Transport for Wales Rail

[iMarkeh]

RE: Transport for Wales Rail

(25/07/2021 23:09)FireFly209 Wrote:  Personally, I agree that Birkenhead North would make a much better terminus over Bidston, for a number of reasons. Firstly, there’s three platforms at this station - platform 3 for West Kirby and New Brighton, and platform 2 for Liverpool. However, platform 1 sees very little use, and would make an ideal terminating platform for the Wrexham services. It would allow a train to wait for its departure time without getting in the way of any Merseyrail services. Granted, to make this actually work, it would require the installation of a crossover at the west end of the station, and a platform signal for trains to be able to depart in the Wrexham direction from this platform, which might be a sticking point for this. However, the second big advantage is better connections - suddenly you’re connecting with twice as many Merseyrail services to/from Liverpool, making the Wrexham route more accessible.

In terms of timetables, and the plan to increase to a half-hourly service, I feel they would be more successful running 5 units on a every half hour frequency, with 15 minutes layover time at each end - this would build a far greater resilience into the timetable, and would also provide flexibility for if/when new stations eventually get added to the route in the Wirral end of the route. If it were to hypothetically return to terminating at Birkenhead North, this would have also fitted in well with the old 15-minute frequency of the West Kirby and New Brighton lines, as there was a 10 minute gap at Birkenhead North every 15 minutes which this 15 minute layover would have slotted perfectly into. Though, now those two routes are on 20-minute frequency, it’s a little more complicated than that - but that’s for better minds than mine to work out... The issue with this concept, though, is that this would require a fifth unit to run - which would cost more in daily running costs. Plus, there’s the previously mentioned signalling issues which would be even worse with five units in use, plus freights...

I think for your first point, the key issue is money. It's financially very difficult to justify the costs and then, add in the lack of time. You would need the 5th unit. On a line which can already struggle financially, you don't want to then put more costs in with little reward. Yes improved connections but the line already works out so that there is a connection onto the West Kirkby train so with the exception of New Brighton, you shouldn't get to Liverpool any quicker.

As for your point on timetables, from what the recent track access consultation says, it kind of implies that trains will do southbound all stops, northbound semi fast or vice versa so there will be more layover in the timetable. Also when the timing loads get changed for the D train whenever that may be in the future, the journeys should be faster due to the acceleration and braking which then further helps the layover problem.
A 5th train shouldn't cause any extra issues with paths since it's layover and neither end of the line has freight which it would affect. The frequency remains the same as well. I don't think it would have any additional impact on freight.