Castlefield corridor

Castlefield corridor
To Salford Crescent
To Manchester Victoria Manchester Metrolink
To Eccles
To Trafford Park
Deansgate Manchester Metrolink
 Manchester Oxford Road
 Manchester Piccadilly Manchester Metrolink
To Mauldeth Road
To Levenshulme
To Ardwick
The Castlefield Corridor from Deansgate station. 40 million passengers travel through Piccadilly, Oxford Road and Deansgate in Manchester city centre on two through lines.

The Castlefield corridor (also known as the Deansgate corridor[1][2]) is a railway corridor between Castlefield junction and Fairfield Street junction in Greater Manchester, England. The corridor forms the eastern end of the southerly Liverpool–Manchester line.

The route is recognised as a significant bottleneck, magnified further by the opening of the Ordsall Chord in 2017 and timetable change in May 2018 which increased the number of services through Manchester city centre from 12 to 15 trains per hour.[3] This uplift in services had a detrimental impact on punctuality and reliability, ultimately playing a major factor in the failure of the Arriva Rail North franchise in 2020. As of August 2021, 12 trains per hour pass through the Castlefield corridor.

Route
The western end of Castlefield corridor, seen from Whitworth Street West, is built upon three bridges; one of which crosses the Rochdale Canal.

The twin-track corridor[4] extends from Castlefield junction to the west of Deansgate, through Manchester Oxford Road and Manchester Piccadilly, to Fairfield Street junction just beyond Piccadilly station. Oxford Road station is the only point on the route where there are four through lines. At the western end of the corridor, lines from Trafford Park, Eccles, Salford Crescent and Manchester Victoria converge. Lines from Ardwick, Levenshulme and Mauldeth Road converge at the east.

The corridor is on a 1.5-mile-long (2.4 km) viaduct,[5] built by the Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway in the late 1840s as a near continuous series of red brick vaulted arches, interspersed with iron or steel bridges.[6] The structure is Grade II listed from the River Irwell to Piccadilly station.[7]

The route carries a mixture of local and long-distance passenger trains, as well as intermodal freight from the Trafford Park container terminal.[5][8]

Current congestion

The corridor is a significant bottleneck to rail traffic;[9] it is one of three officially recognised congested infrastructure rail hotspots in the United Kingdom, and is uniquely still in need of major investment.[10] In an attempt to obligate the Department for Transport to provide funding for the Oxford Road upgrade to improve punctuality, Network Rail declared the Castlefield corridor 'congested' in September 2019.[11][12]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, services on the line were scaled back in line with a 90% reduction in demand,[2] as the United Kingdom went into a lockdown in March 2020. Since the partial return from that lockdown, services were steadily increased. However, the phased recovery process enabled both Northern and TransPennine Express to achieve a higher percentage of reliability and service than in the period immediately before the lockdown. Throughout 2020, there was a limit of 12 trains per hour (12 tph) rather than the previous 15 tph.[13]

Proposed improvements

As a trade-off, a temporary reduction in the number of passenger services using the corridor has been suggested, as a short-term measure to improve service reliability.[14]

In 2010, a study for the Manchester Hub ruled out quad-tracking the corridor with a new viaduct.[9] A rail tunnel has been proposed for the corridor, as part of the Greater Manchester Transport Strategy 2040.[9]

UK rail advocacy group Railfuture has noted that the reinstatement of the Glazebrook East Junction–Skelton Junction line, along with its former branch to Carrington Power Station and an extension of the branch to Flixton, would help to relieve the Castlefield corridor of freight traffic.[15]

References
  1. "Grayling seeks Piccadilly solution". Modern Railways. 25 October 2018. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  2. "The Long History and Exciting Future of Railway Systems Thinking". Rail Engineer. 16 October 2020. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  3. "Castlefield Corridor Congested Infrastructure" (PDF). Network Rail. February 2021. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  4. "Alternative proposals for Manchester congestion". Railfreight.com. 12 November 2020. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  5. Shirres, David (January 2018). "Manchester United by Ordsall Chord". Rail Engineer. No. 159. p. 27. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  6. "Manchester South Junction and Altrincham Railway Viaduct". Historic England. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  7. "Northern Hub Ordsall Chord - 3.1 Stage A: Castlefield Viaduct and Water Street" (PDF). Northern Hub Alliance. January 2016. p. 46. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  8. "Clearing congestion from Castlefield Corridor". Rail. No. 895. 2 January 2020. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  9. Abell, Paul (April 2020). "New tunnel and/or new platforms". Railwatch. p. 5. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  10. "Northern leaders call for urgent 'Thameslink-level' of commitment for top congestion hotspot". Transport for the North. 28 February 2020. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  11. "Castlefield Corridor - Congested Infrastructure Report: Capacity Analysis – System Operator" (PDF). Network Rail. 6 September 2019. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  12. "Twenty Fourth Supplemental Agreement to the Track Access Contract" (PDF). ORR. 24 June 2019. Retrieved 16 March 2021. It noted that Network Rail had highlighted that the Corridor has congestion issues between 0700 and 2000 and would be more than happy to contractually agree to the additional rights being confined to the proposed hours of operation.
  13. Sherratt, Philip (January 2021). "Putting passengers first". Modern Railways. Vol. 78, no. 868. Stamford: Key Publishing. p. 75. ISSN 0026-8356.
  14. "Castlefield Corridor: trade-off plan for fewer trains". Rail. 17 February 2020. Retrieved 16 March 2021.
  15. Smart, Phil (7 April 2020). "Relieving Castlefield". Railfuture. Archived from the original on 25 September 2020.

53.4739°N 2.2468°W / 53.4739; -2.2468

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