An alternative proposal has been tabled to relieve congestion in Manchester’s notorious Castlefield Corridor. The short section of twin-track across the south side of the city centre is running at over capacity, and it is the subject of delays for passenger and freight traffic over a wide area of the North of England. Rebuilding is on the agenda, but at huge cost. Now an affordable proposal has been tabled, which would take pressure off the section, and could be achieved with much less disruption to services.
Ideas have been put forward, backed up by initial planning and feasibility work, to re-route some freight traffic away from the Corridor, and provide diversionary options, initially for the fast-growing intermodal rail freight sector, but also to revive options for other industries to use rail in and around Manchester. Industry sources say that a revived link though the southern suburbs of the city would allow better access to existing facilities and stimulate new flows across the region.
Jonathan Moser, managing director at specialist consultancy Railfreight Solutions, was approached by national lobby group RailFuture to examine in some detail a proposal to reactivate some of Manchester’s legacy of industrial rail routes, as an alternative to a hugely expensive and disruptive redevelopment through the city centre. “The primary objectives of the scheme are to release capacity along Manchester’s ultra-congested Castlefield Corridor”, he said. “At the same time, the scheme would seek to increase Greater Manchester’s existing container terminal capacity which feeds not only the North of England’s primary business destination but also the wider North West region.”
Existing constraints suppressing growth
Working closely with Railfuture over several months, Railfreight Solutions has developed a high level business case for a proposal to provide an alternative route, primarily to the existing Trafford Park terminal, for intermodal trains arriving from the deep sea ports. At the moment, all these flows come through the congested Castlefield Corridor, which they share with a mix of suburban, inter-urban and long distance passenger trains, transiting bulk and intermodal flows, and infrastructure workings. Although only a matter of a just under two kilometres long, the Corridor is a throttle on several lines from the east, and congestion has been exacerbated ever since the opening of the Ordsall Curve, which permits more traffic from the west of the section.