Merseyrail Expansion On North West Tonight News
if you watched the other nites news you would of saw merseyrail are in the early stages of reopeing the old waterloo tunnel and wapping tunnel for passangers again to extend the merseyrail network heres the link http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/new...tm?bw=bb&mp=rm
It's just a proposal at this stage isn't it? They went through all this before with the roadway scheme.
To be honest, can you really see them putting trains through those tunnels again? The Wapping Tunnel would be good for a Kings Dock Arena station, but that's about it. James St and Central already serve the town centre. And why use Waterloo Tunnel? It's almost as easy to go to Lime Street and round to Moorfields for the Northern Line - could these schemes actually be profitable?!
Use of the Waterloo tunnel would also entail openning new stations enroute between Broadgreen and the downtown core of Liverpool. Breck Road has been mentioned as one of those stations and the Anfield area another. THe Wapping tunnel would tie in well with the proposal for openning the the station near Parliament and Stanhope Streets.Originally Posted by snappel
Last time I was in Liverpool I was shown a proposal, on the QT, made by Mersey Travel, which showed new stations in places like the University and Royal Hospital areas and the Chinatown/Cathedral areas. Your right, the central core is well served by Merseyrail, with stations at Lime Street, Moorefields, James Street, Central and Brunswick. Would be nice if it happened and a comprehensive subway syst, IMO, is better than a surface streetcar system.
Help find Madeleine
The Waterloo Tunnel doesn't pass under Breck Road or Anfield. Were you thinking of the goods line to Alexandra Dock?
Funny how we closed all these lines and now there's the possibility of re-opening them. A bit like getting rid of the trams...
The one thing I've been surprised at is why the Loop Line from Halewood to Aintree has never come up as a way of transportation. It would be magical to open up all the old stations along the way and have a metrolink or the like. It passes through most villages in Liverpool and I couldn't think of a nicer route to take even as a 'day trip' to see the sights along the way.
They could easily put a link in from the airport to Halewood too and as i've said before, use the Cherry Lane line or direct link it into the footy stadiums. This would help the Irish and Norwegian Liverpudlians on matchday
Might not have even been the Waterloo tunnel, that was just my assumption, not being too familiar with the rail tunnel system in Liverpool. The plan I seen showed a line from Broad Green and passing underneath Edge Lane, Prescot Road, Newsham Park Tuebrook, Townsend Lane, Anfield Cemetary on the Cherry Lane side, under Walton Hall Avenue, County Road and conecting to Merseyrail Northern Line at, or near, Kirkdale Staion. It showed proposed stations labelled Stanley, Prescot, Tuebrook, Breck, Anfield, Walton. I can't remember the exact locations of these proposed stations.
Help find Madeleine
yes the waterloo tunnel is a long tunnel leading through the busy city centre under areas which needs stations such as royal hospital, london road, university ect this tunnel would enable trains to run from the city centre up onto closed branches at the edge hill area such as the canada dock line which runs through passing underneath Edge Lane, Prescot Road, Newsham Park Tuebrook, Townsend Lane, Anfield Cemetary on the Cherry Lane side, under Walton Hall Avenue, County Road and conecting to Merseyrail Northern Line at, or near, Kirkdale Station, with both tunnels reopened every area of liverpool will be rail served bit like the london underground and we can finally loose this daft white elephant idea of merseytrams this map shows how the merseyrail network is hoped to look like in the near future
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne...4890602&size=l
below is an old railway map of merseyside from 1909
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne...4890612&size=o
Looking at your 'future' map... I can't see Merseyrail ever opening that many stations. There just isn't the demand. You have lots there shown on the tunnels (Waterloo, etc) - there have just been proposals on the news about opening the tunnels to road traffic.
Cities worldwide are limiting, or looking to limit, private vehicular traffic, even Manchester is looking to place an access charge to vehicles, entering the city centre. Liverpool? You guessed it! What a backward bunch Liverpool's political administration is. They say you get the government you deserve. I don't believe even Manchester deserves a government like Liverpool's, and I don't care a toss about Manchester.
Help find Madeleine
On reading various peices of info over time, the only stations I think may possibly reopen would be:
Gateacre, Knotty Ash, West Derby, Stanley (not shown) & Clubmoor on the old CLC extension. Perhaps this would be incorporated within the Merseytram network, as opposed to part of Merseyrail? I am always surprised as to why these stations didn't reopen back in 1977, as per Merseyrail's original proposals.
Edge Lane, Tuebrook, Breck Road, (Walton &) Anfield & possibly Spellow on the old LNWR Canada Dock Branch.
Linacre Road & Ford on the old LNWR Bootle branch.
With the new stations at Skelmersdale (Northern Line - Kirkby), Beechwood & Woodchurch (Wirral Line) & Vauxhall & possibly St James (Northern Line - Southport to Hunts Cross).
If these did reopen, realistically, I can't see this happening until the beginning of the next decade at least, if not later.
Merseyrail are looking at increasing passenger numbers by 40% by 2011. These passengers will be based on afternoon and night time travelling as the peak is pretty much to capacity.
They are looking at a number of projects like acquiring the Bidston to Wrexham and electrifying that line.
Also manning stations passed Hooton towards Chester.
Over this side of the water they are not planning on reopening any station but refurbishment works are ongoing now for Bootle Oriel Road and Sandhills stations.
A few other things have been mentioned and that is all it is so not worth speculating as its only talk.
The simple fact for Merseyrail is that any hard project has to go through Merseytravel and would not be feasible to reopen any station as the demand is simply not there for the amount of money it would cost.
That's an interesting map oritelad. One or two things occurred to me looking at it.
If the Wapping/Waterloo tunnels were ever brought back into use it might make more sense to route them onto the existing Northern line, enabling local trains to be routed via Moorfields and Central rather than terminating at Lime Street.
In most countries public transport is heavily subsidised via local taxation. This could supply ample resources for expansion assuming people wanted it and the government devolved real power to the cities such as Liverpool.
Otterspool is a complete non-starter! Maybe if the station was moved so that it was accessed via Jericho Lane?
You haven't included the Halton curve on your map. This is being campaigned for by a number of different bodies so is probably more likely to happen in the next five years than many of the other possibilities. It would enable trains to run from North Wales into South Liverpool. If the line were electrified it would allow for a Mersey loop line. Starting at Central, via Ellesmere Port onto Helsby, Frodsham, East Runcorn maybe connecting with the present Northern Line in the Hunts Cross/Allerton area before returning to Central.
Is that the proposed Beechwood station near Runcorn (or another Beechwood)?
It surely would be great if Merseyrail would take over the proposed Beechwood station beyond the Halton Curve (presumably for third-rail electrified services to Beechwood from LSP stopping at Runcorn and maybe Ditton). Of course this means also electrifying a chord (new or old) to link the two halves of LSP.
As to the Canada Dock Branch, surely that will be "MPTE Merseyrail" but not part of the Merseyrail franchise? 25kV services from Lime Street on that branch would mesh nicely with freight rail improvements (Olive Mount Chord and 25kV electrification of Manchester to Lime Street via Earlestown). It would also allow accommodate Soccer Specials.
I got this image from here: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=13760390
It shows the layout of the underground and disused tunnels quite nicely, along with the originally proposed extensions that headings were actually built for in the 70's when the loop and link was being constructed.
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