Why rail tunnel vision is needed for Leeds - Yorkshire Post Letters

LEEDS City Station is forecast shortly to have more passengers than London King’s Cross partly because it is the only station in central Leeds.

Given that expansion of the station is physically constrained, surely it makes sense to plan to take local cross-city services out of the station and transfer them to a central area tunnel with underground stations at key passenger objectives such as the town hall, Eastgate and City Square. The tunnel could also connect the rapidly developing areas of Holbeck and Southbank (which I still call Hunslet) with the business core.

Such a CrossRail tunnel would, for example, allow trains from Skipton to reach York or Selby. There are challenges – most trains arriving in Leeds do so from the west on viaduct – but these can’t be insurmountable?

The local network would need to be fully electrified but regional trains and future municipal trams could share the tunnel which would be a first for Britain, but similar systems do work well in Glasgow, Liverpool and on Tyneside and are planned for Bristol, Cambridge and Manchester.

Manchester our friend and rival? Readers may be aware of the suggestion to abandon the eastern Derby and Sheffield HS2 branch in favour of full electrification and upgrade of the Midland Mainline.

The western Manchester branch of HS2 would then extend to Leeds making Manchester Piccadilly a through and possibly underground station, justified by increasing land values. We could do the same in Leeds and construct a central underground HS2 station either at Eastgate or at the site of the former Leeds Central Station which would then tunnel to Hunslet and connect via a new chord to York allowing the Leeds to Garforth line to become a high frequency suburban metro.

Actually I remain unconvinced about HS2. I don’t see how it will bring daily benefit to lots of people rather than infrequent benefit to a small number. However an inverted S-shaped system connecting Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, York, Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham with central stations accessed by fast local metro networks is an enticing prospect.

Will Leeds transport planners and their political bosses lose their inferiority complex and reject the pre-eminence of Manchester in favour of a partnership of equals and embrace the vision and begin the Leeds Big Rail Dig?

From: ME Wright, Harrogate.

‘NETWORK Rail slated for too many delays’ (The Yorkshire Post, July 3). This latest slating comes from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR); presumably the latest in a long line of ineffective mantras.

I am informed that all these are regulated by ORA – Office of Random Acronyms, with the interminable collection being funded by us – fare and tax payers. How much longer must we wait for the formation of OFKA – Office For Kicking of Arses?

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