Winning station
In the first of an exclusive three-part series looking at Manchester’s railways, ANDY COWARD focuses on the story of Piccadilly station, culminating in this year’s National Rail Awards success
Manchester Piccadilly - this is your life: the story of a station that was adjudged the 2016 NRA Major Station of the Year.
To use an oft-quoted stereotype: “It’s grim up north!” But this oldfashioned impression of the North West as a region full of smog-filled towns and cities, with clog-wearing mill workers full of northern grit, is now very much a thing of the past.
The area has worked hard to shake off its industrial bygone-era image. Modern businesses and industries have replaced the traditional manufacturing industries that were wiped out during the second half of the 20th century. Finance, technology and internetbased businesses now dominate many northern cities, while many of the surviving mills that once employed thousands of people are either derelict, have been developed for modern businesses, or converted into luxury apartments.
One city that has undergone a massive regeneration, particularly over the past 20 years, is Manchester. It is a thriving and vibrant 21st century city, and one that will benefit further from the arrival of HS2.
While boasting many attractive and architecturally interesting buildings, the city suffered from the brutal architecture of the 1960s. The wide use of concrete and the construction of austere tower blocks was seen at the time as being the way forward for mass housing and business users, but has since fallen largely out of favour.
Arguably, it was a single devastating event that kick-started the regeneration of Manchester city centre, transforming it into an attractive modern city that is becoming increasingly popular with businesses and people wishing to live within the city centre.
In June 1996, the IRA detonated a huge bomb that had been left in a van parked on Corporation Street, just outside the Arndale Centre (the main shopping centre within the city centre).
Thankfully, a coded warning had been given in advance of the detonation, allowing the area to be evacuated by the police. Miraculously, no one was killed in the explosion, but a large number of people were injured. And structurally, a large part of the Arndale Centre and a number of other buildings within the immediate vicinity of the bomb were extensively damaged.
Since that day, Manchester has been transformed, thanks to a huge amount of investment by Manchester City Council and the Government. Manchester is now very much a modern city, with much of the brutalist architecture either replaced or sympathetically blended with more modern buildings.
As with many other cities across the UK, the railway network linking the city with the rest of the country plays a crucial part in helping to shape the local and wider economy.
Manchester features two large main line stations within the city centre area, with Victoria located on the north side of the city and Piccadilly to the south. Both are well located for quick direct access to the city centre.
Network Rail has recently completed the much-needed redevelopment of a large part of Victoria, to bring the station up to modern standards. Piccadilly remains the main station for long-distance services to and from Manchester, along with local services from the south of the city.
Piccadilly hit the headlines in September, when the station was adjudged the Major Station of the Year at RAIL’s 2016 National Rail Awards (providing yet another richly-deserved award to the station’s already bulging trophy cabinet). And Piccadilly will receive further attention over the coming years, with the
forthcoming arrival of HS2 into Manchester, as confirmed by the Government in November 2016.
Although it is now more than 14 years since the station received any large-scale refurbishment work, the facilities at Piccadilly have been well designed and the station remains an important gateway to Manchester city centre.
The principal station in the city, Piccadilly is managed by Network Rail. Passenger services from the station are currently operated by Virgin Trains West Coast, CrossCountry, TransPennine Express, Northern, Arriva Trains Wales and East Midlands Trains. Station usage figures for the station show that more than 24.5 million people used the station during the 2014-15 period.
The station caters well for the needs of the modern commuter and leisure passenger, with 12 terminating platforms and two through platforms to the south of the station, built on a concrete bridge which crosses Fairfield Street. Piccadilly started life as a railway
Although it is now more than 14 years since the station received any large-scale refurbishment work, the facilities at Piccadilly have been well designed and the station remains an important gateway to Manchester city centre.
The first phase of the refurbishment featured a complete overhaul of the station’s overall roof, with the steelwork stripped back and repainted and the glazing on the roof replaced.
station in 1842, when the Manchester and Birmingham Railway opened a two-platform station on London Road. Five years later, at the heart of the railway boom of the 19th century, the station was expanded to accommodate the additional services and railway companies that wished to use it, and the station was renamed as Manchester London Road.
Further expansion of the station came in 1881, with two spans added to the trainshed roof (giving four spans in total). However, relations between the two main railway companies occupying the station - the London North Western Railway and the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway - were poor. As such, the station was designed so that it could be operated as (effectively) two separate stations on one site. Another part of the 1881 expansion featured a new island platform constructed over Fairfield Street, to accommodate services for the Manchester South Junction and Altrincham Railway.
In 1910 a new station, Manchester Mayfield, was opened on the opposite side of Fairfield Street. Built by the London and North Western Railway, it was intended that Mayfield would be used to alleviate overcrowding at the larger station on the other side of the street, as Manchester’s importance continued to grow.
The station featured four platforms, with a footbridge provided to allow passengers to transfer directly between Mayfield and London Road. A range of services in the south Manchester area used the station, and it enjoyed a busy period during the late 1950s as British Railways worked on the remodelling and modernisation of the much larger London Road station.
After the nationalisation of the railways in 1948, London Road was operated by both the London Midland Region of British Railways (LMR) and the London Eastern Region of British Railways (LER). They continued to operate the station as two separate stations.
Electrification of the West Coast Main Line and the introduction of new electric trains would result in the station catering for more services, and BR’s remodelling and modernisation included the provision of a new station entrance building and modernised concourse facilities. A new concrete bridge was also constructed to carry the island through platforms (13 and 14) over Fairfield Street - replacing the 1881 Manchester South Junction and Altrincham Railway platforms.
As part of this modernisation, the station was renamed from Manchester London Road to Manchester Piccadilly, which was a more appropriate name to reflect the area of Manchester where the station was located.
Manchester Mayfield station closed to passenger services in August 1960, as work on the modernisation of London Road was being completed. It was retained as a parcels station to manage mail and parcels traffic, before closing completely in 1986. It has remained derelict ever since, apart from occasional use as a location for television dramas and for various art and entertainment events.
The station site at Mayfield is now owned by London and Continental Railway, and the whole station site and surrounding area is due to be completely redeveloped over the next few years, in preparation for the arrival of HS2 services into Manchester in 2033.
Under the Picc-Vic proposals of the 1970s, it had been envisaged that some local rail services from north Manchester would be linked to south Manchester services via an
It is expected that further refurbishment works will take place to improve Piccadilly station, in preparation for the arrival of high-speed services.
underground tunnel between the two main city centre stations - Victoria and Piccadilly - which had never been physically linked by rail. The underground line would have featured stations beneath the city streets at strategic locations, but the project was subsequently shelved in the face of mounting costs.
However, transport planners from Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (now Transport for Greater Manchester) were still keen on coming up with a way of linking the two main city stations, and it was eventually decided to investigate returning trams to the city, with modern light rail vehicles running on-street. This would be more cost-effective than extensive tunnelling beneath the city.
With the exception of Blackpool, however, all towns and cities in the UK had phased out the operation of tramways. The proposed new system would therefore be operated using modern trams, as had been successfully operated in numerous cities overseas.
The new tramway project became known as Metrolink, and would entail the Bury-Manchester Victoria and Manchester-Altrincham electric train services being converted to light rail, with both lines needing their electrification systems and rolling stock replaced.
The two popular commuter lines would be linked by a section of on-street tramway running between Manchester Victoria and G-Mex (the name of the adjacent exhibition centre, which had once been Manchester Central station), with a short spur deviating at Piccadilly Gardens down to Piccadilly station, providing the link between the two main stations that had been wanted for so long.
For the Metrolink platforms at Piccadilly, a new station was created beneath Piccadilly, within the station’s undercroft. Due to fears
about the safety of the main line station in the event of a tram derailing within the undercroft beneath, the Metrolink station was built within a concrete box.
The station features two platforms, and was brought into use in July 1992. Originally one platform was used for arriving services, with the other used for departing trams, but in recent years Metrolink has undergone a massive expansion programme and the station is now used for a wide range of services across the expanded Metrolink network.
Piccadilly station underwent another major refurbishment between 1998 and 2002. The refurbished station was completed in time for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, which brought the city to a huge international audience.
The first phase of the refurbishment featured a complete overhaul of the station’s overall roof, with the steelwork stripped back and repainted and the glazing on the roof replaced. This resulted in a much brighter and more attractive platform environment, which had previously suffered from years of accumulated dirt and grime, preventing outside light from properly entering the station.
With the station roof finished, a bigger problem to be addressed was the replacement of the station entrance building and concourse. It had been built to a typical British Rail late 1950s design, and was wholly unsuitable for a station the size of Piccadilly, with its increasing year-on-year usage.
Railtrack decided to completely demolish the station entrance building and concourse facilities, replacing them with a redesigned modern entrance and featuring a wide range of retail units, ticket office and First Class lounge.
The new entrance and concourse had a mezzanine level added, providing space for more retail and catering units. A moving travellator walkway was also provided to link the terminal platforms towards Platforms 13 and 14 - this had always involved a long walk from the concourse area.
In addition, a new entrance to the station, along with a taxi rank and access to the station car parks, was opened on Fairfield Street, giving direct access to both the Metrolink platforms and to the Network Rail station. Terminal platforms 11 and 12 were reinstated during the refurbishment of the station, having previously been taken out of use when the station was modernised.
Designed by BDP, with Laing O’Rourke as the main contractor, the redevelopment of Piccadilly station won the British Council of Shopping Centres Special Award for 2003 - a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Award - among many others.
Road access to the main entrance at Piccadilly was for many years via Piccadilly Approach, although in recent years this has been used purely for bus services, with cars and taxis using a new entrance to the station at Fairfield Street.
One of the most dominant structures on Piccadilly Approach is the distinctive Gateway House - an unusual ‘wavy’-shaped glass and concrete building that features retail units at ground level and offices on the upper levels. The building is currently being converted into use as a hotel, but its long-term future is dependent on the final chosen design for the HS2 station, as one of the proposals for the new station would mean the demolition of Gateway House.
The opening of Metrolink in 1992 gave a direct link between Victoria and Piccadilly, although rail passengers have always had to transfer onto a tram to travel between the stations. Network Rail is now addressing the long-standing missing link by building the Ordsall Chord, to link the two stations and services by rail for the first time.
The Ordsall Chord provides 300 metres of new track, running from the northwest of Castlefield Junction and linking the line with the Deal Street Junction line, connecting Victoria, Oxford Road and Piccadilly by rail. Despite the Chord itself featuring only a small amount of new track, the project to build it is far from simple - it entails the realignment of existing track, building new bridges, removing disused railway arches and restoring some Grade 1 listed structures ( RAIL 811).
Work on the project began in October 2015, and it is hoped that it will be completed in December 2017. The opening of the Ordsall Chord will allow Network Rail to transfer some services from Piccadilly to Victoria, to help resolve the ongoing capacity problems that have been an issue at Piccadilly for some time, although there is capacity at Victoria to handle more services.
However, future development around Piccadilly, as well as rising usage of rail services, means that Network Rail now has to focus on ways of increasing capacity at the station. This is being achieved as part of the Northern Hub development project, with the installation of the Ordsall Chord just one aspect of a much larger focus on developing
The opening of Metrolink in 1992 gave a direct link between Victoria and Piccadilly, although rail passengers have always had to transfer onto a tram to travel between the stations.
the railway network around Manchester and the surrounding region.
As part of the Northern Hub, Network Rail is planning some significant changes to the railway through Piccadilly, which will allow the station to handle even more traffic than it currently does.
Perhaps the main impact of the Northern Hub proposals on Piccadilly station is the building of two new elevated through platforms, which will be numbered 15 and 16. While Piccadilly is a large station, the provision of just two platforms for through services has always created a bottleneck for trains operating through the station.
However, building two new through platforms at the station is not a straightforward process. A new viaduct, closely following the line of the existing railway, is to be constructed to accommodate the new platforms, while work will also be carried out to connect the new platforms to the existing station facilities. Castlefield Viaduct, located between Piccadilly and Oxford Road stations, is to be widened on the southern side. And out of sight of the travelling public, another aspect of the Northern Hub Piccadilly project will be the reconfiguring of the existing electrical substation near to London Road.
The arrival of HS2 will bring further attention on Manchester, with the new HS2 platforms to be constructed alongside the current station - providing a direct link between the Network Rail and HS2 stations. It is expected that further refurbishment works will take place to improve Piccadilly station, in preparation for the arrival of high-speed services.
Even though it is now 15 years since the station was last given a significant refurbishment, it is still managed and maintained to a very high standard, and the awarding of the National Rail Award for Major Station of the Year is proof that Network Rail’s station management for Piccadilly is still bearing fruit.
Piccadilly station has undergone some dramatic changes during the past two decades, but remains the gateway to the city for most visitors arriving by rail. This vital and important station seems set to continue evolving, alongside the city it serves.