A month ago, when they were campaigning to be re-elected for their mayoral positions, Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham promised that if they were both awarded another term as mayors of Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region respectively, they would prioritise building a faster link between their two cities.
Luckily for them both, on May 3 the votes were in their favour, and yesterday (May 22) initial plans were revealed for the new routes.
The ‘Liverpool-Manchester Railway Board’ has been created to plan and execute the improvements efficiently and completely. Mr Rotherham assured that this ‘won’t be like HS2, [with] promise after promise and nothing delivered.
‘This is going to happen. We’ve got the budget… but also we genuinely have the best interests of the cities of Liverpool and Manchester [at heart].’
The plans would see the journey between the cities, which currently takes anywhere from 38 minutes to over an hour depending on the service, cut to just 25 minutes. It would also involve the creation of an underground station at Manchester Piccadilly. The mayors believe these changes could significantly boost not only the local economy, but stimulate economic growth across the entirety of the northwest.
This is the very beginning of the process, but the money, some of which will come from ex-HS2 funds and the rest from private investors, seems to be (mostly) sorted already, and both Burnham and Rotherham are pretty sure that this will actually be happening in the not too distant future.
So congrats on the politicians who actually keep their words, Northerners! The rest of us will watch on in jealousy and admiration as you get your swanky new railways.
Trains in the news
We at Time Out like to keep up to date on the latest in the world of UK railway news. For instance, did you see that Virgin might be returning to our railways? Maybe you missed that the Tyne and Wear Metro is getting swanky new carriages, or that a brand-new steam train museum has opened in Wales? We also keep up to date with latest information about ongoing strikes with our national industrial action hub.
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