Engineering Focus

Update December 2015 On the 24th August ( 2015 ) the BBC reported Commuter groups angry at train 'cuts' from North West . The shock headline felt like another blow for passengers in the North who have already seen trains move south. In May ( 2015 ) First TPE lost 5 of it's class 170s which are owned by Porterbrook Leasing to Chiltern Railways. In total FTPE will lose 9 of it's 170s, however an agreement was reached which meant that FTPE could keep hold of 4 170s until February 2016. First TPE 170 stand at Manchester Airport March 2014 In the meantime FTPE have subleased 6 class 156s from Northern rail in order to provide services between Manchester Airport and Blackpool North. Class 185s have in turn moved to services between Manchester and Hull via Leeds in order to make up for the loss of 170s. Northern has benefited from the arrival of refurbished 319s which are operating on newly electrified lines between Liverpool Manchester and Preston, however N...

Work to improve a vital link between the M56 and M6 began in November 2014 and has been progressing well since. The £200m project involves constructing a new 7.5km 4 lane dual carriageway between the two motorways in order to relieve congestion on this busy corridor. The A556 is a major trunk road which serves North Cheshire, South Manchester and provides a crucial link between the M6 junction 19 and M56 junction 7. The existing A556 alignment is currently used by 51,000 vehicles per day, 11% of which are heavy goods vehicles.  For more information about the project click Here A great deal has happened since our initial look at the project in March this year (2015), works are now underway across the majority of 7.5km site.  As the new A556 alignments is being constructed away from the existing road a lot of the main works are not visible from the current A556. Away from the A556 ground works are well underway to construct several bridges which will take the new d...

Liverpool2 is the name given to the £300m deep water extension to the Seaforth Dock container terminal which is currently under construction on the banks of the Mersey. The extension will allow for 2 380m long "Post-Panamax" vessels to birth and be simultaneously loaded and unloaded. The new facility will open up the Port of Liverpool to 95% of the worlds global shipping fleet. In order to ensure that 2 13,500 TEU ( twenty-foot equivalent unit ) ships can be quickly loaded and unloaded at a time, the port will eventually have a total of 8 "megamax" ship to shore cranes and 22 rail-mounted cantilever gantry cranes. These cranes will work together to swiftly load and unload containers and then stack them within the port for distribution by road, rail, canal or sea. The port extension will double the port's current container handling capacity from 750,000 TEU to 1.5 million. Many containers will be loaded onto other ships for transport elsewhere nationally an...

Today the Government launched " A blueprint for connecting the Northern Powerhouse " which sets out how the Government intends to improve transport links throughout the North. The DfT website which has been launched provides a full list and road and rail improvements which have been recently completed, currently under construction or are planned.  Below is list of just a few of the projects which fall under the Northern Powerhouse banner that we have covered. We will be providing updates for those still under construction and we also hope to cover some of the other projects which are planned over the coming years.  A556 Knutsford to Bowdon Improvement Farnworth tunnel electrification Liverpool to Manchester electrification Manchester Airport station platform 4 Manchester Victoria station improvements Northern class 319 working one of the first electric services between Liverpool and Manchester

On the 3rd of August (2015) one of the largest TBMs (tunnel boring machines) ever built in Britain began it's journey through the Manchester bound Farnworth tunnel. Over the next few months the TBM which has been named Fillie will re-bore the tunnel to increase its diameter. The reconstructed tunnel will replace 2 single track tunnels with a single larger twin track tunnel, which will allow for the electrification of the line between Manchester and Preston via Bolton. The widening of the tunnel will also allow for faster line speeds, with the speed of the line being increased to 100mph. The project forms part of phase 4 of wider £300m North West Electrification Programme which will electrify the lines between Liverpool - Manchester - Preston and Blackpool.  Before work could commence to widen the bore, it first had to be filled with 7500 cubic metres of foam concrete and a 20m long "launch pit" had to be constructed. The foam concrete will help to stabilise the ex...

The Mersey Gateway project which is currently under construction will provide a second road crossing over the River Mersey, comprising of a 6 lane cable stayed bridge, providing 3 free flowing lanes in each direction. A key element of the project which isn't quite as well known is the project to upgrade the existing expressway which will connect the new bridge with the M56. When the bridge opens traffic will switch from using the A557 which connects the existing bridge to the M56, to the A533 (Central expressway). The project involves upgrading and realigning 5 junctions on the Runcorn side of the river and 2 on the Widnes side. 2 of the junctions in the Runcorn area require complete remodelling in order to improve traffic flow and 3 will be realigned and improved. The A533/A558 interchange will be completely remodelled in order for traffic to be able to access the new bridge. The remodelling will involve constructing an overpass to connect the bridge approach road with th...