There are two Liverpool to Manchester railway lines between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester in the North West of England. The 'Northern Route' via Earlestown and Newton-le-Willows to either Manchester Victoria or Manchester Piccadilly follows the route of the original Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The 'Southern Route' via Warrington Central to Manchester Piccadilly operates on lines formerly owned by the Cheshire Lines Committee.
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The northern line runs from Liverpool Lime Street station, via Earlestown and Newton-le-Willows, and continues to either Manchester Victoria or Manchester Piccadilly. The semi-fast services to Manchester Airport are usually operated by Class 156 DMUs, whilst slower services to Manchester Victoria are generally worked by Class 142 and Class 150 trains. The northerly of the two lines follows George Stephenson's original 32 mile (51.5 km) Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which was one of the world's first passenger railways, and the first to have run a 'scheduled' service, having opened in 1830. Many early steam locomotives were initially used on this line including Stephenson's Rocket which won the Rainhill Trials in 1829 (see List of Liverpool and Manchester Railway locomotives).
As of 2009, an hourly semi-fast service is operated by Northern Rail, from Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Airport, usually calling at Wavertree Technology Park, St Helens Junction, Newton-le-Willows, Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester Piccadilly, and continuing to Manchester Airport.[1]
Northern Rail also operates an hourly service calling at all stations along the line between Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Victoria.[1] After a short pause at Manchester Victoria, the train then continues to Ashton-under-Lyne and Stalybridge.[2] This 'stopping service' is supplemented by an additional all-stations service between Liverpool Lime Street and Earlestown, which continues along the WCML to Warrington Bank Quay.[1]
Between Earlestown and Manchester Piccadilly, there are additional hourly services operated by Arriva Trains Wales, which originate from Llandudno via the North Wales Coast Line and Chester.[3]
On Sundays there is one train per hour along the line which stops at all stations to Manchester Piccadilly, except Edge Hill and Patricroft. It is operated by Northern Rail, and continues from Manchester Picadilly to Manchester Airport.[1]
Northern Rail is the dominant operator of the route and their services are run by either Class 142, Class 150 or Class 156 DMUs. Arriva Trains Wales services between Earlestown and Manchester Piccadilly are usually operated by Class 175 units, however Class 158s may substitute on occasions.
The northern Liverpool to Manchester route is also usually used by First TransPennine Express and East Midlands Trains for empty coaching stock (ECS) movements, and as a diversionary route when the southern route is closed.
In past years, the line has been used by many express services which included through trains to Leeds, York and Newcastle (via Huddersfield), and to Preston, Glasgow Central and Edinburgh (diverging onto the WCML at Newton-le-Willows). Local trains also ran to Manchester via Leigh, but these services ceased in 1969 when the Eccles-Tyldesley-Leigh-Kenyon branch was closed as a result of the Beeching Axe. The northern Liverpool to Manchester line has also seen regular use over the years for diverted services from the WCML when parts of the latter have been closed for engineering work, however diversions via Manchester instead have now become more common as they do not involve the train reversing, as would be necessary at Edge Hill, and the line is also electrifed for a greater part of the route.
The key junctions on this route are:
During a journey trains are controlled by:
The Department for Transport announced in July 2009 that this line will be electrified[5] with 25 kV, 50 Hz AC, overhead line.[6] The electrification process is due to be completed by 2013,[6] with planning starting immediately as of August 2009. Once the electrification of the line is complete, the journey time between Liverpool and Manchester will be reduced from around 45 minutes today, to 30 minutes due to the greater acceleration achieved by electric trains and a raise of the speed limit along the line from 75 to 90 mph.[6] Class 319 dual-voltage EMUs will be fully refurbished and transferred from the Thameslink route to operate between Liverpool and Manchester, and possibly class 323s or 333s as well,[6] whilst Thameslink services will be operated by new energy-efficient trains which are due to be delivered between 2011 and 2013.[7] Upon election, the new Conservative and Liberal Democrat UK government reviewed the timetable of Liverpool to Manchester electrification and delayed the completion by 3 years, with electric trains now not due to start operating until 2016.[8]
As a result of the electrification, TransPennine Express services between Manchester Airport and Glasgow Central/Edinburgh Waverley, currently operated by Class 185 DMUs via the Manchester to Preston Line will be operated by Class 350 EMUs transferred from the West Midlands franchise and re-routed along a portion of the northern Liverpool to Manchester route before joining the West Coast Main Line (WCML) at Golborne Junction.[6] The elecrification of this route will also offer electric haulage options for freight trains, giving a secondary route to the WCML from Liverpool. Plans to electrify the line completely have been confirmed.[9]
The southern route runs from Liverpool Lime Street via Warrington Central to Manchester Piccadilly. There are 4 passenger trains per hour (tph) in each direction between Liverpool and Manchester, which are usually operated by a variety of Class 142, Class 150, Class 156, Class 158 and Class 185 DMUs, although Class 170 and Class 222 units have also made appearances on the line. These services are run by a mixture of rail companies and the time intervals are not evenly spaced out; there are large gaps between some services, and at other times trains leave within minutes of each other. TransPennine Express (TPE) are the only operator on the route to run modern Class 185 trains, while other operators run a mixture of older rolling stock. While TPE's once per hour service generally take 45 minutes to reach Manchester from Liverpool Lime Street, some Northern Rail services take an hour and ten minutes to cover the 35 miles. The line's newest station is Liverpool South Parkway which opened in June 2006 after its estimated construction cost of £16 million had doubled to £32 million by the time it was completed. This station replaced Allerton and Garston stations and has frequent bus links to Liverpool John Lennon Airport. This route is busier than the northern route.
The line uses the original London and North Western Railway route as far as Allerton Junction to the immediate south east of Liverpool South Parkway, where the Hunts Cross chord connects it to the line built by the Cheshire Lines Committee (CLC) in 1873. A portion of this line between Hunts Cross and Liverpool Central is now used by the Merseyrail Northern Line before entering a new tunnel built in the 1970s beneath Liverpool City Centre. Originally, this CLC line ran between Liverpool Central high level and Manchester Central, however Manchester Central station closed in 1969 and during the 1980s was transformed into an exhibition and conference centre commonly known as the GMEX centre. As a result of this closure, the Manchester stations presently in use on the line are Manchester Oxford Road and Manchester Piccadilly. Liverpool Central high level was demolished in 1973 due to most of the traffic being diverted to Liverpool Lime Street and all of the station's platforms are now underground.
Presently (2009), a half-hourly fast service operates between Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Piccadilly, calling at Warrington Central and Manchester Oxford Road. Of the two trains per hour, one is operated by East Midlands Trains and the other by First TransPennine Express. East Midlands Trains' services usually also stop at Liverpool South Parkway and Widnes, and continue beyond Manchester to Norwich via Sheffield and Nottingham,[10] while the First TransPennine Express services do not call at Widnes, but call instead at Birchwood and usually continue to Scarborough via Leeds and York, although some trains also operate to Hull, Middlesbrough, or Newcastle.[11]
There is also a half-hourly local service operated by Northern Rail along the southern route to Manchester Oxford Road. Many intermediate stations are served by both of these trains, although some just by one per hour, while Glazebrook, Humphrey Park and Trafford Park are served only occasionally outside peak periods.[12] On Sundays this service only operates once per hour, and several stations along the route receive no Sunday service.[12]
The majority of the First TransPennine Express Services are operated by Class 185 trains, although once each weekday evening a Class 170 works along the line from Liverpool Lime Street to Hull via Manchester and operates in the opposite direction each Saturday evening. East Midlands Trains mainly use Class 158s along the line, and as of August 2009, the fleet of 27 units are currently undergoing a thorough refurbishment programme.[13] As on the northern route via Newton-le-Willows, Northern Rail operate a mixture of Class 142, Class 150 and Class 156 units along the line.
In the past, the CLC route was used by a variety of local services in addition to limited-stop expresses between the two cities. These included trains between Warrington Central and Stockport Tiviot Dale, Liverpool and Manchester to Wigan Central and even Liverpool to Southport Lord Street via Aintree Central, although the latter route was closed as long ago as 1952. The diversion of Liverpool-bound trains to Lime Street in 1966 and the closure of Manchester Central in 1969 (all trains subsequently running to Oxford Road and Piccadilly) saw the route downgraded in importance and from then until the mid-1980s it was operated as a self-contained route due to congestion issues at the Manchester end. The service frequency was also lower than at present, for example the British Rail 1985 timetable had one semi-fast and one stopping train per hour in each direction on weekdays (excluding the weekday peaks periods). Through running to destinations east of Manchester via this route only began on a regular basis in 1986, when the opening of a new connection at Hazel Grove allowed trains from the Sheffield direction to run via Stockport and thus avoid conflicting movements across the station throat at Piccadilly.
The key junctions on this route are:
During a journey trains are controlled by:
The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway had its own route to the north of the present two. This ran from Liverpool Exchange station via the Liverpool and Bury Railway to Wigan Wallgate, then via the Manchester and Southport Railway to Manchester Victoria; at 37 miles (59.5 km) this route was the longest of the three. It is still possible to travel from Liverpool to Manchester Victoria via this route by taking the Merseyrail Northern Line from Liverpool Central to Kirkby and then transferring onto a Northern Rail service to Manchester, according to National Rail Enquires website this would take 1 hour 38 minutes, compare with less than 50 minutes from Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly.
A further southerly route, using what was St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway and Warrington and Stockport Railway, connected Liverpool Lime Street with Manchester Oxford Road via Ditton Junction, Warrington Bank Quay (low level platforms) and Timperley. Part of this route is still used for coal and limestone traffic to Fiddlers Ferry Power Station, but east of Warrington it has been abandoned and now forms part of the Trans Pennine Trail.
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