Virgin’s Better Offering On The Way From Manchester
In the seven hours I spent in the Manchester area, things improved.
All allergies were explained as they should be.
I also got two cups of tea and a Pepsi from the very good steward.
The ticket collector said he’d come back to collect my First Class Supplement. But he didn’t!
So I got it all for the price of a Standard Class Ticket.
Compare this with the outrun.
Electrification Of Manchester To Preston Via Bolton
My trip to Bolton today, beautifully illustrated that the Manchester to Preston line needs to be electrified and the Ordsall Chord needs to be built. This chord would allow trains to serve both Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria stations as they pass through the city.
Trains do run directly between Piccadilly and Horwich Parkway, but going to the match, I did want to take some pictures in Manchester, so I walked to Victoria and got the train from there. Hopefully, when the scheme is fully implemented, all of the stations served by the line will get better connections at Piccadilly to and from the South.
Wikipedia says this about services between Horwich Parkway and Manchester
Northern Rail: there is a half-hourly service Monday to Saturdays northbound to Preston, with hourly extensions to Blackpool North and southbound to Bolton, with trains running alternately to Manchester Piccadilly or Manchester Victoria. An hourly service continues onwards to Stockport and Hazel Grove.
Trans-Pennine Express: one train per hour calls in each direction throughout the day, northbound to Blackpool North and southbound to Manchester Airport.
I think after the Ordsall Chord is built, it is reasonable to assume that a good proportion of the services will call at both Manchester stations. Certainly, it has been stated that Manchester Airport services will do this.
The train I got to the match from Victoria was one of Northern Rail’s better elderly diesel units, but coming back I was in one of TransPennine’s modern Class 185 trains.
After electrification of the line, I suspect there’ll be a bit of a reallocation of routes between the two train companies and most services on the line will be run by refurbished Class 319 trains. These are four carriages to a trainset and they can also be run in eight and twelve coach formations, so they can run services based on the newly-electrified lines in a very flexible manner, suited to the traffic.
I personally think that the train service between Manchester and Blackpool is totally inadequate at just a couple of rather pedestrian trains per hour.
As electrification is likely to bring a raising of speed limits and a larger pool of bigger and much better rolling stock, I would think that in a few years time, the Manchester-Blackpool service will bear no relation to the terrible one it is today.
At present it is not just the Manchester-Liverpool and Manchester-Preston-Routes that are being electrified. In their description of the electrification in this report, Network Rail show this map.
Northern Electrification Map
Note how Wigan-Liverpool via Huyton, Manchester Victoria-Leeds via Huddersfield and Guide Bridge-Stalybridge are also shown as going to be electrified. As is the Windermere Branch Line, which is not shown on this map. All are costed and funded, but there have been a few engineering problems, meaning that the Manchester to Liverpool services didn’t start when they should have done. The problems are reported in the Liverpool Echo.
Network Rail has admitted the long-awaited launch of electric train services between Lime Street and Manchester Victoria and Manchester Airport will now be postponed until next year, possibly as late as February.
The serious delay has been blamed on “unexpected ground conditions and technical issues” encountered while installing the overhead catenary wires on the 184-year-old former Liverpool & Manchester Railway mainline, said Network Rail.
This will only be the start of the revolution.
As there are 86 Class 319 trainsets, that are to be split between the North and the Great Western Main Line, I’m sure that enough sets can be found to run a good service between the following destinations, when the current electrification plans are complete.
- Liverpool-Blackpool
- Liverpool-Lancaster, Carlisle and Scotland
- Liverpool-Leeds/Newcastle via Manchester Victoria
- Manchester-Blackpool
- Preston-Windermere
Services from Liverpool, that go North up the West Coast Main Line, don’t run at present, except to Preston and Blackpool. But if the lines are all electric, subject to the paths being found, I think that one of the operators will run direct services between Liverpool and Glasgow. Failing that Liverpool to Blackpool services will probably be timed to connect with services to both Scotland and the South at Preston. Or perhaps some of the First TransPennine services between Scotland and Manchester , could divide and connect at Preston. But whatever happens travel between Liverpool and Scotland will be a lot easier.
Once electrification gets to Leeds, this will enable services from Manchester and Liverpool to go all the way to Newcastle, opening up more possibilities for new services.
I don’t believe that this will be the end of the development of electric services in the North.
The Class 319 trains currently ply between Bedford and Brighton, which by road is about 120 miles. So they should be capable of serving the slightly shorter distance between Liverpool and Hull. It would seem they are capable of travelling across the North of England reliably. As they are 100 mph electric trains, they certainly wouldn’t be slower on the route than the current Class 185 trains and probably only slightly slower than the new Class 350 trains, that First TransPennine use on Manchester-Scotland services.
In a few months time, electric services between Liverpool and Manchester will commence, probably followed about two years later by electric services from Liverpool and Manchester to Preston and Blackpool.
If the North like their refurbished trains running on electrified lines, it will be hard to resist the pressure to put in more electrification.
If Network Rail can get its act together on electrification, I think that by 2022, the number of electrified lines in the North will be greater than currently planned.
The route from Manchester to Sheffield by the Hope Valley Line will probably be a priority, as when the Midland Main Line from Sheffield to Doncaster, Nottingham and London is electrified in 2020, it will open up all sorts of routes like Liverpool and Manchester to Nottingham and the East Midlands.
If Hull to Leeds and Doncaster is electrified, then this opens up the possibility of electric Liverpool and Manchester to Hull services via Leeds. The BBC has this report about ministers backing the electrification.
The government has backed plans to electrify the Hull to Selby rail line.
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said he was making £2.5m available to take the project to the next stage
First Hull Trains is planning to spend £94m electrifying 70 miles (112km) of track to improve connections with the wider rail network.
Work is already under way to electrify the line from Manchester to Leeds, York and Selby and is due to be completed by December 2018.
This one will happen, as First Hull Trains wouldn’t spend £94million of their own money, if they didn’t think they’d make a decent return. They are probably trying to get their hands on some of the InterCity225s that will be made redundant by the new Class 800/801 trains.
It is almost if a hundred miles per hour railway across the country is fighting its way to birth by stealth, aided by some refurbished over twenty-years old British Rail rolling stock.
An interesting aside is what will happen to the thirty one InterCity225s. I have heard a rumour that some will be cascaded to the Greater Anglia Main Line to run London to Ipswich and Norwich services currently run by Class 90 locomotives hauling Mark 3 coaches.
I haven’t travelled in an InterCity225 for some months, but the last time I did on a short trip to Peterborough, they did not appear to my untrained eye to be scrapyard fodder yet.
As they are genuine 200 kph high speed trains, could we see them providing fast services from Liverpool to Newcastle and Hull in under two hours? Politicians and comedians may well have poked fun at British Rail for years, but now that we have a UK cash flow shortage, who are stepping up to the plate to help out our impoverished railways? A whole series of British Rail trains like the InterCity 225s and Class 319. No-one should forget the refurbished Class 315, Class 317 and InterCity125s, which will fill other gaps in the bad planning of our railways in theThatcher, Blair and Brown decades.
The only problem with the InterCity225s, is that they may be too long for some of the stations across the Pennines. But solving that is in the grand scheme of things a relatively minor problem for good engineers, architects and construction teams. Also, as they get replaced will some end up on the West Coast Main Line providing direct services to Blackpool?
Once the basic spine across the country is complete and running high-capacity services fast electric services between Blackpool, Liverpool and Manchester, in the West and Leeds, Hull and Newcastle in the East, two things will happen.
Politicians will press Network Rail to create a genuine high speed railway or HS3, across the country, as they love high profile projects, by which they will be remembered.
But more importantly, all of those connecting lines across the North will be prime candidates foe electrification, so they can be home to some more Class 319s.
HS3 will eventually be created, but only when the new electrified service is in need of more capacity.
I think that the electrification in the North is an unstoppable series of projects, that will only finish, when all lines are electrified.
Talking to people on the trains to Bolton yesterday, I don’t think the passengers know how their lives will change, when what is certainly going to be implemented happens.
One very extensive traveller, I met on the train between Manchester Victoria and Horwich Parkway, didn’t realise that the new electric trains in a couple of years would be larger units that the current diesels. He also had travelled on Thameslink to his daughter in South London and actually thought the current trains on that route were pretty good. He hadn’t realised that these would be running after a basic refurbishment all around Manchester.
And then on the trip back to Piccadilly, I met two young ladies, who were coming all the way from Eskdale to see the Who in Manchester. They didn’t kow that the branch to Windermere is going to be upgraded and said that it would have made their journey today a lot easier.
The rail industry in the North needs to spread the word. I have a feeling that the Class 319s, when they start operating in a few months between Liverpool and Manchester will start the process.
Match Twenty-One – Bolton 0 – Ipswich 0
The Reebok stadium is one of the shortest walks to the ground from the nearest rail station of Horwich Parkway.
Walking To The Reebok Stadium From Horwich Parkway Station
It was a bitterly cold day and I don’t think we saw either team playing at their best, so we got a goalless draw.
Serious Faces And Hats In The Cold
I also think, Ipswich were missing Stephen Hunt’s left-footed delivery from free kicks and corners.
After the match the trains into Manchester gave a superb demonstration of why the line needs to be electrified and the Ordsall Chord built.
One totally inadquate two carriage trained turned up after twenty minutes in the cold. At least it was followed by an eight-carriage one going to Manchester Piccadilly.
What Idiot Designed This Obstable Course?
I came across this awful set of street design, as I walked across Manchester.
It’s one of the most elderly and disabled-unfriendly pieces of street design I’ve seen in recent months. If I found out who designed it, I will send him a strong and alnost abusive letter, giving him a large piece of my mind.
Virgin’s Poor Offering On The Way To Manchester
I travelled First Class up to Manchester and this was my snack offering.
Virgin’s Poor Offering On The Way To Manchester
It was obviously not gluten-free and there was no allergy information on the packet, as there should be now.
Compare this with the return.
Is Nigel Farage Like Joan Rivers?
Having seen and read a lot about Nigel Farage, I sometimes think that what he says is not unlike things said by Joan Rivers.
But there’s a big difference! Joan Rivers based a lot of what she said on things that most of us think, but she was not expecting to be taken seriously, except as a comedian. Nigel Farage on the other hand, although he bases his statements in a similar way to Joan Rivers, very much expects to be taken seriously.
I didn’t watch Farage’s performance on Question Time and his confrontation with Russell Brand, but the reports I’ve read, reinforce my conviction, that Farage’s policies are not for me.
I hope that in a few years time, we’ll all be able to look back on Nigel Farage and his politics as a hiccup in history.
If he makes us think the unthinkable in sorting out our serious problems, like obesity, poverty, pollution, smoking, health, illegal drugs climate change, child protection etc., the hiccup will have been a good thing.
A lot of the old ideas have failed, so we’ve got to consign them to history and move forward.
The Anonymous Widower 