The Back Side Of Manchester Piccadilly Station
These pictures show the back side of Manchester Piccadilly station.
Note.
- It wasn’t easy to get out to that side of the station.
- The two platforms outside the station on the viaduct are the dreaded Platforms 13 and 14, with their serious overcrowding, lack of facilities and lots of draughts and cold.
- Platforms 13 and 14 must be the worst pair of platforms in the UK.
- I nearly got run over three times trying to cross the road.
I doubt that I’ll ever see Manchester Piccadilly station improved.
The New And Updated Platforms 13 to 16 At Manchester Piccadilly
I have been looking to see if I can find anything more about what is happening to update platforms 13/14 and create new platforms 15/16 at Manchester Piccadilly station.
I found this image on the Network Rail web site.
Proposed Platforms 13-16 At Manchester Piccadilly Station
I think it shows the way that Network Rail are thinking.
- A second entrance to the station.
- Does the entrance lead underneath all of the platforms?
- Lots of escalators.
- A proper gateway station for Manchester, opening on to an open space.
- Is that a public space like a restaurant on top of the tower?
The picture does show that there are possibilities to create a very good building to serve platforms 13 to 16.
Expanding Manchester Piccadilly Station
This announcement on the Government web site is entitled Put HS3 at the heart of a High Speed North – Adonis.
This is an extract.
Recommendation six: Proposals for the redevelopment of Manchester Piccadilly station should be prepared jointly by TfN, Transport for Greater Manchester, Manchester City Council, Network Rail, DfT and HS2 Ltd.
These organisations should work to together to deliver:
a) Detailed plans for the new east-west platforms 15/16 to facilitate delivery early in Control Period 6 and unlock the development potential of the Mayfield site;
b) A masterplan for the longer-term development of Manchester Piccadilly station as a whole, incorporating capacity for HS2 services and options for the delivery and timing of platform capacity for HS3; and
c) Proposals for funding and financing the station redevelopment, including for private sector and local contributions.
I know Manchester Piccadilly station well and it has multiple space problems. These pictures illustrate some of the problems on the North side of the station.
You have lots of short trains and long platforms, which means the following.
- Passengers have to walk long distances.
- There is confusion of which train to take with more than one in the platform.
- It must be a nightmare for train operators and their staff.
Surely some reorganisation could improve this mess, that was probably designed by Topsy.
On the South side of the station, there are two of the most crowded platforms in the UK. Platforms 13/14 need a serious sorting out.
Currently, services from Platform 13 seem to go to the following.
- Huddersfield
- Leeds
- Manchester Airport
- Norwich
- Scarborough
- Sheffield
- York
And from Platform 14 to the following.
- Blackpool
- Edinburgh
- Liverpool
- Southport
Most of the services seem to be provided by TransPennine Express and I think it is true to say, that when and if the Ordsall Chord is opened, there will be a sorting out of services on these two platforms.
But I do feel that the solution is Network Rail’s preferred one of adding platforms 15/16. They can’t be built soon enough, to ease the overcrowding.
This Google Map shows the layout of Manchester Piccadilly station.
Manchester Piccadilly Station
The current Platforms 13/14 are along the bottom of the station, connected to the main station by the two small bridges. I would assume that the two new platforms will go on the south side of 13/14.
Wikipedia gives more details of developments related to the Northern Hub and HS2.
It is going to be a tight fit to get all the lines and platforms into the area.
The more I look at the station, the more I tend to think that the Picc-Vic Tunnel might have been a good solution.
It makes me wonder if it would be more efficient for HS2 and HS3 to share a route through Manchester from the Airport to Victoria and on to Huddersfield and Leeds. It would need to be mainly in tunnel and could go right under the city with underground stations. I wrote about it in Rethinking HS2 And HS3.
Surely, if two high speed lines are to go through Manchester, they should share a route?
I have also received this image from a reader; Ben.
An Alternative Cross-Manchester Tunnel
Ben’s plan illustrates some advantages of a cross-city tunnel, which probably include.
- Less demolition at stations served by HS2.
- HS2 and HS3 could probably share platforms.
- Release of platforms at Piccadilly.
- A station in the centre of the city.
- Better links to the trams and local train services
- Ability to continue in tunnel towards Huddersfield and Leeds.
Remember that we’ve improved our tunnelling capability by a large amount in recent years.
Crossrail in London has also developed station designs and layouts, that could be used in Manchester.
- Massive double-ended stations to effectively serve two separate locations.
- Lines and station layouts to ease and encourage same platform interchange.
- Moving walkways and inclined lifts, where necessary to ease passenger movement.
- Island platforms to ease interchange between directions and branches, as at Whitechapel.
So could the most passenger friendly station, just called Manchester, be built under the city?
I don’t think that the current plans for Piccadilly, which are just so much conservative dross will be realised, as someone will come up with something much better. But then recommendation six encourages that!
High Speed North Barely Mentions Technology
The National Infrastructure Commission has published its report entitled High Speed North.
Technology and in particular new technology is hardly mentioned in the report.
This is the only mention with respect of improved technology in rail applications.
Ticketing, and in particular the absence of smart ticketing technology.
Design gets a few more mentions, but only one is meaningful.
It is very much a grey report produced by yesterday’s grey men.
The North has serious connectivity problems and it needs them to be solved now!
As I said in Adonis Promises Milk And Honey In The Future, But The North Needs Unblocking Now!, I can’t see much improvement until 2022.
All High Speed North does is confirm my suspicions of yesterday’s grey men conning the country out of fees.
To solve the North’s problems we must break out of the box! And how!
As an example of the report’s lack of ambition, the report says that Manchester Piccadilly station needs to add Platforms 15/16 in Control Period 6 or between 2019 and 2024.
That could be eight years and given the crowding you get on Platforms 13/14, those two extra platforms are needed now.
You need to do a lot better, Lord Adonis. But as a failed New Labour accolyte, we didn’t expect much more.
Welcome To Huddersfield
In my trip to Huddersfield yesterday, I took the TransPennine Express from Manchester Piccadilly.
These pictures show the supremely inadequate three-car Class 185 train at Huddersfield and passengers tying to board to get to Leeds and York.
On return, I asked a Team Leader what was going on. He said trains had been cancelled because of driver shortages and that three-car trains were inadequate anyway and should be five-car. They certainly have overcowding issues and bad passenger feedback.
In some ways these trains are their own worst enemy. After Huddersfield, it was standing room only and the stop at Stalybridge took a lot longer than it should, as passengers fought to get on and off with suitcases and bicycles. So by the time we got to Manchester Piccadilly, where we called at the inadequate and very crowded Platform 14, we were nearly fifteen minutes late. There were several passengers who missed their booked seats on the 1815 to London.
I never book return seats on a journey back from football, especially if TransPennine or Manchester Piccadilly is involved.
The Team Leader at Huddersfield didn’t seem pleased, but he did indicate something would be happening soon.
It certainly needs to.
I think TransPennine’s only problem of their own making is the driver shortage. Nearly everything else can be put down to inadequate investment by various Governments over the last fifty years.
I suppose you could blame passengers for creating the increased demand across the Pennines, but as the Class 185 trains seem to have been ordered without an ability to lengthen, the trains have been unable to grow with the demand.
Compare this situation with that of the Class 390 trains on the West Coast Main Line and the Class 378 trains on the London Overground. Both these trains have been lengthened, by the simpler expedient of adding new carriages in the middle.
We should make sure that all the Ministers and the Civil Servants, who conspired to give the North some of the most crowded trains in Europe, should ride these trains at least once a week, so they can at least understand their crap legacy to the travelling public.
But then no self-respecting Government Minister or Civil Servant, would be seen taking a train between Manchester and Huddersfield, when a perfectly serviceable chauffeur-driven limousine is available.
Not The Easiest Journey Home
I’d arranged to come home via Manchester, effectively retracing the steps I’d taken in the morning. There are just three trains from Blackpool which sensibly meet Virgin’s fast services from Glasgow; 17:03, 18:21 and 19:21. Last year, I’d tried to come home on the 18:21 route, but I missed my connection, so as Preston is a gluten-free desert, I went home via Carluccio’s in Manchester Piccadilly rather than wait for an hour in the rain on Preston station.
So I’d thought that I might as well get an Off Peak ticket back from Manchester and if I had time, I’d have supper in Carluccio’s.
But I hadn’t bargained for a long time on the bus getting to Blackpool North station because of the illuminations and then a slow train to Piccadilly, which meant all I had time to do there was pay a visit to the loo and buy some sandwiches in Marks and Spencer. I was surprised they still had some gluten-free sandwiches left and had actually reduced them.
At least the sandwiches tasted fine as I came back to London getting in just after 22:00.
I do hope after the electrification of the Blackpool line, that there is a convenient train direct from the town to London on a Saturday afternoon. Virgin are starting direct services soon and they’ll take a few minutes over three hours, whereas today I was on the train for four hours and twenty minutes.
When I got to Euston, 73 buses were thin on the ground, so I walked to Euston Square station to get a Metropolitan train to Whitechapel for the Overground. And they were rather rare too, so I ended up going to Moorgate for a bus. And guess what? I had to wait twenty minutes for a 76! Where were my preferred rides of a 21 or 141?
Eventually I got in just before 23:00.
Services between Blackpool and London must be improved.
Did Manchester Railways Ever Have A Plot?
What are the two odd ones out of these British cities?
Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield
It’s actually, Glasgow and Manchester, as they are only cities other than London with two main stations. The pedantic could argue that Birmingham has more than one, but New Street is very much larger than the others.
Glasgow’s two station; Central and Queen Street, split their services geographically, but at least they could be connected by Crossrail Glasgow, which is summed up like this.
The proposed Crossrail initiative involves electrifying and reopening the City Union Line for regular passenger use in conjunction with new filler sections of track which will connect the North Clyde, Ayrshire, and Kilmarnock and East Kilbride suburban routes together, therefore allowing through running of services through the centre of Glasgow in a North-South axis.
The scheme never saw fruition however. Will any Glaswegian tell me why, as on paper it looks sensible?
Manchester has a similar problem with two stations at Piccadilly and Victoria. If I’m going to say Burnley or Blackburn, as I often have and want to have lunch at Carluccio’s in Piccadilly, I find I have to traipse across Manchester, usually in the rain, to get the train out of Victoria.
There was a plan in the 1970s for the Picc-Vicc Tunnel, but like the Crossrail Glasgow it has been cancelled.
So now the Ordsall Chord is being built to allow trains to cross Manchester city centre.
It may work well in the end, but it has a touch of the old answer of “I wouldn’t start from here!” to the question of how to get to X.
The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, but it doesn’t seem to be a concept that can catch the imagination of the public, like some public transport schemes do.
Walking Across Manchester
I know I posted that it was wet, as I walked between Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Victoria stations. But it wasn’t an easy walk!
There were a few signposts to Victoria, but I didn’t see one map anywhere, so in the end I followed the tram lines, which I knew went to the station. Or they did last time I was in Manchester, but now due to the rebuilding of Victoria they don’t. I met a couple from Bolton with their grandchildren at Victoria, who’d used the tram to get to Victoria. They missed the alternative stop and had ended up in Rochdale. So they had to come back on another tram.
Incidentally, when I left Piccadilly, I found that the free buses that go all over Manchester city centre don’t actually connect the two stations without a change. I suppose this is to ensure that those changing between the two stations with or without heavy baggage use a taxi or pay for a tram to get lost in Rochdale.
Because my eyes don’t respond quickly to fast moving objects from the left, I always cross the road using a light controlled crossing. For extra safety I generally use the thingy underneath to tell me of the green light. But I found a lot of these buttons were missing as I got near Victoria. As were the signposts! Vandalism or theft?
It’s Wet So It Must Be Manchester
To get to Blackburn I needed to get between Carluccio’s at Manchester Piccadilly station and Manchester Victoria station to catch the 13:00 train to Clitheroe.
I knew I was in Manchester, as it was raining.
As I had bought my ticket from Manchester Stations to Blackburn for the princely sum of £6.95, I had to walk, as you can’t use these tickets on the tram to get between the two stations. Also, unlike Sheffield, my Freedom Pass where it is valid on the trams, it is not valid in Manchester.
God Has Taste
The BBC has just shown a dramatic picture of a lightning strike on Manchester Piccadilly station.
She couldn’t have chosen a better target!
The Anonymous Widower 