MerseyRail

[davopazza]

I had a trip over to Liverpool last week and used the MerseyRail network between West Kirby and Liverpool Central and was quite impressed especially with the frequency of the trains and with working regularly in the South east of England (although what I might say is a saw subject) has a good service frequency into London from the large areas.

This left me wondering if a similar sort of frequent network could be implemented in Leeds and West Yorkshire. I know MerseyRail is a self contained network, but could creating a similar frequency level encourage more people to the train.

I know the harrogate line may receive an increase on frequency in the future and the only other line I use is the Pontefract/Hallam line so I'll use this example. How about increasing the Leeds-Castleford-Normanton-Service to two an hour from one compared to the ten buses an hour between Castleford and Wakefield and then increase the frequency of the Leeds-Castleford-Pontefract-Knottingley and Knottingley-Pontefract-Wakefield Kirkgate to two an hour creating four trains an hour through Woodlesford and Castleford.

You could also maybe take this further and run two trains an hour from Leeds through Castleford and Pontefract to Doncaster creating morning peak links that where lost on the bus and significantly reducing the travel time.

I was wondering about other people thoughts about this and if this is possible although it does require extra units to run that may not be available to Northern at the moment.

[Dom]

It is a complex idea, Mersey Rail, and other similar structures across the UK take up time, and money. With thee local government thinking of the NB4L, or Trolley Buss, it will more than likely not happen, look at the SuperTram scheme.

[resolution]

Two questions:
Where would Northern get the trains?;
And if/when you can solve that one;
Do paths exist in which these trains might operate? Leeds station is reputed already to be stuffed to capacity.

[davopazza]

Jun 1, 2014 19:27:59 GMT 1 resolution said:

Two questions:
Where would Northern get the trains?;
And if/when you can solve that one;
Do paths exist in which these trains might operate? Leeds station is reputed already to be stuffed to capacity.

I believe the answer for both is investment. I have no knowledge of the rail industry, only what I pick up being a commuter, on television and of this forum so I am unable to give a technical answer to your very valid questions.

The pontefract and Castleford area is growing rapidly with a sudden large amount of new homes being built with just under 1000 planned being built on the old prince of Wales colliery which will most likely create a lot more commuters to Leeds and Wakefield. Not long ago there was a report in the local paper about campaigners for an increased service to Leeds and Wakefield.

[rwilkes]

The busy Leeds Bradford rail corridor has 6 trains an hour, 2 routes, but the bus has 90% of the public transport share on that corridor.

Rail is so important for longer trips, but let's get real about the shorter trips where bus can do the job for so much less money

Merseyside is lucky to have inherited a very practical local rail network from earlier times, but even there buses do the real work.

Even in London the buses beat the underground in numbers and economy

[ianigsy]

Having grown up over there, I've thought about this myself quite often over the last few years, especially on the Wharfedale and Airedale electrified lines. Essentially, while Leeds was busy cramming all its services into one station, Liverpool took the opportunity to drive a line under the city centre linking the ex-L&Y lines into Exchange with the existing underground station at Central Low Level (ex-Mersey Railway) and emerging on the ex-Cheshire Lines route out to Garston and eventually Hunts Cross. The Mersey Railway route was diverted into a terminal loop linking the cross-city route with the main line terminus at Lime Street.

I think the short answer is that at the critical stage, Liverpool planned for growth and Leeds for decline- Merseyrail frequencies have never been less than 20 minutes and fares are kept below a comparable distance and frequency for West Yorkshire, and I think Metro would probably rather see two-car DMUs calling at new stations than put anything more into high-frequency services out of Leeds.

[resolution]

I think it is rather unfair to blame Leeds for 'cramming all its services into one station' when that was a decision made over 50 years ago by British Railways for all kinds of excellent reasons.
Nor do I think it is fair to claim that Metro 'would probably rather see two-car dmus calling at new stations than put anything more into high-frequency services out of Leeds'. Metro is one of the very few (possibly the only) local authority to have taken an initiative to extend two-car dmus to three; the provision of two-car dmus is a national policy decision which has nothing to do with Metro; and most of the services out of Leeds are already operating at frequencies which must approach the highest practicable.