I love how this article explains how part of our City’s key infrastructure and history works, for something that many of us perhaps take for granted or don’t stop to notice. Deconstructing the mechanics of Manchester and playing it back to us, clearly and concisely (and with Data Viz too, bonus points!) makes for a fantastic read with longer lasting benefits. Readers won’t be looking at our train stations the same way again. More of this please!
It just exasperates me. I felt gutted that it isn't to go ahead, I think it's the frustration of constant stop starts and the shelving of project after project which is just frankly annoying and wasteful. All the time and money that goes into the preparation of schemes including the extra platforms at Piccadilly and Oxford rd that then just never go through. Although costly these projects would have had benefits for years and years to come, however politics holds them back. For all of the moaning about the cost of over runs of crossrail no one gives that a thought now as it's been a fantastic success...... here's hoping for northern powerhouse east / west link. Although I'm not counting on it!
A well-informed article, well done. I worked at GMPTE at the time the Ordsall Curve was developed (in Metrolink development and environment rather than rail planning) and there was an internal consensus that OC would be of significant, but ultimately limited value in increasing accessibility. What we never anticipated was the huge issues that two additional flat junctions would bring. Manchester trains are a mish-mash of different operators (five, I think) with a huge variety of trains from 0-40 years old, and a mix of diesel and electric. When OC opened, the effect was to exchange unreliability between the essentially separate north and south Manchester rail networks. It works on CrossRail and Thameslink because there is one operator and every train is identical (and new). Most agreed that the proper long term solution was a tunnelled Metro that would join up mostly suburban lines and provide the kind of accessibility that most northern European cities take for granted. This would also free the above ground lines and stations for longer distance trains. But at the time DfT made it clear that the choice was Ordsall Curve or nothing. So hence the current mess. We still desperately need the tunnelled metro - anyone tried getting from Piccadilly to Factory recently?
Ben Elton covered this very issue in a recent Channel 4 documentary, but the graphics and table of delays are a concise way of illustrating the problem of non connectivity between transit points in Britain's second city.German public transport always seems so well connected to me when I visit so maybe just hand over the whole national railway infrastructure to the Germans to look after..
But I work in the media, and have been a filmmaker myself. As such, it really really upsets me when accreditations aren’t right!
Fry, Laurie, and the BBC probably don’t need my help, but even so, please could you amend the image credits to BBC, and not YouTube!
Alphabet’s video hosting website may indeed have almost every morning you need on there, but it’s often not uploaded by the original rights holders, and they almost certainly don’t own the rights to this classic show!
The Mill is a beacon of light in journalism, and so it can also reflect the best practices - sorry for holding you to the highest standards! YouTube may have been the original source of the still, but they are not the owners of the content - labelling it as such sends out the wrong message. Media & Technology literacy is hard, and it’s understandably easy to fall into a trap of labelling giant websites as sources... when in fact they are aggregators!
Thank you Daniel. Nothing like a good long railway read to ease me into my weekend. HS2 was never going to happen. Why would anyone traveling from Manchester or Stockport want to be in the middle of London in anything less than two hours? Talk about undue haste! Let them take planes! Time to read my book, do the crossword (I don’t), check emails (sodding WiFi permitting). One-and-a-half hours, for how many billions? Are you mad!?
Well, no. Actually, it’s all about capacity. I can sort capacity: make travel on West Coast mainline so expensive no one can afford to use it. See, that’ll drive customer numbers down, and solve the passenger overload, Mr Shapps (nothing to do with Covid).
I take no pleasure in having won my bet. The only joyful way to travel long distances, and the relatively sustainable daily commute is now dead in this country. Passenger railways that began here in Manchester and revolutionised the world, are killed by government edict. And not for the first time (eh, Dr Beeching).
Daniel’s forlorn train-spotting on the Ordsall Chord only reminds me of another reason why Aviva Studios is so wilfully mis-sited. The considerable increase in rail traffic that must surely one day come, will offer plenty of background noise for performers to contend with. Oh well, it’s probably a safe bet it will never happen.
Im not just disappointed Daniel. I’m disgusted by that grotesque prospectus of supposed consolation prizes, that turns out to be something some numpty must have cobbled together so that it appears the PM has got plans to benefit people in ‘the north’. It turns out to be a blatant lie that hasn’t even been checked by anyone, leaving it half full of non-projects and garbage. Nothing could express more clearly how much contempt the govt has for its northern electorate. They even haven’ bothered with the small courtesy of trying to pretend to take us seriously. The obvious carelessness of the prospectus is deliberate - it doesn’t matter what old rubbish they tell us, and its succeeded with me in making me feel insulted personally as well as part of my community. Colleen.
Excellent article with clear information about the lack of big vision and consequences over decades. The comparison to the Elizabeth line is so stark, as is any journey by public transport in London. Thank you.
Despite the endless trail for the decision, it's actual announcement still made me feel physically angry. That evening, sitting on a bus which took half an hour to go a few hundred metres because of the diversions around the Tory conference just felt too on the nose.
Central Manchester's roads are full. On a good day traffic can just about flow but if there are any incidents or events around rush hour, whether it's an evening match, an unfortunately located accident or if it's just been pissng it down all day, rush hour becomes gridlock. The buses take twice as long as they should and they're rammed full of annoyed passengers.
Trams are too short to deal with peak passenger numbers and the lines through the city centre won't be able to handle much more traffic, so it's hard to see how the network can be significantly expanded.
You can understand why people would use their car as it will save time and be much more pleasant, but each car just makes the problem worse. With congestion charging seeming to be seen as political suicide, the only way we can see any improvement in getting around the city is to give a significant number of drivers a reliable and pleasant alternative to their car. No doubt some of the projects that were announced this week may help with that, but can anyone actually believe that they will happen? When their cancellation will barely make the local news, how can they hope to survive a decade or more of difficult budgets?
HS2 may not have been the perfect project, but it was one that was actually happening, somehow just about managing to keep government support for a decade and a half. A grown up country would have been planning beyond it, not just Liverpool to Leeds and York, but onwards to the North East, Scotland and the South West. A continuous programme of building could have used the momentum of training and expertise to make the projects cheaper and quicker, with earlier stages coming to fruition showing why the shovels in the grounds were worth it. Instead, we've dithered and delayed, building the most expensive and least helpful section to show that costs can sky rocket without showing any benefits.
Sunak's decisions this week haven't just pushed everything back by decades, out of spite they've made everything more expensive for anyone who disagrees with him. To do this under a banner of tough long term decisions is nothing short of gaslighting. The damage the Tories have done to this country should consign them to electoral oblivion for eternity.
Also worth noting that the nonsense infrastructure shopping list announced at the conference does nothing to address the two immediate areas impacting on running a decent railway in the north, that of Industrial relations, and that of long term strategy and structure of the industry. Basically we're treading water until the next General Election whilst Rishi and his band of overachieving sixth formers continue to play petty politics with the railway.
I’m with you Miles. If only the Labour Party (should we be calling them under grads?) could see that infrastructure is THE word to carry into the next election, & that much debated affordable housing is INFRASTRUCTURE, not real estate. The railways, roads, waterways, seaports, sewage, medical provision, communications & housing stock are INFRASTRUCTURE, not to be gambled with. I’m not wishing to go too deep over my head here, but state management is not the same as state ownership. Swiss railways (bless them) are, I believe, public-private with effective State supervision. Will any incoming UK government get that?
It drives me to distraction how bad we are at infrastructure in this country. Earlier this summer the NAO reported that repeated chopping and changing of the Transpennine Route Upgrade plan had added years to the completion date, and wasted £190 million - https://www.ft.com/content/8891c5ea-e059-473c-b6ec-13a421b86b11 . Yet in the cancellation of HS2, there was no discussion of why the costs might have increased so much - repeated ministerial interference surely has not been exactly helpful here, though it is surely far from the only problem. It cannot have helped that Chris Grayling was the man who cancelled platforms 15/16 and the associated works back in 2017 - a man whose ministerial record is one of pure unalloyed failure.
Thank you for explaining this so clearly, Daniel - I only hope that next time the Mill comes to write on this, there's at least some good news here.
Another fabulous article from Daniel Timms. I didn't know the reasons for the Castlefield delays or lack of trains on the Ordsall Chord until now. The contrast with London appears even more stark. We could also mention Thameslink, the average age of our trains compared to those south of Birmingham, and the rather patronising assumption that the key to 'leveling-up' the North was to build a better connection to London (starting at the London end).
Great article, thanks guys. A view that I’ve expressed to friends of mine is that the UK simply has far too many chums in legal and financial services who profit and benefit no matter what happens to the real economy. The range rovers roll ever onwards and the paperwork mountains climb ever higher. Legal challenges, business cases, contracts, insurance policies... it almost feels like these projects only exist as a gravy train for professionals until eventually the thing de-rails, and of course the corpse is then picked clean by the very same folks. I want to see a detailed breakdown of what went wrong, who were the blockers sucking up the funds? Land bankers? Professional legal challengers? Muddling project managers? Monopolistic contractors?
Whilst the article rightly notes that the Ordsall Chord took so long to establish but has created its own log jam, there is another rail line which could provide a partial solution.
On the line from Victoria towards the Thorpe Road Depot there’s a branch which almost joins the Stockport to Piccadilly line at Ardwick.
A short loop-back from this line west of the Ardwick Depot into Piccadilly would create the very solution that is obviously lacking.
Thus there would both a North Loop (?Miles Platting Chord) and a South Loop (Ordsall Chord).
None of this resolves one of the main issues in the north, that of electrification.
Geometry doesn't work at the Picc end (was a load of complicated ironwork when it was briefly in place that meant you tie up half of Picc throat any time you use it), plus it takes so long to dawdle out via Eastlands and Brewery that you'd be better getting the pre-existing tram or walking.
Is that the line which runs a couple of hundreds of yards from City's ground? I walk past it when I go to City and there's a red signal on the line, but I've never seen a train on it, in either direction. And it's a twin-track, too
I love how this article explains how part of our City’s key infrastructure and history works, for something that many of us perhaps take for granted or don’t stop to notice. Deconstructing the mechanics of Manchester and playing it back to us, clearly and concisely (and with Data Viz too, bonus points!) makes for a fantastic read with longer lasting benefits. Readers won’t be looking at our train stations the same way again. More of this please!
Thanks Colin - really glad you found it helpful
"That makes the “effective size” of Hamburger bigger..."
Thanks very much. Now I'm cross AND hungry.
It just exasperates me. I felt gutted that it isn't to go ahead, I think it's the frustration of constant stop starts and the shelving of project after project which is just frankly annoying and wasteful. All the time and money that goes into the preparation of schemes including the extra platforms at Piccadilly and Oxford rd that then just never go through. Although costly these projects would have had benefits for years and years to come, however politics holds them back. For all of the moaning about the cost of over runs of crossrail no one gives that a thought now as it's been a fantastic success...... here's hoping for northern powerhouse east / west link. Although I'm not counting on it!
I share your pain Jack, and also struggle to be hopeful...
A well-informed article, well done. I worked at GMPTE at the time the Ordsall Curve was developed (in Metrolink development and environment rather than rail planning) and there was an internal consensus that OC would be of significant, but ultimately limited value in increasing accessibility. What we never anticipated was the huge issues that two additional flat junctions would bring. Manchester trains are a mish-mash of different operators (five, I think) with a huge variety of trains from 0-40 years old, and a mix of diesel and electric. When OC opened, the effect was to exchange unreliability between the essentially separate north and south Manchester rail networks. It works on CrossRail and Thameslink because there is one operator and every train is identical (and new). Most agreed that the proper long term solution was a tunnelled Metro that would join up mostly suburban lines and provide the kind of accessibility that most northern European cities take for granted. This would also free the above ground lines and stations for longer distance trains. But at the time DfT made it clear that the choice was Ordsall Curve or nothing. So hence the current mess. We still desperately need the tunnelled metro - anyone tried getting from Piccadilly to Factory recently?
That's a really interesting insight into the OC development process, thanks Peter
Ben Elton covered this very issue in a recent Channel 4 documentary, but the graphics and table of delays are a concise way of illustrating the problem of non connectivity between transit points in Britain's second city.German public transport always seems so well connected to me when I visit so maybe just hand over the whole national railway infrastructure to the Germans to look after..
Thanks - I've also recently been in Sweden and the gaping chasm between what we have and what they have is embarrassing
Sorry - another GREAT read from The Mill...
But I work in the media, and have been a filmmaker myself. As such, it really really upsets me when accreditations aren’t right!
Fry, Laurie, and the BBC probably don’t need my help, but even so, please could you amend the image credits to BBC, and not YouTube!
Alphabet’s video hosting website may indeed have almost every morning you need on there, but it’s often not uploaded by the original rights holders, and they almost certainly don’t own the rights to this classic show!
The Mill is a beacon of light in journalism, and so it can also reflect the best practices - sorry for holding you to the highest standards! YouTube may have been the original source of the still, but they are not the owners of the content - labelling it as such sends out the wrong message. Media & Technology literacy is hard, and it’s understandably easy to fall into a trap of labelling giant websites as sources... when in fact they are aggregators!
Really helpful point, thanks Colin. Now updated.
Thank you Daniel. Nothing like a good long railway read to ease me into my weekend. HS2 was never going to happen. Why would anyone traveling from Manchester or Stockport want to be in the middle of London in anything less than two hours? Talk about undue haste! Let them take planes! Time to read my book, do the crossword (I don’t), check emails (sodding WiFi permitting). One-and-a-half hours, for how many billions? Are you mad!?
Well, no. Actually, it’s all about capacity. I can sort capacity: make travel on West Coast mainline so expensive no one can afford to use it. See, that’ll drive customer numbers down, and solve the passenger overload, Mr Shapps (nothing to do with Covid).
I take no pleasure in having won my bet. The only joyful way to travel long distances, and the relatively sustainable daily commute is now dead in this country. Passenger railways that began here in Manchester and revolutionised the world, are killed by government edict. And not for the first time (eh, Dr Beeching).
Daniel’s forlorn train-spotting on the Ordsall Chord only reminds me of another reason why Aviva Studios is so wilfully mis-sited. The considerable increase in rail traffic that must surely one day come, will offer plenty of background noise for performers to contend with. Oh well, it’s probably a safe bet it will never happen.
Yes, it's only so long until a minister tries to persuade us of the lifestyle benefits of slow travel...
Im not just disappointed Daniel. I’m disgusted by that grotesque prospectus of supposed consolation prizes, that turns out to be something some numpty must have cobbled together so that it appears the PM has got plans to benefit people in ‘the north’. It turns out to be a blatant lie that hasn’t even been checked by anyone, leaving it half full of non-projects and garbage. Nothing could express more clearly how much contempt the govt has for its northern electorate. They even haven’ bothered with the small courtesy of trying to pretend to take us seriously. The obvious carelessness of the prospectus is deliberate - it doesn’t matter what old rubbish they tell us, and its succeeded with me in making me feel insulted personally as well as part of my community. Colleen.
Excellent article with clear information about the lack of big vision and consequences over decades. The comparison to the Elizabeth line is so stark, as is any journey by public transport in London. Thank you.
Thanks for saying so Viki, I'm really glad you liked it
Despite the endless trail for the decision, it's actual announcement still made me feel physically angry. That evening, sitting on a bus which took half an hour to go a few hundred metres because of the diversions around the Tory conference just felt too on the nose.
Central Manchester's roads are full. On a good day traffic can just about flow but if there are any incidents or events around rush hour, whether it's an evening match, an unfortunately located accident or if it's just been pissng it down all day, rush hour becomes gridlock. The buses take twice as long as they should and they're rammed full of annoyed passengers.
Trams are too short to deal with peak passenger numbers and the lines through the city centre won't be able to handle much more traffic, so it's hard to see how the network can be significantly expanded.
You can understand why people would use their car as it will save time and be much more pleasant, but each car just makes the problem worse. With congestion charging seeming to be seen as political suicide, the only way we can see any improvement in getting around the city is to give a significant number of drivers a reliable and pleasant alternative to their car. No doubt some of the projects that were announced this week may help with that, but can anyone actually believe that they will happen? When their cancellation will barely make the local news, how can they hope to survive a decade or more of difficult budgets?
HS2 may not have been the perfect project, but it was one that was actually happening, somehow just about managing to keep government support for a decade and a half. A grown up country would have been planning beyond it, not just Liverpool to Leeds and York, but onwards to the North East, Scotland and the South West. A continuous programme of building could have used the momentum of training and expertise to make the projects cheaper and quicker, with earlier stages coming to fruition showing why the shovels in the grounds were worth it. Instead, we've dithered and delayed, building the most expensive and least helpful section to show that costs can sky rocket without showing any benefits.
Sunak's decisions this week haven't just pushed everything back by decades, out of spite they've made everything more expensive for anyone who disagrees with him. To do this under a banner of tough long term decisions is nothing short of gaslighting. The damage the Tories have done to this country should consign them to electoral oblivion for eternity.
It's all a little depressing, yes. Interesting point about the tram network being full in the centre, I'll look into that...
Also worth noting that the nonsense infrastructure shopping list announced at the conference does nothing to address the two immediate areas impacting on running a decent railway in the north, that of Industrial relations, and that of long term strategy and structure of the industry. Basically we're treading water until the next General Election whilst Rishi and his band of overachieving sixth formers continue to play petty politics with the railway.
I’m with you Miles. If only the Labour Party (should we be calling them under grads?) could see that infrastructure is THE word to carry into the next election, & that much debated affordable housing is INFRASTRUCTURE, not real estate. The railways, roads, waterways, seaports, sewage, medical provision, communications & housing stock are INFRASTRUCTURE, not to be gambled with. I’m not wishing to go too deep over my head here, but state management is not the same as state ownership. Swiss railways (bless them) are, I believe, public-private with effective State supervision. Will any incoming UK government get that?
It drives me to distraction how bad we are at infrastructure in this country. Earlier this summer the NAO reported that repeated chopping and changing of the Transpennine Route Upgrade plan had added years to the completion date, and wasted £190 million - https://www.ft.com/content/8891c5ea-e059-473c-b6ec-13a421b86b11 . Yet in the cancellation of HS2, there was no discussion of why the costs might have increased so much - repeated ministerial interference surely has not been exactly helpful here, though it is surely far from the only problem. It cannot have helped that Chris Grayling was the man who cancelled platforms 15/16 and the associated works back in 2017 - a man whose ministerial record is one of pure unalloyed failure.
Thank you for explaining this so clearly, Daniel - I only hope that next time the Mill comes to write on this, there's at least some good news here.
Another fabulous article from Daniel Timms. I didn't know the reasons for the Castlefield delays or lack of trains on the Ordsall Chord until now. The contrast with London appears even more stark. We could also mention Thameslink, the average age of our trains compared to those south of Birmingham, and the rather patronising assumption that the key to 'leveling-up' the North was to build a better connection to London (starting at the London end).
Great article, thanks guys. A view that I’ve expressed to friends of mine is that the UK simply has far too many chums in legal and financial services who profit and benefit no matter what happens to the real economy. The range rovers roll ever onwards and the paperwork mountains climb ever higher. Legal challenges, business cases, contracts, insurance policies... it almost feels like these projects only exist as a gravy train for professionals until eventually the thing de-rails, and of course the corpse is then picked clean by the very same folks. I want to see a detailed breakdown of what went wrong, who were the blockers sucking up the funds? Land bankers? Professional legal challengers? Muddling project managers? Monopolistic contractors?
Whilst the article rightly notes that the Ordsall Chord took so long to establish but has created its own log jam, there is another rail line which could provide a partial solution.
On the line from Victoria towards the Thorpe Road Depot there’s a branch which almost joins the Stockport to Piccadilly line at Ardwick.
A short loop-back from this line west of the Ardwick Depot into Piccadilly would create the very solution that is obviously lacking.
Thus there would both a North Loop (?Miles Platting Chord) and a South Loop (Ordsall Chord).
None of this resolves one of the main issues in the north, that of electrification.
Geometry doesn't work at the Picc end (was a load of complicated ironwork when it was briefly in place that meant you tie up half of Picc throat any time you use it), plus it takes so long to dawdle out via Eastlands and Brewery that you'd be better getting the pre-existing tram or walking.
Is that the line which runs a couple of hundreds of yards from City's ground? I walk past it when I go to City and there's a red signal on the line, but I've never seen a train on it, in either direction. And it's a twin-track, too
Yes that's the line.