To The Football At Huddersfield
I arrived in Manchester on my trip from Southport at Piccadilly and had the long walk from Platform 13 to the main concourse to get the tram to my hotel. There are plans to put another two platforms here, so careful design must be used to avoid worsening a nightmare interchange.
I had a bath and then returned to Piccadilly for supper in Carluccio’s. This branch seems to be much faster than most and I’ve not missed a train yet there, due to a slow meal.
I nearly did this time though, as the next Huddersfield train left at 18:11 and I didn’t get to Platform 13 until 18:15. But the crowded train was late!
I was in my seat half-an-hour before the match started.
Ipswich won 2-0 and I was able to catch the 22:00 train back to Manchester, where I had a non-alcoholic nightcap in Carluccio’s.
I suspect that Piccadilly needs almost to create a new concourse linking the dreaded Platforms 13 and 14 and the proposed two new ones to the lines in the main station, at the far end of the station.
Let’s hope some of the UK’s best architects are working on creating a station fit for the twentieth century, let alone the twenty-first!
On To Southport And Manchester
I don’t ever remember ever going to Southport and I certainly have never been there by train. I took these pictures as I finished my trip to Manchester after my walk on the beach.
It is a pleasant route and as Merseyrail don’t seem too bothered if you break your journey, it is an interesting excursion, with lots of opportunities for a walk.
Note in the pictures approaching Manchester the new electrification work.
Is this line from Manchester to Southport one of those extra lines that will eventually be electrified under the developing plans for the Northern Hub? It must have strong claims as Southport is a town of 90,000 people and is still a major resort for the beach and golf. It certainly has a clean modernised station, which almost uniquely is in the main shopping street. It also already hosts electric trains, so it might be an easy line to upgrade.
In Wikipedia’s article on the Manchester to Southport line, there is this paragraph.
Additionally Network Rail has identified electrification of Wigan to Southport, together with Ormskirk to Preston Line and the Burscough Curves as a possible source of new services.
So it looks like Network Rail is on the job.
Upgrading the Ormskirk to Preston line would enable better Liverpool to Preston services and the curves would help all services in the area, according to campaigners.
Liverpool To Manchester By The Scenic Route
My objective was to get to Huddersfield to see Ipswich play and then spend the night in Manchester before returning to London Wednesday.
Arriving in Liverpool Lime Street station just after mid-day I picked up some gluten-free sandwiches in M&S and then made my way to Southport taking in the Anthony Gormley statues on the way.
I then took a train from Southport to Manchester Piccadilly.
A Ticket To Ride For £7.85
All of this cost me just £7.85 and the guy who sold me the ticket said I could get on and off as I required.
Is The Northern Hub Bold Enough?
Yesterday, on my trip to Blackburn, some of the problems that will be addressed by the Northern Hub developments became obvious.
Admittedly, my problems are slightly worse than most passengers as I’m a coeliac, so my chance of buying a decent gluten free meal in Blackburn is about the sane as finding a cold bottle of water in Hell. There isn’t even a Pizza Express, although they do have restaurants in Blackheath and Blackpool.
So to be safe, I have to go via Manchester or Leeds, where there are several good gluten-free restaurants, or at a pinch Preston, where there is a pleasant Pizza Express.
The main problem is that I’m coming up from London and I want to leave Manchester going to the North. Trains from Manchester Victoria to Blackburn are rather decrepit and cramped Class 150 Sprinter DMU or scrapyard specials as I called them in this post. They seem to run twice an hour, which is better than those from Leeds and Preston, which are just hourly.
You can get from Piccadilly to Blackburn, but it involves a change of train at either Salford Crescent or Bolton. The service is two trains per hour and is probably the best way to do it.
Linking the two main stations in Manchester is the key part of the Northern Hub and involves creating the Ordsall Chord. A plan with a similar objective from 1977 was the Picc-Vic Tunnel, but this much bolder plan was cancelled.
The Ordsall Chord won’t particularly help my journey of yesterday, as I would still do the same short journey to Salford Crescent or Bolton for a train to Blackburn. The stillborn Picc-Vic Tunnel would probably have had a similar effect to Thameslink in London, where for example arriving passengers from Newcastle going to say Sevenoaks dive into the low-level St. Pancras Thameslink station to get their train. So I would have probably dived into Piccadilly low-level station and got the next half-hourly train to Blackburn.
So I have to ask if the Northern Hub plan is bold enough!
But Manchester isn’t London and there is one big difference! London is very much bigger and the numbers of commuters and other rail users is substantially higher.
Another important factor is that Northern Rail runs trains, that discourage rather than encourage more users.
Because of this last point, the fact that a large amount of railway electrification and refurbishment of trains is taking place is very much a positive influence. Some voices in the North may have sniffed at refurbished Class 319 for their new electric services. But if the refurbishment is as good as it was for the Class 455 of South West Trains, no-one except the new train manufacturers will be complaining.
One great advantage of the Class 319, is that there are 86 trainsets, which would mean that electrifying further lines wouldn’t require the purchase of new trains.
We also have the problem in Europe, that there is a shortage of train building capability. So would we prefer to say buy new Chinese trains or refurbish sound trains in places like Allerton, Doncaster, Ilford and Derby? Especially, if the refurbished trains are just as reliable and comfortable, at a fraction of the cost!
In some ways though, the Northern Hub is an extremely bold project, as it is a bit like Topsy on Speed.
The idea of the Northern Hub was only first mooted in 2009 and now there a lot of work in progress like the restoration and roofing of Manchester Victoria station and the electrification of routes. I took this picture yesterday, as I travelled towards Blackburn.
Electrification In Progress
Already the first parts of the project are in place, with new Class 350 electric trains now running from Manchester Airport to Glasgow and Edinburgh via Newton-le-Willows under newly installed wires.
Before the end of this year, you should see a new roof on Manchester Victoria and electric trains connecting Liverpool and Manchester for the first time. When you consider that both cities were electrified for important services to Crewe and the South by 1961 and to London in 1966, it is a disgrace that Liverpool and Manchester have had to wait nearly another fifty years for the electrified link to be inserted.
I described the Northern Hub project as Topsy on speed. In some ways, a project like Topsy is a nightmare to manage, but in one way the scope of this project is expanding relentlessly. And that is in the area of electrification. When first proposed it was intended to electrify the main lines between Liverpool, Preston and Manchester. Since then Blackpool and Huddersfield have been added. There is thought to be no connection between the fact that part of the Huddersfield line is known as the Real Ale Trail and the decision to electrify that line.
Knowing the area and its problems well as I do, I can’t believe that by 2020 there aren’t plans in place to add more lines to the electrification program.
Already the Todmorden Curve is being rebuilt, so that direct diesel services from Manchester Victoria to Burnley can begin later this year. Although Wikipedia says that services might not begin, due to lack of suitable rolling stock. Every line electrified would need new electric trains, but would also release some diesel ones for use elsewhere.
So do we have the virtuous circle, where by refurbishing Class 319 trains, we get the rolling stock to electrify lines, which releases much needed diesel trains to be used to provide a better and more frequent service on other lines to increase the passenger traffic, so that the lines are worth electrifying. And as any number of examples have shown, clean, reliable and frequent electric train services generate a momentum of their own.
In some ways, these lines are very similar to the Valley Lines in Wales. Important to their communities, but neglected and depending on scrapyard specials to move everybody around. But the government has plans for the Valley Lines, as detailed in this extract from Wikipedia.
On 16 July 2012 the UK Government announced plans to extend the electrification of the network at a cost of £350 million. This was at the same time of the announcement of electrification of the South Wales Main Line from Cardiff to Swansea. This would also see investment in new trains and continued improvements to stations. It is thought to start between 2014 and 2019.
We should boldly go on the development of the Northern Hub. On the other hand, progress has been so good this far, perhaps we just need to ensure that it continues at this rate.
I would also suggest that those in charge of the Valley Lines upgrade, take note of what must be good practice in Lancashire.
The Train From Hell
I won’t talk about the match at Blackburn, as Ipswich lost.
But I had one of the worst train journeys I’ve ever had returning from Blackburn to Manchester.
It was one of Northern Rail’s scrapyard specials, or a Class 150 or similar to name it correctly.
But the real problem was that it was full of drunken twenty somethings, who were drinking bottles of Foster and other rubbish. The noise was horrendous.
Until corrected, I would assume everybody was going from Blackburn to a night out in Manchester.
Such behaviour on the Underground, would have resulted in many taking a walk home.
I was glad to get off the train at Salford Crescent to get another train to Piccadilly. But that wasn’t without its contingent of drinkers.
The Worst Station In The UK
If they wanted to remake Brief Encounter, all they’d need to do was go to Manchester Victoria station and add a few steam trains. Not for nothing was it voted the UK’s worst station in 2009.
Although come to think of it, if a powerful steam engine, went through the station, it would probably cause the tonnes of muck in the station roof to fall off and kill a few passengers, even if the steam didn’t blow the station down.
Salvation is at hand, as Network Rail are rebuilding the station and putting a new roof on the station, to protect the squalor from the elements.
At least the information screens work and I found my way successfully to the train.
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.
Could Hebden Bridge Be The UK’s Second City?
This sounds like the sort of idea dreamed up by someone, who really does think that Yorkshire is the centre of the earth.
But the BBC has published a piece entitled The Case For Making Hebden Bridge The UK’s Second City by Evan Davis on their website.
This extract sums up his logic.
The suggestion that it is Britain’s second city came from resident David Fletcher, who was active in the 80s saving the town’s old mills and converting them to modern use.
His point is that Hebden Bridge is an inverted city with a greenbelt centre and suburbs called Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool.
His point was that the real second city of the UK is a northern, trans-Pennine strip that extends the relatively short distance across northern England, joining the built-up areas that lie second, fourth and sixth in the UK ranking.
I think he has a point and treating the area from Liverpool and Blackpool in the West to Leeds and Sheffield in the East, as a megacity, may be a very good idea.
Davis says that it would need a lot of infrastructure, and there would be rivalries and infighting. But there’s enough of that in Manchester already, with one of the worst bus systems in the UK.
To be fair to Network Rail, their plans for the Northern Hub, very much fit the proposal for the Northern megacity and the government, especially in the statements of George Osborne, seem to be backing them.
Is there anything I’d like to see in the North?
I would like to see London’s local transport information systems and ticketing imposed on the North. And probably on everywhere outside London as well.
- I should arrive at any station and be able to find my onward route, by foot, bus or tram without difficulty or bothering any of the station staff.
- If say, I wanted to use a bus where my bus pass is valid, I would just touch in with my pass. Every town or city seems to use a different system.
- If I need to pay for my ticket, then I would just touch in with a contactless bank card.
- All buses would have fully disabled access and at least a separate entrance and exit, like most buses in London.
- I should also be able to find out the next bus, with a simple text-based system, based on five digits for the stop and a short text code. If larger London can do it, why do cities like Leeds have a system that is so difficult.
I shall be watching Evan Davis’s program tonight with interest.
Don’t forget there would be one great argument for making Hebden Bridge the UK’s Second City. It would eventually stop all the arguments.
You also have to ask, whether other megacities could be created.
- Newcastle-Sunderland-Middlesbrough
- Glasgow-Edinburgh
- Wolverhampton-Birmingham-Coventry
- Southampton-Portsmouth-Brighton
Are four that come to mind.
Did Manchester Force Susanna Reid To Quit?
The BBC’s Breakfast program isn’t what it was since the ill-judged move to the back end of beyond in Manchester.
Now Susanna Reid is leaving To Go To ITV.
I do wonder what the line-up of presenters would be, if the program had stayed in its rightful place in the capital.
If you take today, there has been a couple of interviews with talking heads on important subjects like Ukraine, because obviously getting interviewees to waste time to go to Manchester isn’t possible.
Just think of the fuss if after independence, Scotland decided to put their flagship morning news in Glasgow!
The Anonymous Widower 