The key part of all plans in recent years seem to have routing via Manchester Airport as a necessity and a number of detractors suggest that this would not necessarily be the wanted destination for many travellers from Liverpool given that it has its own airport with significant throughput and available destinations, but this ignores two things, one that the area around Manchester Airport is a growing business/work destination in its own right, with significant numbers of businesses choosing to have their base there and secondly, by routing through Manchester Airport first, then onto Manchester and beyond, this would first alleviate the well-known congestion along the Castlefield corridor and if properly connected in Central Manchester, would open up new routes for travellers presently unmet by direct services. This would also relieve capacity on existing lines for growth there. The plans presented by the Liverpool and Manchester mayors as a “Northern Arc” seem to acknowledge all of this but aren’t sufficiently detailed in key areas to be able to analyse their overall value and that leads on to the things that such a line ought to address as part of its remit:
- Capacity in Liverpool station
- Capacity in Manchester stations
- The Castlefield corridor
The original plans show the approximate path of the Victoria/Waterloo tunnels with respect to Lime Street station, the dotted line that runs from Crown Street on the right, underneath New Islington in the middle on the map under Leeds Street on the left shows the route:
Cropped version of map courtesy https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11592172
There is another unused tunnel called the Wapping tunnel which also runs from Edge Hill west to the city centre (it was connected to Park Lane Goods station close to the waterfront, the map here points to the location and helpfully shows the other tunnels mentioned above) and the Mersey region combined authority still have this particular tunnel included in their strategic plans for development to re-introduce passenger services (the below is from 2018 but is still on the website, and the current LTP notes that this Liverpool City Region Long Term Rail Strategy is subsumed into it, the reference is section 6.20).
The report suggests this would connect trains from the east into the Merseyrail electric network, though it acknowledges that this would impact on capacity at Liverpool Central and a new separate station would probably have to be built to accommodate these. Dual voltage electric trains could then go from stations on the east side overhead line stations onto the underground by third rail (e.g. a Wigan North Western to Hunts Cross service).
These links suggest the former two tunnels are in relatively good condition:
https://filming.networkrail.co.uk/filming-locations/victoria-waterloo-tunnels/
https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/waterloo-victoria-tunnels-liverpool-december-2024.139079/
You may note that the latter references the report mentioned earlier, commissioned by Neil Scales (the then Chief Executive of Merseytravel) into the potential to re-use of the tunnels in 2007, and that the DfT had paid for a new road bridge along the route to retain the tunnels usability in 2016.
To add terminal capacity in Liverpool, one commentator suggests resurrecting Liverpool Central Station High Level and whilst that might be possible around the station (at considerable expense as there has been significant development around the site and along the surface route of the last mile or so), the idea that an extra third track can be fitted in along the whole route from Liverpool South Parkway is fanciful to say the least, and would not give the necessary increase in capacity and is not actually connected to the route he thinks the new line would take, i.e. from the Fiddlers Ferry route into Liverpool via Widnes/Ditton junction. (There was a route from near Cressington through the Garston docks sidings, but a Google Maps view suggests that has been built on too, it’s part of the A561 Garston Way.
The overall issue would be how do you then connect east from Edge Hill and indeed the two mayors plans are very vague on the detail here, simply putting two possible routes as dotted lines on the map but we think we should say the bullet would have to be bitten and build further tunnels east to reach Warrington Low Level, maybe surfacing to use a part of the old CLC route from Broad Green to north of Halewood (i.e. minimise tunnelling and avoid demolition) which is presently a cycle/pedestrian route.
Between Liverpool and Manchester
There has been some analysis of this new route between Liverpool and Manchester and one suggests that Liverpool City Region, having had its demand for a connection to HS2 taken away because of scrapping, is sort of hoping for that to be re-instated through the back door with this proposal, whereas it can be seen the failure (of HS2's north western leg business case) was because it concentrated too much on North/South connectivity and not on what we know is needed, i.e. east to west, in the north.
The analysis also fails to note that the use of the Fiddlers Ferry route west of Warrington has specifically been disavowed by Liverpool city region mayor, as it does not give the necessary increase in capacity in the area, as it uses the existing route between Widnes and Lime Street as well as the "sinuous" freight only route to the former Fiddlers Ferry power station. It may be noted that the map produced by the two mayors shows two possible routes into Liverpool, and its likely both would have to have substantial underground components to avoid demolition.
The analysis of the existing lines is incomplete too, to say that better use could be made of the Chat Moss line before any new line was built, by suggesting existing stopping services are adequately served and new fast services could be fitted in, is to deny the citizens of the 13 stations along the route any better service. The stations at Whiston, Rainhill, St Helens Junction, Patricroft and Eccles in particular, only have an hourly service. For comparison there are 18 stations on the Cheshire Lines Committee route via Warrington Central, of which a higher proportion have a half hourly service, although not all trains are through end to end.
One of the latter points mentions the Golborne link from HS2 days and suggests again that these plans are a back door way to re-instate the link which he says had a poor business case in the first place. One view is that when HS2 was planned, this was seen as the way to increase capacity of the two-track section of WCML north of Crewe between Winsford and Warrington, in particular bypassing Weaver Junction so that the number of through trains to Liverpool could be increased. It had the bonus that an alternative route to Scotland from Manchester could be offered, but it suffered from the poor presentation of the entire HS2 business case.
Castlefield corridor
One of the alternatives suggested to increase capacity through Manchester suggests building an overhead railway directly along the streets from near Deansgate Station to Piccadilly (Lower Whitworth and Whitworth Street) to give a four-track route to fix the Castlefield Corridor problem. Aside from the difficulty of connecting to the existing railway at either end (it would appear between the main station and P13/14 at Piccadilly, an extremely tight window that would limit the use of platforms 10-12 at Piccadilly), the blight of pretty much taking all the light away from the ground, first, second and probably third floors away from all the premises along the route would likely mean this would get dismissed at the first hurdle with the city planners (there are a couple of old industrial buildings along the existing route between Oxford Road and Piccadilly that have been converted to flats in recent years and some residents have a “great” view of the existing train services from their windows, though others have complained of the noise when they moved in!). This leads us onto the key issue of adding capacity along this route and we can’t see a way of doing this without going underground.
Overall, our approach to relieving the capacity constraints on both the Castlefield corridor (and Piccadilly Station) has two incremental options i.e. a Castlefield Corridor grade separation E-W and N-S so also facilitating freight. The bigger option is a new tunnel which would run from Slade Lane and Ardwick through Picc Low Level to a new St Peter’s Square Low Level Station then link onto the Chat Moss route and via the Windsor Link to Salford Crescent and north.
This latter provides a railway in Manchester City Centre in the right place building on the need for additional capacity at Piccadilly Station being low level, the most important element. Railfuture thinks these are incrementally consistent given the aims for expansion of services across the north.
Manchester Stations Capacity
Manchester Piccadilly is similar to Lime Street in that there is little spare usable capacity, (already two platforms regularly accommodate two services simultaneously in the current timetable) but after making sure all local services are either 6 carriage or are timetabled to spend very little time at the terminal platforms, one particular shortish term increase in capacity that has been mooted for some time ought to be adopted without delay, this is one which would add two platforms to the east of the main trainshed (designated A/B in some plans seen). There is space to build here but the plans for HS2 did overshadow this for a while as HS2 platforms would have been built here (and by definition would have moved services from the main trainshed).
The longer term plans in the Mayors’ proposals do say that there is no alternative to building underground for new capacity, which no doubt would have a big price tag, so the best used does need to be made of such new capacity by connecting it to as many existing routes as feasible and would be consistent with long term plans, to ensure the business case has the best chance of succeeding.
One issue already raised is that any capacity increases on existing stopping services on the WCML south has been constrained by the “VHF” service upgrade of Manchester – London services, it proving difficult to interleave a 20-minute service frequency of Manchester – London service with anything other than a similar 20-minute interval. For instance, there were plans to double Manchester – Macclesfield services to twice hourly (they are presently hourly off-peak to Stoke-On-Trent) but although they could be fitted in between the fast services, any disruption to either is hard to manage. The present xx55 local stopping train departure from Stoke-On-Trent to Manchester is often held when express services from London and Birmingham to Manchester are delayed (the scheduled services from London and Bournemouth precede this service by a mere 12 and 7 minutes respectively).
In conclusion, we do need a new line but there are clearly many challenges to overcome in getting there.
Liverpool Manchester Railway Board