As part of the plan to improve rail travel in the North, Northern Hub, Network Rail are building a viaduct to connect Manchester’s Victoria, Oxford Road and Piccadilly stations.
The investment is intended to help ease a rail bottleneck to the south of Piccadilly station and enable faster, more frequent services to run across the North of England.
The plans include a new 1km section of track to the north west of Castlefield Junction, in the vicinity of Ordsall. This will link the Castlefield Junction line with the Deal Street Junction line, connecting Manchester’s three main stations for the very first time.
The benefits according to Network Rail are these:
- Two new fast trains per hour between Manchester Victoria and Liverpool
- Six fast trains an hour between Leeds and Manchester (as opposed to four now)
- Faster journeys across the north:
- Journey times between Leeds and Manchester could be reduced by about 10 minutes
- Journey times between Liverpool and Manchester could be reduced by 10-15 minutes
- A new direct service through Manchester city centre to Manchester Airport
- Faster journey times to Hull, Newcastle and the North East.
If all goes to plan the Ordsall Chord will be operational in winter 2016 or spring 2017.
There is a slight concern in one of the consultancy documents that the Grade One listed George Stephenson viaduct from 1830 may be harmed. For the history of that special bridge click here. A report says the new rails works must not be allowed to harm the historical structures such as these bridges.
Ordsall Chord
