Metrolink, e.g. the ex-GC lines SE from Piccadilly and the Atherton line. That would provide Metrolink services in the 3 boroughs (Stockport/Bolton/Wigan) not currently served by it.

The alternative of course is to stop the continued run down of these town centres by investing in them rather than the city centre, which is doing very well already thank you. It won't help anybody (other than Burnham) if Manchester becomes London Mk2, with people travelling from 50 miles in all directions from their jobless towns to sit at a desk pushing buttons all day. If this happens, no amount of rail infrastructure expansion in the city centre will cope with it.

I feel however that this is beyond the thinking of business leaders and politicians, who think in terms of money before people, so unlikely to happen.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The alternative of course is to stop the continued run down of these town centres by investing in them rather than the city centre, which is doing very well already thank you. It won't help anybody (other than Burnham) if Manchester becomes London Mk2, with people travelling from 50 miles in all directions from their jobless towns to sit at a desk pushing buttons all day. If this happens, no amount of rail infrastructure expansion in the city centre will cope with it.

I feel however that this is beyond the thinking of business leaders and politicians, who think in terms of money before people, so unlikely to happen.

That isn't an accurate description of the South East. The towns around London also do very well from their association with it. People London commute because it generally pays better or offers more specialist roles.

 

[Mathew S]

The current thinking within TfGM/GMCA seems to be that Middleton is top of the list for Metrolink extensions, though there are other options for sure.

As for Bolton/Stockport, it would be wrong to assume that 'bringing Metrolink to' a borough has to mean trams. Local control of stations is high on TfGMs wishlist, and with stations come branding and ticket sales.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The current thinking within TfGM/GMCA seems to be that Middleton is top of the list for Metrolink extensions, though there are other options for sure.

As for Bolton/Stockport, it would be wrong to assume that 'bringing Metrolink to' a borough has to mean trams. Local control of stations is high on TfGMs wishlist, and with stations come branding and ticket sales.

I wouldn't even assume it will be called Metrolink anyway - I can see it becoming "Bee Train", "Bee Bus" and "Bee Tram", given that they are talking of it being "the Bee Network".