The Long and Winding Road

For several years now I have been pushing out various ideas for extension of various rail networks, mostly Liverpool's Merseyrail, all of which have managed to attract zero attention, in the local press, unlike some others. Despite there being a lot of similarity in the plans and mine coming out first. The latest plans share 99% commonality with my own, as we both shamelessly use Google Maps to draw on. I did learn something from this one, and that is that you can customise the place name markers on Google Maps. This may have been one flaw, but another made clear to me is that I must use a Beatles reference in the name. So for this on I have picked the Long and Winding Road.
So here it is the ultimate extension to Merseyrail to Thurso and not just Thurso but Thurso, Quebec via Thurso, Scotland which already has the most northerly railway station on the island of Great Britain.  Thurso, Quebec also has a railway station which is on the main Ottawa to Montreal line.
So here is the first map of Merseyrail Transatlantic.

The first part of the route would be too extended the Northern Line beyond Kirkby and via Wigan to Thurso on the north east tip of Scotland. You might think that America being to the west then the west would be the way to go, but unfortunately not, despite the invite of a station in Dublin, the 3000+ km from the west of Ireland to Newfoundland is a bit too long and the waters a bit too deep. Then there is the volcanically active mid-Atlantic Ridge, which stretches on average 2.5 cm a year. So it to the north and a bit of island hopping. So first it is Thurso, Kirkwall on Orkney at a modest
54km, just a warm-up, the tunnel would unlikely to surface but have a vent shaft combined with the station. Then on further north to Lerwick, Shetland at 166 km it is getting a bit longer.
At a junction with a line coming in from Bergen in Norway, we hand a hard left out to Torsharvenon Faroe at 366 km, which is beginning to push it out a bit.

Then a further 500 km to Höfn í Hornafirði in Iceland where a lot of surface running will start, one line round the south of the island and one around the north, to keep the route open when various bits of Iceland are exploding. Once we get to the west coast at Nanteyri it back into a tunnel for the 360 km tunnel to Greenland to a place I can best describe as  68°44'46.36"N  26°22'34.17"W followed by the longest tunnel 1160 km under the ice of Greenland to good old Sisimiut, a good place for a station. This would be the longest tunnel on the route, only helped by the fact that the water above is frozen solid.

A 340 km hop brings us to Baffin Island on the west coast just opposite Cape Dyer.  While we are actually on dry land with no ice pack it may be best to stay underground as the weather is awful, like North Wales on a June day, and anyway we have a lot of fjords and the like to cross before we get to Kimmirut on the Davis Straight for the last 175 km sea crossing to Kangiqsujuaq,Quebec and our first touch of the continental Americas.

It is now plain tunnelling to Thurso, Quebec and the main rail lines of North America, if the technology exists to get this far the might as well tunnel it to keep the scenery pretty and quiet.

All in all, it is 6137 km Thurso to Thurso, at HS2 speeds of 400 kph that is 15 hours 21 minutes. Personally, I would recommend standard gauge, but I'd wait till full automatic tunnelling can be done, with TBMs capable of handling the pressure, if there is a breakthrough of the ocean, and being able to fill the hole. Perhaps using Q-carbon to provide strength for the walls.
It would have to consist of multiple parallel interlinked tunnels, possibly 6 or more to provide the ventilation necessary and provide the volume to handle the blast from the train's shock. Plus the extensive cabling to provide power on the longer sections, and escape and rescue.
Additional tunnels would be provided for freight, which would only require slow, extremely long trains.
OK, I admit it is a Beatles themed Trans-Atlantic tunnel, but is quite likely a more practical scheme for long distances travel than Hyperloop.

New LOR North extension.

If the LOR was rebuilt as per my earlier blog, then it still wouldn't connect to one of the original destinations of Merseytram, Kirkby.

In it final form the LOR was connected to the main rail network at Seaforth, see this map. Until the 1990s the route was still clear, though now it has been filled in with houses. The LOR's trains usually terminated at Seaforth & Litherland station. During the Grand national meeting, some trains would go to Aintree Racecourse railway station via the North Mersey Branch.

The North Mersey Branch heading east as it crosses the Southport line.

From it junction with the Southport line, there remains a single unelectrified set of rails, maintained by network rail to their minimum standard and used by maintenance vehicles to access the Ormskirk line. A junction connects the remaining line to Aintree station, but beyond the junction one bridge has been removed but the rest of the route is clear to Fazakerley junction on the Kirkby line between Kirkby and Fazakerley.

Extension

In my original plan, I terminated the New LOR at Sandhills station. The track there is now down to 2 set of rails, previously there were many more lines as out to Southport was quad and the North Liverpool Extension Line also passed through, see here. In the intervening stations between Sandhills and the Junction for the North Mersey Branch, the remains of the extra lines can clearly be seen. This would allow extra lines if needed to connect the New LOR from Sandhills to the North Mersey branch. Though as the lines currently only carry four trains per hour, it would be possible to fit additional services in Tram Trains.
Mersey rail has long term plans to reintroduce services on the North Mersey branch to Aintree, with at least 2 intermediate stations. On the map at the top of the page, the line from Sandhills to Aintree is marked in white as it is either in use or Merseyrail has expressed some interest in use/

Beyond Aintree

Merseyrail's plans involve leaving the North Mersey Branch at the Aintree North Curve that might be a reasonable thing, however, it would also be possible to reinstate the line beyond Aintree to Fazakerley Junction.  It would then join Merseyrail's line into Kirkby, taking advantage of the Bridge over the M57, though as this is only a single track it may represent a bottleneck.
At Some point, the line would leave Merseyrail, perhaps after Kirkby station and revert to tram running through Kirkby, where it could be used not only for people intending to use the LOR into Liverpool but also as a feeder for Kirkby station for trains heading East or West. This corresponds to the purple line on the map at the top.
This is an additional 7 km of surface lines over what Merseyrail has either work at the moment or plans to have in use. Which using the costing in the original article come to between £119.21 and £238.41 million, bringing the total for the system to £550 & 1280 million. The biggest disruption in the build would be putting the track down on Kirkby's roads.

New LOR

You don't hear much about new overhead railways being built, they are things that exist in New York, Chicago and in Liverpool's case the past, but new ones are surprisingly common.  The Docklands Light Railway is largely overhead as are sections of the Newcastle Metro, European cities have or had some elevated railways, sections of Hamburg Hochbahn are elevated.

 

The very earliest overhead systems where simply brick viaducts, while the arch spaces could be used they took up a lot of space and often ran heavyweight trains. Later systems used lighter weight trains and lighter weight viaducts enabling the systems to be raised on steel or concrete columns. Leaving space beneath for roads. Some like the Liverpool Overhead were built above other railway lines, that ran along the street for freight transport between docks.

The main advantage of the overhead railway is, that like an underground it leaves the surface free or largely free for other uses, such as roads, pedestrians or surface level tram lines. Compared with underground it is cheaper to build and easier to maintain, as well as requiring less safety systems. As they do not have to cooperate with other surface vehicles the can also have double the capacity of surface level trams.

Liverpool lost both its tram and overhead railway in the 1950s, things which, with hindsight seem like a mistake. There was even an attempt in the 2000s to create a new tram system as Merseytram, but that too failed, even after the purchase of the land and even the rails had started.

for an idea of station location on the LOR section see

Replacement

A large part of the original Liverpool Overhead Railway's business was messengers moving between the docks, the wide spread of the telephone put an end to that. Changes in technology and the docks have meant that that need has not returned. However, the rise of the area as residential and the move of the retail area of Liverpool further towards the river may offer a source of passengers.
There are some other unused old rail resources in central Liverpool which could be brought into use to produce a more integrated system, especially if Tram-Train technology is thrown into the mix, a central network connected, via existing heavy rail lines to subsystems on the outskirts, can be created.
Original the LOR was an isolated system but it was finally connected to the main rail network with a link to the North Mersey Branch, which allowed connections to all the north line to Southport and the line from Aintree to Ormskirk, it would have provided access as far as Kirkby but the North Mersey Branch was not electrified that far. The change of use does not extend far beyond Sandhills Lane so there would be little case for extending the line back to Litherland. However, joining the Northern line near Sandhills could use the wider track section provided by the CLC route.
To the south, a connection to the Northern line at Brunswick could be made. Further links could be made by the Wapping Tunnel and the Waterloo Tunnel to Edge Hill, where a curve would create a triangular loop line. Extra stations could be provided along the length of the tunnel.
In order to use the tunnel, the line would have to drop down to ground level. The normal clearance required on motorways is 15.1 meters, if this is required for the new railway then this would put the rails some 17 meters above the ground. The steepest gradient on the Docklands Light Railway is 1 in 17 (5.88%), at that gradient, the ramps would need to be 119 meters long. This length easily fits into the available space where transitions are required.
Merseyrail already plans a connection from the northern line, south of Central station to the Wapping tunnel as part of it Edge Hill Link scheme, with at least one additional station at Crown Street. Part of their plan is to open up the area around Wavertree by rebuilding the LOR as Tram-Train and linking it to Edge Hill the link could be fully utilised, and the Trams go beyond Edge Hill and at some point leaving the railway and mix with ordinary traffic as a street tram.
The tighter turns of light rail would allow, with some tunnel works a connection to the Wapping tunnel heading west, though the floor would have to be lower to clear an intrusion into the tunnel.
The Waterloo tunnel passes within 400 metres of Lime Street underground on the loop line, a short branch from the Waterloo could provide a platform parallel to the current loop line platform and provide access to both Loop Line and Mainline passengers.
With a connection made to Lime Street then a short spur of a loop which passed down Princes' parade would allow the cruise liner terminal to be connected conveniently to the mainline station, with just a short walk.

Cost

It is difficult to estimate costs, but I found Comparison of Capital Costs per Route-Kilometre in Urban Rail from a Danish university, which contains this table

There are about 7km of existing tunnel, which as the tunnel is already built I have priced as surface, 8 of elevated and an extra 0.6 miles of new tunnel. All figures in millions.

2000 → 2017 $	1.4016		2017 $ → £	0.81
	Cost	Kilometre	2000 prices	2017 prices	2017 $ → £
Surface	$15.00	7	$105.00	$147.17	£119.21
	$30.00		$210.00	$294.34	£238.41
Elevated	$30.00	8	$240.00	$336.38	£272.47
	$75.00		$600.00	$840.96	£681.18
Underground	$60.00	0.6	$36.00	$50.46	£40.87
	$180.00		$108.00	$151.37	£122.61
					£432.55
					£1,042.20

So roughly £275 to £685 million for the overhead rebuild or between £435 and £1045 million for the complete system.

RandstadRail netkous viaduct

https://www.flickr.com/photos/38891071@N00

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tukka

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tukka

Monterrey Metro

From Garcia Bridge Engineers 

 This is not for light rail, but it shows how a viaduct is built

that has quite a lot of similarities with how the original was built! Though instead of being counterbalanced, the front is supported by mobile columns on their own railways.

From YOLiverpool

Extension

For a plan to extend further to Kirkby see New LOR North extension.

Update

Now with added Bramley Moore station marked to cater for Everton FC fans if their new stadium goes ahead. See Liverpool Echo story.

 

 

Trans North/HS3

The Government released The Northern Powerhouse: One Agenda, One Economy, One North report, which contains some interesting stuff regarding Liverpool and High-Speed rail, most notably

Trans North/HS3

Also covered is HS3 which has similarities to my Pan Northern Railway  through without York, Chester and Holyhead.

  

HS3 using existing lines

The target maximum speed that has been mentioned is 140 mph, this was the same as the target for the West Coast Mainline upgrade in the 90s.

The was for the first generation of Pendolinos, the second generation is capable of 155mph. The reason they don't go over 125 is the lack of in-cab signalling, but under existing plans, the entire system will be set up for in-cab signalling by 2029, according to the International Rail Journal. Electrification from Man to Leeds is already planned as is Leeds to Hull according to the BBC. It is already in place Liverpool to Manchester.

The proposed times for HS3 are

Liv -> Manc in 20 minutes, mean  94.5 mph over 31.5 miles.
Man->Leeds in 30 minutes, mean 85.4 mph over 42.7 miles.
Leeds ->Hull in 45 minutes, mean 68 mph over 51.6 miles. 

So all those are already planned before HS3! what extra is needs to happen for HS3?

The OpenOffice Calc spreadsheet can be found here.

The Liverpool to Manchester section, given a Pendolino, allowed to accelerate straight to 140 and decelerate into Manchester Victoria would take 15:35. With various limitations caused by going through stations and in urban areas 20 minutes is very close to the maximum that could be achieved. To make a 20 minutes service possible some work would need to be done, whether that would be passing loops or quadrupling of long sections I don't know, perhaps some traffic could be offloaded to other routes but providing access for St Helens & Newton le Willows is not optional. Complete requadrupling of the section from Lime Street to Huyton Junction would help, that would require work to widen the track bed at Broad Green where the M62 intrudes.

The Manchester -> Leeds time of 30 minutes knocks about 15 minutes off of the current journey time, and is 9:37 slower than the theoretical maximum, bearing in mind this is the curviest bit of the route this is less demanding than the Liverpool-Manchester time and perhaps reflects greater thought and time applied.  

The Hull time is only 9 minutes faster than the current time which is the smallest improvement and as this is the longest route doesn't make much sense. Most of the route is quite straight except for a large kink around Selby.

Rail lines around Selby

The average speed for Leeds -> Hull is 68.8 compared with 94.53 for Liv->Man and 85.4 for Man->Leeds. This seems a bit slow, given the profile I would expect a mean speed faster than the Man->Leeds speed. At the same average speed as the Liv->Man journey Leeds -> Hull is about 32:45 and at the Man -> Leeds is 36:15. So it should be possible to knock a further 10 minutes off the overall journey getting the overall journey down to 1:25.

A second generation Pendolino is capable of 155mph, similar to the Advanced Passenger Train, in order to operate at the higher speed the APT had enhanced brakes, these are not on the Pendolino. If a system capable of similar braking to the APT's Hydro Kinetic system were fitted then speeds over 140 could be achieved, which might allow some more savings or at least greater safety margin.  One candidate for the breaking system would be Circular or Linear Eddy Current Braking both of which have been used on railways in excess of 155mph.

Beyond England

Welsh extension.

Currently, the time from Hull to Holyhead, 218 miles, would be 4:09 with an average speed of 52.5 mph, if some stops are taken out leaving only the major stops, then the journey can be down to 3:39 with a mean speed of 59 mph. Whilst this probably faster than it can be driven, the current journey would be longer as it would involve waiting for connections at the principal stations.
Using the 140 mph maximum then with the full set of stops the journey could be made in 2:19 with a mean speed of 94 mph. With only the principle stops that drops to 1:42 at a mean of 128.
The theoretical speed would obviously not be possible but a time of between 2:30 and 2:45 should be possible, knocking 1:24 of the current possible time.
A Liverpool Holyhead journey, via the soon to be reinstated Halton curve, would take about 2:00, this time, is even more speculative than the others as it involves the Chester to Runcorn parliamentary train, which only runs early Saturday morning during the summer, and is in no rush. Taking out the stops gets down to 1:52. With the high-speed options, the time drops to 1:00 with stops and 51 without. Giving an estimated real world time as 1:15, a 45-minute saving.
Electrifying and speeding up Chester to Holyhead would improve London-Holyhead times, as well as local trains, as part of HS3, it would provide a very useful link between the Ferry Terminals of Hull and Holyhead.

Midland Main Line

In the picture below you can see the line from Derby to Manchester that used to part of the Midland Main Line connecting London and Manchester. It is now cut back to serving Derby and Sheffield.

The yellow portions of the Line out of Derby and Manchester are still in use but not as a main line. The white section in the middle is 14 miles of unused track bed.
Reconnecting this would add redundancy to the London Northwest link and provide a direct faster connection to the East Midlands.
It and HS3 will create a Northern power house an eXtended Midland Mainline can only boost it further.

 

Liverpool doesn't need HS3 to connect to Manchester

Liverpool does not need HS3 to connect to Manchester, it needs it to connect to Leeds & Hull. It is not that getting Liverpool to Manchester down to 20 minutes wouldn't be useful, but the linkage between the city centres is not the only measure of connectivity.
Both Liverpool and Manchester City regions have large hinterlands with several centres of economic activity. There is no point measuring simply the connectivity between the two Centres, the interconnectivity must take into account the linkage between the sub nodes. While the linkage between Ellesmere Port and Bolton may not be as important as the Liverpool to Manchester link, it is not worthless and is one of many sub-node interconnections.
One of the longer distance routes available from Liverpool Exchange was the link to Bury via Liverpool and Bury Railway, unfortunately, this was cut back to Bolton in 1970 though most of the alignment is still in place and a 4.5-mile section would allow a link to Manchester Metrolink for line into Manchester City Centre.

Liverpool & Manchester rail linkages

The building of the Ordsall Chord seems to be funding and going ahead if coupled with that Merseytravel's Airport spur was constructed and the Warrington Altrincham line reinstated. Then an outer loop could be formed, providing direct links from,  Say Widnes to Bolton/ Altrincham and Bootle as well as providing links to between Liverpool, both Manchester's stations and Stockport.
A link from the Northern Line from Bootle via the stock interchange to St James and the Wirral would push the loop out to Ellesmere Port and Runcorn. Though a reverse at Liverpool could do the same.

Rail Details of Liverpool

A map of Liverpool with some of the changes proposed in Merseytravel's 30-year plan.

Rail Details of Manchester

Details of the Ordsall chord.

Warrington rail details

The red line departing right is the disused Warrington and Altrincham Junction Railway
all the other lines are intact and in use though the green line entering left is only used for freight and connects to Ditton Junction.

Timperley rail detail

This is Skelton Junction with the line entering from the upper left is the closed Glazebrook East Junction to Skelton Junction Line while the red line entering mid-left is the closed Warrington and Altrincham Junction Railway.

Tram Train

Some parts of the network are now operated by MetroLink but use old rail alignments. Converting these to Tram-Train allow connections to places like Prestwich direct from Liverpool.