Roadshow highlights stations link-up

NETWORK Rail has hit the road to spread the word about its £560 million plans to transform train travel for Oldhamers with new links across the North through Manchester’s Victoria Station.

Officials are taking their “Northern Hub” road show to shopping centres, stations, and civic buildings across the region to win support for the proposals.

They only need to formally consult on the “Ordsall Chord”, a half-mile stretch of track across a new viaduct near the Salford/Manchester border — which will link Manchester’s Piccadilly and Victoria stations for the first time ever and introduce new opportunities to run trains from the North East and Yorkshire into Manchester Airport via Victoria.

Chancellor George Osborne announced £85 million of funds for the line in the budget.

That consultation is a requirement of planning law but NR is taking the opportunity to tell the public and stakeholders as far away as Sheffield and Newcastle about plans to free up the Northern Hub bottleneck around Manchester which it wants the Government to approve next June.

The collection of new platforms, passing places, and faster line speeds could lead to 700 more trains a day in the north, £4 billion of economic benefits, and could create between 20,000 and 30,000 new jobs, programme sponsor Graham Botham told the launch of the consultation at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry.

Planning permission for the Ordsall Chord, which will cut journey times to Liverpool, Leeds, Hull, and Newcastle will be decided in spring 2014 with the line operational by 2016.

The road show is also unveiling the North-West electrification plans between Manchester and Liverpool, the West Coast Main Line at Newton, and between Preston and Blackpool.