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 both of the Liverpool–Manchester lines.
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 Northfranchise in 2020. As of August 2021, 12 trains per hour pass through the Castlefield corridor.
Route
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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
[edit]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 Northernand 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
[edit]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 to and from Trafford Park.[15]
A conceptual proposal by un-funded think tank NorthOnTrack was put forward to solve the issue, along with a re-imagining of the integration of Northern Powerhouse Rail, opening up the possibility for the Castlefield Corridor to be freed of long-distance services to become a dedicated S-Bahn-style core for Manchester's commuter services.[16][17]
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The Glazebrook East Junction–Skelton Junction line was a railway line from Glazebrook to Skelton Junction in Greater Manchester.[1] It connected the Cheshire Lines Committee main line from Liverpool Central to Manchester Central with lines in the Stockport area (and hence onwards towards the Pennines via the Woodhead Line), allowing freight traffic to bypass central Manchester. It also carried a local passenger service between Stockport and Warrington Central until the early 1960s.
History
[edit]The Glazebrook East Junction to Skelton Junction line was part of Cheshire Lines Committee (CLC) as a branch line of their main Liverpool–Manchester lines. The line carried on through Skelton Junction and terminated at Stockport Tiviot Dale.
It opened in 1873, serving the towns of Cadishead, Partingtonand West Timperley before joining the Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway(MSJ&AR) at Skelton Junction, which was also part of the CLC at this time. In the 1890s the line was deviated due to the building of the Manchester Ship Canal. It was raised on an embankment around a mile in length from Glazebrook East Junction to be high enough to clear the Ship Canal, with the Cadishead Viaduct was built in 1892 to span the canal.
The line saw little change in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and it remained part of the CLC in the 1923 Grouping. On nationalisation it became part of the London Midland Region of British Railways in 1948 at the final demise of the CLC.
The line called at the following stations:
As part of the London Midland region of BR, It remained a busy line with trains from Liverpool Central and Warrington Central up until the mid-1960s. It was only on the withdrawal of these stopping passenger services in 1964 that all the stations closed along the line.[2] The line carried on as a freight only line until 1983 when the Cadishead Viaduct was in need of serious and costly repair.[3] British Rail decided to close the viaduct and mothball the line rather than repairing it. The tracks were lifted in the mid-1980s from Glazebrook to Partington.
As the line was closed prior to the privatisation of British Rail, only Glazebrook East Junction and the line from south of Partington to Skelton Junction were passed over into Railtrack ownership, which in turn passed to Network Rail.[4]
The trackbed from Cadishead to Partington remained (and remains to this day) part of the Historical Railways Estate.[5]
Today
[edit]Glazebrook East Junction
[edit]Today, Glazebrook East Junction is still intact and remains part of the national network. The junction towards Cadishead on the original deviation is also still in place with a powered signal lamp showing a permanent red signal. This short section of track from the still live passing loop at Glazebrook East Junction towards Cadishead on the original non-deviated line is permanently point locked. The short section ends near a barrow crossing shortly before a bridge carrying a bridleway above.
Skelton Junction
[edit]The tracks from Skelton Junction to the south east of Partington were left and remained intact for chemical trains for a local chemical plant. These trains continued to use this route until 10 October 1993. To this day however this part of the line is intact but disused; the signal lamps at Skelton Junction remain powered red. Also in 2005 this part of the track saw some work; vegetation clearance took place for the line to reopen for freight but this fell through.
Reopening plans
[edit]In 2010, the Liberal Democrats announced plans to reopen thousands of miles of disused and abandoned tracks, and it was hoped this line would reopen sometime in the future. This appeared to be an easy process as all the infrastructure of the line was still in place, bar the tracks and signalling. However, it would cost millions of pounds to bring Cadishead Viaduct up to a safe and usable standard, along with all the other decaying bridges along the line, which have seen little or no maintenance in the 26 years since the line was closed.
In 2017, businessman Neil McArthur launched a campaign to reopen the line as a heritage railway,[6] with an adjoining footpath and cycle track.[7]
In January 2019, Campaign for Better Transport released a report identifying the line, which was listed as Priority 2 for reopening. Priority 2 is for those lines which require further development or a change in circumstances (such as housing developments).[8]
In March 2020, a bid was made to the first round of the Restoring Your Railway Fund for a feasibility study into reopening the railway line,[9] but this was unsuccessful.[10]
In April 2020, Railfuture noted that reinstatement of the line would relieve the Castlefield Corridor of freight traffic.[11]
The route is mentioned in connection with the New Carrington Plan [12] and the Greater Manchester Transport Strategy 2040 [13] as providing a possible route for sustainable transport for the development.
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