‘Victoria Station could rival Piccadilly in trains shake-up’
That’s the headline in an article which appeared yesterday (Saturday 11 November 2006) in the Manchester Evening News. Read it here.
It’s reported that Network Rail are looking at ideas to improve the rail network in Manchester and the north west, particularly with reference to stations.
Here’s a checklist of possibilities mentioned in the article, none of them yet approved:
- Victoria may be revitalised to be the ‘rival’ or ‘peer’ of Piccadilly
- Many train services could be switched from Piccadilly to Victoria
- New transport interchanges at Guide Bridge, Stalybridge, Eccles, Cornbrook
- Eccles Station to be linked to Eccles Metrolink terminus to provide a way to Salford Quays
- Salford Crescent Station to be moved and extended.
- Ardwick Station to be closed
- Denton and Reddish South stations closed (and presumably also the line they are on too)
The article presents some interesting snippets of information:
- 23 million passengers use stations in ‘Manchester’ (presumably Greater Manchester) every year
- 19 million passengers use Piccadilly Station
- Ardwick is used by just 5 regular passengers a day
- Denton and Reddish South have just one train a week.
In the opinion of EOM, this article raises a lot of questions, and some of the information needs clarification:
- The reason Denton and Reddish South have so few passengers and trains is because it has been decided that the line will have only one train a week. See my description of riding the Stockport to Stalybridge weekly train.
- The idea that Victoria could be a ‘rival’ to Piccadilly in transport terms is absurd. I presume what is meant is that it would be a rival in terms of its striking architecture.
- There is a factual error. Salford Crescent isn’t a quarter of a mile north of Victoria, it is just over one and three quarter miles to the west (one mile and 66 chains*). Salford Central is just over half a mile (around 45 chains*) to the south west of Victoria.
EOM has the following suggestions:
Don’t close quiet lines, revitalise them. Reinstate more disused lines and build new ones, to give a dense rail network.
Reinstate Mayfield Station and Exchange Station.
Look to Japan and Switzerland for inspiration, and remember public transport, like the car, isn’t just a means of getting from A to B, it’s part of the character of the city and should be a source of pride.
Would train companies please stop using the word ‘Customer’ and call us what we are: Passengers.
To get a better network in the future, we need to look to the past. A quick glance at this detail of the old Lancashire and Yorkshire railway map in Victoria Station shows us how dense the railway network was in times past. And the map doesn’t show all the lines that existed, many of which were closed in the 1960s.
Here are some related themes from the photo portfolio:
Metrolink, Victoria Station, Piccadilly Station, transport in Manchester
*Chains refers to a measurement used by the engineers who built our railways. There are 80 chains to one mile. The distances I’ve given here are my estimates.
Revitalise Victoria Station – I’ll believe it only when I see it! They’ve been running the station down for decades, why change it now? Is it cause they can’t sell it off for redevelopment – or is it a simple excuse to sell of most of the station of for redevelopment and then revitalise what’s left?
If the current situation is anything of a marker for redevelopment then listen to this: recently I went to meet my 10 year old son off the train from Leeds to Victoria. As they often change the departure platforms around at Victoria, I always look at the arrival signs to check which platform he would be arriving at (not I was on the last minute so didn’t have time to mess around). So where had the arrival boards gone?? I asked the security guards who now check tickets but know nothing about trains (their only interest in life is purely catching ticketless passengers!). So of course, there were no other station staff around to ask. The manager’s office was closed as usual, and you can’t get past the barrier guards without a ticket!! So how do you meet a young boy off his train or a little frail ole lady getting of the train, I ask myself. Customer service at Victoria is mostly non existent (a bit like the seats that have all been taken away). The station is the pits! I really do hope they do something about it but if there idea of taking away arrival signs, seats, and station staff is anything to do with improvements, then god help us!!!