There's a very large difference between individual circumstances and cities. Inward-looking cities don't do as well as outward-looking ones. Liverpool has improved in this regard but the mentality is still there.
Okay, Cilla. Whatever you say.
Mmmm true but you did insert a map / line diagram in a previous post (no 289 on here) where there WERE buffer stops inserted with neither line connected!
Sorry, I meant to show that one service would use a crossover to stop at one platform, and another service would do the same for the other platform from the other direction! It represents services, not physical lines. I see now where the confusion came from!
Liverpool South Parkway is not meant to be a Terminus, nor it should be.
Why? If the line
did come down from Norris Green and terminate at Hunts Cross, what would they do if they wanted to board a service going via Runcorn? Every line Hunts Cross serves, South Parkway serves them and then some! LSP is an even greater terminus if we decide to run a Merseyrail service down from Lime Street via Mossley Hill! Plus, if the service frequency was lower for the Suburban line, the number of conflicting movements per hour across the City line (via Halewood) would be greatly reduced!
it is easier and far far quicker to get into an electric car
That's nice in theory when thinking about one destination from one house. Now let's consider everybody gets in their car, because it's the 'obvious choice'! Let's see what that would look like!
Oh no...
Let us keep to things that 'may' be achievable within the limited money that could be offer as well as the political will to do it also
Saying "you must limit your thoughts to fit within the wishes of those who control money" is A) a fantastic way to never, ever get improvements in life and experience only decreases in economic prosperity, B) a very worrying ideological standpoint for a thinking, dreaming, living person to hold, and C) not very convincing. How can we achieve our greatest dreams when we aren't even allowed to
discuss the bare minimum?
'Being practical' is one thing, but allowing the restrictions of capitalist-imperialist class society to control even what you are
allowed to discuss is, like... a really bad sign.
This isn't a personal attack on you, or a judgement of character. My point is that you should be able to think outside of your masters' wishes, and demand more than starving poverty. Give it a go!
How does the saying go? "You have nothing to lose but your chains", or something?
But coming down to earth for a while: extend to Gateacre by all means. That seems doable.
As a starting point, I agree. However, if we get 10% of what we demand, wanting Aintree and getting Gateacre is a hell of a lot better than asking for Gateacre and getting... well, getting what Merseyrail does best: no improvement.
If you get behind what I'm saying:
Worst case scenario, we get what you're saying.
Best case scenario, we actually get worthwhile coverage!
As you said:
Quite. However there is one big, half-of-the-city-sized gap, which is the lack of a Metro service south-east of the Headbolt Lane line and north-east of the Hunts Cross one. If the National Rail services via Mossley Hill, Huyton, St Helens etc provided a Metro frequency that would help (though still leaving many suburbs trainless). Incorporating them physically into Merseyrail via the Wapping or other tunnels would be superficially attractive, but would tend to import delays into a closed system from outside. Better to treat such services as a discrete section of Merseyrail.
I must say, though, wouldn't reserving the route via Broadgreen like I'm suggesting both cover these areas (segregated, so no external delays)
and be a more effective use of rolling stock, by being able to tweak the frequency and length of the vehicles according to need without affecting the rest of the system? (There also wouldn't need to be power changeovers on behalf of the driver, and different colours on the map could help passengers make much greater sense of what the lines are for, instead of being a clutter of 4 or 5 "Northern lines" everywhere.)
I think I'm starting to give up on Wapping tunnel as a scheme for now. I've not heard so much about the Waterloo / Victoria tunnel(s), but I think they probably share similar situations.
Widening the Lime Street cutting is something that might be feasible (design-wise), but the cost (urgh...) and especially damage to heritage are things that could probably prevent it.
I've not even mentioned the benefit of the Suburban route bypassing Liverpool for the Aintree race days! Granted, it's not a common occurrence, but I can imagine taking the strain off the central lines and letting services go direct to Aintree from outside of the city could be a great benefit! If the line was OLE electrified to Liverpool South Parkway like I hope (and like it used to be between LSP and Hunts Cross a decade ago!), intercity electric services could even reverse at LSP and go straight into Aintree!