This investment will help ease a rail bottleneck to the south of Piccadilly station and enable faster, more frequent services to run across the North of England.
The plans
The plans include a new 1km section of track to the north west of Castlefield Junction, in the vicinity of Ordsall. This will link the Castlefield Junction line with the Deal Street Junction line, connecting Manchester’s three main stations for the very first time.
The benefits
- Two new fast trains per hour between Manchester Victoria and Liverpool
- Six fast trains an hour between Leeds and Manchester (as opposed to four now)
- Faster journeys across the north:
- Journey times between Leeds and Manchester could be reduced by about 10 minutes
- Journey times between Liverpool and Manchester could be reduced by 10-15 minutes
- A new direct service through Manchester city centre to Manchester Airport
- Faster journey times to Hull, Newcastle and the North East.
Public consultation
Consultation on the emerging plans for Ordsall Chord was held in October 2011. A series of exhibitions took place in and around Greater Manchester so that stakeholders and the local community could find out more about the scheme. This stage of consultation has now closed and the feedback is being reviewed.
Network Rail is committed to ongoing pre-application consultation. A second stage of activity is being planned for Spring / Summer 2012.
Timeline
| 1 Autumn / Winter 2011 |
Consultation on outline scheme |
| 2 Spring / Summer 2012 |
Consultation on detailed designs |
| 3 Winter 2012/2013 |
Consultation on draft application |
| 4 Spring 2013 |
Submission of final scheme to the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) |
| 5 Spring 2014 |
Application to be determined by the IPC |
| 6 Winter 2016/2017 |
New Ordsall Chord to be operational |
Documentation
The following documents formed part of the first phase of consultation.