Manchester’s timetable tensions.
PHILIP HAIGH examines the ongoing problem of bottlenecks in Manchester, and the difficult task faced by the Manchester Recovery Task Force in finding solutions to the many train path conflicts
MANCHESTER is Britain’s third busiest airport. Ranked by 2019’s figures, its 29.4 million passengers follow Heathrow’s 80.9 million and Gatwick’s 46.6 million.
It boasts direct rail links across northern England, Scotland and North Wales, served from a station that British Rail opened in 1993. Network Rail added a third platform in 2008 and a fourth in 2015, as demand continued to grow - there were 5.7 million users in 2019-20.
After the third platform opened, NR floated the idea of tunnelling westwards under the airport, to convert the terminus station into a through station with services running to and from the Northwich line.
Now the airport is set to receive a through station, although this will be part of High Speed 2’s line from Crewe to Manchester Piccadilly. That’s more than a decade away, and in the meantime the airport faces losing some of its direct trains under timetable changes designed to improve reliability through Manchester’s Castlefield Corridor ( RAIL 906).
In February, the Department for Transport put forward three options in a consultation that closed on March 10. Each option cuts services through the Castlefield Corridor to 12 trains per hour. Before COVID-19 struck, NR and the passenger and freight operators were trying to push 15tph through the corridor with December 2019’s timetable.
The Manchester Recovery
Task Force (MRTF, comprising the Department for Transport, Network Rail and Transport for the North) is now sifting responses to the consultation and aims to implement changes in May 2022’s timetable.
A March 4 meeting of Transport for the North’s Scrutiny Committee showed just how hard this might be. Chester West and Chester Councillor Andrew Cooper noted that Option C was best for him in Northwich, but added that Chester itself loses services to Manchester Airport under this option, so his council couldn’t agree. The options pit us against each other, he said.
Representing Greater
Manchester Combined Authority, Councillor Roger Jones said analysis by Transport for
Greater Manchester preferred a compromise between Options B and C.
Welsh Economy and Transport Minister Ken Skates wrote to the task force: “I am concerned the approach being taken is focused only on addressing the symptoms caused by the fact that the rail infrastructure in the Manchester area does not support the level and quality of services that passengers in Wales and beyond require, rather than addressing the fundamental infrastructure issues.
“The only acceptable outcome of this consultation for Wales is the retention of our direct Transport for Wales services to Manchester Airport as set out in Option B.”
Meanwhile, officers at Liverpool City Region Combined Authority recommended rejecting all three options. In a report dated March 4 2021, its assistant rail director wrote: “In reviewing the proposed options it is clear that in each option there will be negative
impacts to the LCRCA and in particular to passengers on the Southport line, as in all options they lose their direct service to south Manchester. In light of this, officers do not believe that any of the options as currently proposed are acceptable.”
Several Scrutiny Committee councillors questioned freight running in peak hours. Under each option, freight retains an hourly path through Castlefield Corridor. The corridor is the only route to and from Trafford Park’s freight terminal and container trains serving it typically come from Southampton or Felixstowe. Keeping them away from the corridor in peak hours may well mean they run through other bottlenecks at peak times.
The committee received a report from TfN Head of Rail Service Outputs Adam Timewell, which said the task force strongly recommended timetable changes.
It gave three reasons: that the current infrastructure could not deliver the pre-pandemic timetable; that it was sensible to plan changes while fewer passengers were travelling; and that it was imperative to attract passengers back with a reliable and robust timetable.
The report claimed several common advantages for the different options. They include better spacing of trains to reduce one train delaying another, fewer conflicts at junctions, and a move towards regular 30 or 60-minute frequencies to make service patterns simpler for passengers, particularly when they need to change trains.
Timewell’s report called on the Scrutiny Committee to put forward its recommendations to TfN’s Rail North Committee (which next meets on March 25, and when it last met on January 12 it kept its task force discussions private after voting to exclude the press and public from its meeting).
With little agreement within the Scrutiny Committee, Cooper seemed to accurately sum up: “I don’t think it’s achievable for us as a committee here to really make recommendations to Rail North that we all agree on where there wouldn’t be a loser somewhere or other.” He noted the tension between strategic routes and suburban routes around Manchester.
At the heart of the problem is
Manchester’s lack of infrastructure to support the services promised to government by rail operators such as TransPennine Express and Northern, in their 2016 franchise bids.
The infrastructure problems date back well over two decades, but funders - chiefly the government - have been unwilling to foot the bills while they’ve accepted the promises of more services.
That situation is unlikely to change over the next few years, which leaves the difficult decisions faced by those Scrutiny Committee councillors. Whatever final decision the task force makes, it will be for train operators to compile detailed timetables and check public reaction to them. There will be a second consultation in May 2021, but the task force warned that by then the main structure of the timetable would be broadly fixed.
What then of Manchester Airport? It wouldn’t be drawn on the merits or otherwise of the different options, but said in a statement to RAIL: “A strong ground transport network across our region is key for many of our passengers and staff who rely on easy rail to access Manchester Airport. Furthermore, it is vital for inbound business and leisure passengers looking to access key destinations across the North.
“We continue to work closely with all stakeholders involved throughout the consultation process and we take the view that any reduction in services must be temporary, with a clear plan in place to improve rail infrastructure and enable the resumption of these routes as quickly as possible.”
“The infrastructure problems date back well over two decades, but funders - chiefly the government - have been unwilling to foot the bills while they’ve accepted the promises of more services.”