In many countries, and the UK is no exception, the capital city is usually considered the centre of the country, though not geographically so. All British people do this but the English are the strongest in this interpretation. However, if we look geographically at the centre of England it is in the region of Birmingham that is the geographical centre of the country.
The rail routes were built to and from London so that such is the case that London is reinforced in this concept at being at the centre of things. However, for infrastructure planning, it would be better to see where this London centric view has been proven right and where it only illustrates the lack of decent infrastructure elsewhere.
If we take that as the case then we can look at Birmingham and see how the railway lines would radiate out from that city to the most important directions and destinations.
(This star could be equally valuable for roads and motorways. However, as we are talking about railways we will leave it at just that.)
The lines indicate the main routes to
1) - London
2) - Reading
3) - Southampton
4) - Bristol and the South West
5) - Cardiff and South Wales
6) - Chester and North Wales
7) - Liverpool
8) - Warrington, the North West and Scotland
9) - Manchester
10) - Nottingham
11) - Sheffield and Doncaster
12) - Bradford/Leeds and the North
13) - Leicester and the East Midlands to East Anglia.
Not all the possible routes are mentioned but the most important are. Other routes can diverge as the Nottingham route from Derby does.
However, we have to see what our forefathers built up in the nineteenth century. It should be remebered that there was no central planning of these services nor of any other. Basically thery started out as a group of investors got together to set set up a railway to connect to the next town down the line. The London to Birmingham line together with the Grand Junction Railway from Birmingham to Warrington(the Warrington to Earlestown line was already being finished) are perhaps the exceptions. Their promotors had already thought of connecting the capital to the up and running Liverpool to Manchester line (at Earlestown).The line northwards to Wigan,Preston and Scotland was already in the thoughts of rail investors if not on the drawing board.
After those the building processes were still very much piecemeal. This was mainly due to the need to obtain investors, plus the need to pass a bill through Parliament for each indiviual section. This was an onerous task but basically cleared the way for only serious offers to be considered and not fly-by-night fraudsters.
Thus it can be seen that when we look at the same or equivalent rail corridors from Birmingham they are far from being straight lines to a destination. A lot twist and turn through the countryside. This was to miss the land of landowning persons who did not wish to have trains running across their land disturbing the the cattle or sheep. Many of the same landlords were very vocal to have a station built next to their land for their convenience and use, but not on the land itself. - The original Nimbys.
Fortunately that was not always the case. There were also many an occasion when the land was too waterlogged/boggy (though that was an immediate problem at Chat Moss on the original Liverpool to Manchester railway). Also geological considerations made life difficult with hilly and slatey ground made it extremely diificult or even impossible, to make cuttings through the land or tunnels as well. These days those problems have not gone away but persist. The difference is that construction techniques these days have improved tremendously to make these problems beatable.
From those thoughts come the ideas that today we should focus our efforts on bettering the routes of our predecesors. New lines, line straightening plus signal updating as well as increasing the gauge where possible so that foreign goods´ traffic can run along our rails without having to be offloaded on to trucks. All these measures can be taken to better the travel experience for passengers as well.
Let us look how each corridor can be improved.
1) - London --- (a) The construction of HS2 is continuing which will go from Old Oak Common in London(a connexion to Euston is still up in the air), to the centre of Birmingham with a new station (Curzon Street) in the area of New Street.
(b) along the existing WCML (West Coast Main Line) through Milton Keynes and Rugby.This is the stretch which should have long distance trains taken off it so that the capacity for regional, local, and freight trains is increased.
(c) The Chiltern Line runs parallel to HS2 for long sections. The idea would be to electrify and improve the line so that its capacity for regional, local and freight traffic is increased.
2) - Reading and 3) Southampton --- the present line shows that this southbound traffic should be sent along the existing tracks as shown. The whole line would need to be upgraded and especially with a connection at Reading to permit the trains to run through Reading without reversing.
4) - Bristol and onwards to the Southwest. --- This track is in major need of an update to iron out the curves along all its length. It could join the track from South Wales at roughly the same point as on the map, near Gloucester, to continue to Birmingham.
5) - Cardiff and South Wales --- like the track from Bristol this needs a great overhaul and straightening, which might well also help the GWR (Great Western Railway) from Sudbrook(by the Severn Bridge) to Cardiff. It could join the track from Bristol at roughly the same point as on the map, near Gloucester, to continue to Birmingham.
6) - Chester and North Wales --- Take the WCML northwards to Crewe where the line diverges from the WCML to go in a northwesterly direction to Chester. It is generally accepted that if the line were electrified (as should be the case) then the the Warrington Bank Quay line to Chester should also be electrified, to complement it. The electrification from Chester to Holyhead (though necessary) is a more difficult case as some people would want bi-mode electric and battery operated trains to be used.
7) - Liverpool --- From Birmingham take the WCML northwards through Crewe to Weaver Junction - (the present connecting point for the WCML) - its first stop at Runcorn is 7.7kms. It is a further 12kms. to Liverpool South Parkway - where trains might stop for the airport. Then a further 9kms. into Lime Street Station. - a total is 28.7kms.(13 miles) There is a strong case for updating the line to increase line speeds,but a very weak case to build a seperate High Speed line to Liverpool.
8) - Warrington, the North West and Scotland. --- The WCML runs straight through Crewe, Warrington , Wigan and on to Preston and eventually Scotland. This line needs to be upgraded to increase line speeds and four tracked to Preston along the few segments where it is not already done (e.g. north of Winsford in Cheshire and from Winwick Junct. to Wigan).
9) - Manchester --- There are basically two lines running from the WCML to Manchester.
(a) The first leaves the WCML south of Crewe at Norton Bridge. It then runs through Stoke, Macclesfield and Stockport into Manchester Piccadilly.
(b) The second line runs along the WCML to Crewe where it diverts through Holmes Chapel, Wimslow, Levenshulme and into Manchester Piccadilly. The line also runs from Wimslow into Manchester Airport (where it terminates at present). However, an opportunity exists to improve this line considerably. Were the line to continue through the airport to exit to the west then turn north and run(underground) to Ardwick it could rejoin the existing line and so run into Piccadilly. That way a new fast service to the airport would be built improving all sorts of services, and not only London and Birmingham services.
10) - Nottingham --- By looking at the map we can see that the most direct route from Birmingham to the north and north east is through Derby. However, the line to Nottingham branches off before Derby running through Nottingham, then Newark (to connect to the ECML - East Coast Main Line) before continuing on to Lincoln.
11) - Sheffield and Doncaster --- The line from Birmingham runs through Derby and then continues along the MML (Midland Main Line), through Chesterfield on its way to Sheffield. This line is very curvy and needs a lot of updating. Line straightening as well as electrification would increase line speeds considerably. The line continues to Doncaster to connect to the ECML. The section from Sheffield to Doncaster does need work on it but not so much as the line to Sheffield or in the other direction to Leeds.
12) - Bradford/Leeds and the North --- A lot of work is needed to make the line to Leeds from Sheffield acceptable. Bradford is never mentioned and usually ignored. It could share the extension to Leeds to about the Barnsley area where a new line for most of the distance would have to be constructed to give Bradford anything like a decent connection.
13) - Leicester and the East Midlands to East Anglia. --- When we get into East Anglia the routes can continue to Norwich (the most important city in the region),and to Harwich and Felixstowe for passenger and freight traffic to Continental Europe and so on. On its way through Leicester and Peterborough, the line crosses the MML and ECML at these stations.Serious work needs to be done to straighten the section between these two stops. The line then runs along two straight stretches from Peterborough to March then curls south to continue along a long stretch of straight line to Ely.
(a) The line to Norwich does not actually enter Ely but does a strange loop on the outskirts of Ely to continue east. There is a stretch of straight line on its way to Thetford where it runs through a number of bends before entering Norwich.
(b) From Ely the other part of the East Anglia line runs along a curvy stretch to Bury-St-Edmunds before running into Ipswich. On the coast are the two ports of Felixstowe and Harwich, the former is most famous for the tremendous quantity of containers it shifts. Thus it is important so as to take lorries off the roads reducing road traffic and the fumes the lorries produce. The latter, Harwich is perhaps better known for its ferry services, especially to the Netherlands taking both passengers and freight.
Thus good connections to the Midlands, in general, are of extreme importance for commerce with Mainland Europe. This obviates the need for good rail connections to the West Midlands for the well being and good health of the people and the country as a whole. It means reduced noise and reduced engine fumes, while the traffic on the roads is kept lower than otherwise.
Other works concerned the port of Southampton to Birmingham. This would facilitate the movement of freight goods directly from the English Channel northwards so that the flow of traffic does not affect traffic to London unnecessarily.
Any traffic that comes into the UK directly from Continental Europe can use both the Channel Tunnel and HS1 as they have no problem with the loading gauge which have already been built to european measurements. HS2 will also be built the same way.
There has been investment in improving and upgrading the
lines from Ipswich to Nuneaton. This was done mainly to facilitate the
access to the WCML for continental rail traffic by increasing the
loading gauge to W10 and even W12 (this principally deals with the
height and width of the lines and tunnels and the corresponding rolling
stock which can use them). Extensive material is available explaining
loading gauges, especially in Wikipedia.
The improvement of the cross country rail corridors through Birmingham should, therefore, be seen as better than funnelling traffic through London, and even essential for the good running of the railways through the centre of the country.
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