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MUFC wanting to rebuild Old Trafford - what to do with Manchester United Football Ground?

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Purple Orange

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Because we're not all a bunch of cookie cutter drones with the same, safe opinion. Is that maybe why?

The fact it was well used before being canned says otherwise.

Well of course it's currently more convenient, there's no current rail link.

Well it obviously did.

I take it you’re firmly in the heavy rail purist camp?
 
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LOL The Irony

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I take it you’re firmly in the heavy rail purist camp?
Yes, and? Is that all you can counter my arguments with? Like @Mcr Warrior said, the trams are crush loaded on match days, you can't expect Metrolink to take all the strain, it just isn't viable. If United want to build a fan zone at Old Trafford, you could be looking at almost 90k people trying to use the trams at the same time.
 

Bletchleyite

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Yes, and? Is that all you can counter my arguments with? Like @Mcr Warrior said, the trams are crush loaded on match days, you can't expect Metrolink to take all the strain, it just isn't viable. If United want to build a fan zone at Old Trafford, you could be looking at almost 90k people trying to use the trams at the same time.

It clearly is viable, because they are doing now.
 

Purple Orange

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Yes, and? Is that all you can counter my arguments with? Like @Mcr Warrior said, the trams are crush loaded on match days, you can't expect Metrolink to take all the strain, it just isn't viable. If United want to build a fan zone at Old Trafford, you could be looking at almost 90k people trying to use the trams at the same time.
Calm down dear. I asked that question purely to establish where you’re coming from with respect to your arguments.

What you’re asking for is a train service on a match day that might consist of a 323 running to Old Trafford from the Castlefield corridor, but where is the capacity coming from to enable that and how many services before and after a match are you talking about? 1 or 2 trains? 3 at the very push?

A 323 has a capacity of roughly 275 seats plus standing (let’s say 100 standing), and let’s assume it’s a double 323. That means roughly 750 fans could use the shuttle on a given service, which equates to roughly 1% of the stadium capacity. If you managed to get 3 services, that’s 2,250 people.

A double M5000 tram has capacity of circa 400 people, of which from the city centre there are currently 30 services towards Old Trafford in the hour before kick off (I’m not counting the Trafford Centre service from Cornbrook as you have to board another tram to connect to it). Yet this can rise to 40 trams once the Media City services are fully reinstated and the Trafford Centre line runs all the way through the city centre. However based on 30 trams (assuming half are double and half are single), it means at least 9,000 people can get to the ground from the city centre in the hour before kick-off, using a network that has far better coverage of the city centre and surrounding boroughs than the Northern shuttle. That could be 12,000 when all lines are reinstated and if the network ran to maximum capacity (45 tph and all double trams), you could have at least 18,000 people transported in the hour before kick-off. Then you have the fact that fans will be coming in from the other direction too.

Even for away fans who might not know the area, for those that arrive at Piccadilly, descending on to the Piccadilly metrolink stop is just as easy as making your way back out to P14. Some might fancy a drink in town before hand, meaning that the tram lines are more suited to getting you on to Old Trafford.

So, given that Castlefield is at capacity, eating up a path for a shuttle service is not exactly the best use of resource, when we know that Metrolink has capacity to run an additional 10 trams each hour.
 

LOL The Irony

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Calm down dear. I asked that question purely to establish where you’re coming from with respect to your arguments.
If you'd been keeping up, you would've already seen and established where I was coming from with my arguments and wouldn't have asked such redundant questions.
A double M5000 tram has capacity of circa 400 people, of which from the city centre there are currently 30 services towards Old Trafford in the hour before kick off
If we're directly comparing Metrolink to heavy rail, you should use Piccadilly as the starting point, as that's the only place you could use both modes to Old Trafford. Yes, both will have picked up at other stops before, but to make things simple, assume they all got on/off at Piccadilly. What are the figures then?
So, given that Castlefield is at capacity, eating up a path for a shuttle service is not exactly the best use of resource, when we know that Metrolink has capacity to run an additional 10 trams each hour.
Once again, it's going to be a while before the stadium is rebuilt (at least 6 years is the figure I saw thrown around), so using current figures to measure is kind of redundant at the present. Metrolink might expand and Network Rail might finally fix Castlefield, allowing both to run to the stadium (which is the best option frankly, but some people on here want any excuse to push Metrolink as the saviour to any and all problems, so we go round in circles).
 

py_megapixel

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If you'd been keeping up, you would've already seen and established where I was coming from with my arguments and wouldn't have asked such redundant questions.
If you deem a question to be redundant or unhelpful, why can't you just ignore it? Making comments like that serves no purpose whatsoever and frankly makes you sound like an irritable primary school teacher.

If we're directly comparing Metrolink to heavy rail, you should use Piccadilly as the starting point, as that's the only place you could use both modes to Old Trafford. Yes, both will have picked up at other stops before, but to make things simple, assume they all got on/off at Piccadilly. What are the figures then?
It will be ten M5000s at an absolute minimum, fifteen once they go back to Eccles and MediaCity being separate. assuming they leave the service level as for a normal day and run them all with single trams, which would be the worst case scenario.

Metrolink is more than capable of changing the service levels to compensate for an expected increase in crowding. Just running everything with double sets would, of course, double the available capacity. I'm not sure if they would ramp up the frequency for a football match, but I don't see why they couldn't.

I should also add that only counting services from Piccadilly is crippling the Metrolink stats to match the relative inflexibility of heavy rail, which makes very little sense.
 

Mcr Warrior

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Definitely an oversimplification to think that everyone travelling by public transport to the Old Trafford stadia will be travelling there via Manchester Piccadilly. Obviously quite a few will be, but certainly not everyone.

The Altrincham and Eccles line Metrolink trams certainly tend to be busy in the reverse direction, (i.e. inbound towards Manchester) on event days.

Metrolink trams will certainly be able to move many passengers, but reckon it would be good if heavy rail services could also pick up part of the strain, which brings us back to the question as to whether the heavy rail station at the rear of the South Stand is currently fit for purpose, which I don't believe it is.

Be interesting also to see any analysis in the public domain as to how the majority of spectators are understood to actually get to/from events.
 

HSTEd

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Perhaps the... cheapest. option would just be to buy special double length ultra high capacity trams [possibly removing a lot of the seating to pack in as much standing as possible?] for running match days over the stadium serving routes.

Would also be a solution for City Games when they aren't at the same time as United ones.
 

zwk500

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Metrolink trams will certainly be able to move many passengers, but reckon it would be good if heavy rail services could also pick up part of the strain, which brings us back to the question as to whether the heavy rail station at the rear of the South Stand is currently fit for purpose, which I don't believe it is.
There's a number of issues in this, the main one being 'Is the heavy rail necessary to serve the crowd together with tramlink?' (it's inevitable the trams will always be part of the answer, to some posters' chagrin). If it is, then rebuild it into something sensible. If it isn't and tramlink can pick up the slack, then close it and have done with it.
Be interesting also to see any analysis in the public domain as to how the majority of spectators are understood to actually get to/from events.
There's a lot redacted from this document (or not filled in) but it gives some insight into the 2004 expansion plans: https://travelplantoolkit.tfgm.com/docs/best-practice/Trafford - Manchester United FC.pdf
Included in it is this little gem of a table:
1648414880689.png
[Image of table from TfGM travel plan report indicating modal split targets of Man Utd fans in 1998 and 2005. Car has dropped from 77 to 57%, park and ride risen from 0 to 8%, rail from 3 to 6 and metrolink from 4 to 10%.]
And a bit further on the actual numbers for 1998 and 2001:
1648415061417.png
[Image of table showing actual modal split figures for 1998 and 2001]

Even more digging reveals this proposal:
5.2. Rail Initiatives

There is considerable potential for improving the marketing of the service and possibly increasing the number of trains and direct routes serving the halt. Attention to the platform by Network Rail would address the safety concerns of the Police and enable passengers to wait on the platforms

To capture passengers from the west, the train operators could stop trains at Trafford Park on match days which is only a relatively short walk away from the stadium and closer than many car parks.

The provision of a new station serving both directions on the Trafford Park line at White City would replace the Old Trafford Halt and increase the number of potential routes serving the area, especially from the west, an area not served by Metrolink.
(Quote from P.18 of a Travel plan review by Faber Maunsell)
 
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