The Yellow Line

Continuing my getting back on track (ho ho unintentional pun) here my yellow line in google earth format with a quick writeup.

The Current Yellow Line: http://www.multiupload.com/KL9YGHMVCH
The New Yellow Line: http://www.multiupload.com/UQP63Q2M4A




My proposed yellow line extension in many ways seems to be the shortest and easiest, it requiring the smallest extra lines to be drawn on a map. In reality however it would be the most difficult, almost entirely involving tunnelling through quite hilly and built up terrain.
I have tried to minimise this as much as possible in my design, cut and cover up the West Road, though highly disruptive in the short term, would reduce costs and difficulty in constructing the line. Nonetheless this task is not one to be taken lightly, if done however it would truly contribute into turning the Tyne and Wear metro into more of a proper metro, serving the entirety of Newcastle.
The new yellow line would largely be the same as the old yellow line, that is, until St.James…

Science Park- The first new station I would place at the far corner of the new Science Park development from St.James. Sadly, I believe time might be running out for this plan, the science park development is nearly complete and this easy extension wasn’t done. I have heard mutterings however that the science park was built in such a way that a metro extension beneath it could be done without much difficulty in the future.

General Hospital- The next station, and quite a must do for any extension to the west end, is at the General Hospital.
Though where to build the rails in extensions up this way seems quite logical to me- under the road, station placement is quite hard, there will need to be rather a lot of taking over land and perhaps some knocking down buildings to get something built- even if we keep the surface impact of the station to a minimum. For this station at least however we do seem to have a convenient lawn that can be built over.

Benwell- Or should this station be called Westgate? The question of what to name stations on this extension is rather difficult due to the West Road often forming a border and names tending to be confused anyway.
I would place this station right by the Westgate Sports Centre

Slatyford- Yet another mysterious and probably bad station name. I’ve never lived in the west end so sorry for not being entirely sure what’s what up there.
The Slatyford station would be further up the west road, right about at the entrance to the crematorium.

Denton- After Slatyford the line follows the West Road a bit more before veering off southwards after the round about. The difficult part is over now with the ground the line is being built under/perhaps on being fields. The line goes south westerly through the parkland then after crossing another road we have the next station. Perhaps it should better be called Denton Burn…?

Scotswood- The line continues onwards, through the allotments, the edge of the woods and yet more parkland, cutting to the left of Scotswood sports/social centre, generally curving with the road. The new station will be on the opposite side of Denton Road to the new Scotswood housing development (assuming it ever gets done…I have hope it will…eventually).

Lemington- After Scotswood the line then turns sharply and heads west and slightly north. The next station will be at Lemington.
This might well be the last station on the westward expansion. The placement of the station highly depends on whether it is or not.
I am assuming here that it is the second to last station and place it fairly centrally amidst the buildings to the east and west of the forest, this place is not somewhere I’m committed to as a good idea however, a bit further west to be near the community centre and all those businesses on the south side of the town might be better.

Knop Law- The end of the line is a bit of a strange one and highly depends on further construction. The line continues after Lemington, largely following the route of the old North Walbottle Waggonway, it terminating only after it has crossed Hospital Lane.
This may seem a strange place for a station, being largely surrounded by fields, however, I would propose a new major housing development in this area to provide affordable housing with good links to the city centre. Only if this is done would this final station be worthwhile, if not, then we better end at Lemmington with a central community centre based station.

Updated route- Station map

And here are some minor changes to the more traditional metro map.
The major ones from the earlier version are:
[*] A kink in the track in the west end to get to the west edge of Scotswood (where redevelopment is taking place) rather than going straight to Lemington
[*] The blue line follows the yellow line to Byker rather than creating a new station along the mainline just a few metres north of it.

Updated route- Geographic map

Excuse the uglyness of the map with all the random squares taken out of it but it was just too huge to post complete. I've even had to shrink it down quite a lot to get anything working!
Here is my proposed route on a geographic map. The stations are of course shown by the big over-sized yellow and black squares whilst the tracks are their route colours (with different shades for above/below ground).
Its somewhat rough but hopefully it'll give you a idea of the way things should be.
As I said back when I first started this the routes range from hard (the west end) to we should bloody well do this tomorrow (the blue line).

Official word!

A departure from my normal posts here; some official news on metro expansions.
Sort of.
Project Orpheus seems to be getting a second wind. As found here (PDF) this image shows improvments the Metro managers would like to make. Given the new Tory government I'm doubtful of any of them coming true which is...not too massively dissapointing to be honestly. These improvments aren't great; just what is the obsession with trams?

Anyway. Lets have a look at what they want in no particular order. Little explanation is given in the document so this is largely just guess work on my part.

Superoute:

Despite the name this to me seems to be the most boring of proposals. Given that the superroutes run down to Stanley and Consett and the like this seems to be just a regular bus service. Perhaps just the already existing X busses, maybe an improvment on service with them.
What is odd here though is that the super route is all that links Chester-Le-Street: despite this town being on the east coast mainline with its own train station. Why isn't Chester put in with the rail mentions?

Tram:

I do like trams in Europe, they're rather brilliant in cities like Amsterdam and Prague. Having had the misfortune of visiting Edinburgh many times in the past few years though I've grown rather against them in Britain. With roads not designed for them which also have to handle cars I have to wonder what is the point a little.
The proposed tram routes here... well I must say I do love the little diversion down to Walker, this 'forgotten triangle' down my the river is something which could really do with service having missed out on the metro line. Given how hilly it is down that way a tram would be particularly nice and useful.
The Metro Centre and Team Valley tram route is also interesting. Though I have to wonder here: Why don't they go with the rail route? The tracks are already there and the distance is a bit far for trams is it not?
Newcastle West End- Well, it saves costly tunneling for a metro expansion and there are a lot of people here. A tram would be useful given that a metro expansion would be very costly and difficult. However the key question in my mind is based on my Edinburgh experience...Aren't the roads already a bit full and small up there? How will a tram be any better than a bus?
Sunderland- The same comments as with the west end apply here. Service into the depths of the city would be great. With Sunderland I am most keen on the tram idea, they have a very underdeveloped part of the Metro network here and a tram could give the city good public transport for a cheaper price than a metro expansion (though I do still stand by my earlier proposed one!)
What I do find very odd here in Sunderland though is that the tram seems to run from South Shields, along the railway/metro line and then follows the coast line down to Seaham. Why on Earth use a tram to replicate a already existing railway route here?
One worrying possibility is they could be planning to downgrade the entire Metro system into trams. Which would not be good at all....
Cramlington- See the latter parts of my Sunderland comments. They're essentially going over the east coast mainline with a tram here. Why? That it stops at Four Lane Ends rather than following the line into the city centre is encouraging here, it points away from a total conversion. But still...this route seems wrong.

Guided/Segregated Bus:

Ouch. Segregated. Blacks in the back!... Or probally not. But the name does seem to point that way. This probally means bus lanes and...well. Like everyone in the country excepting taxi and bus drivers I hate bus lanes.
Guided bus on the other hand...I've never came across these before. The closest I've seen are those busses that run off tram cables in Geneva but that isn't waht this is at all. Rather it seems to be a bus that runs partially on a track and partially as a regular bus. Which is odd. Though intruiging as something to run partially on the existing system and then move off- this technology could be handy inside the eastern Newcastle loop. Here though the routes seem to be largely ignoring existing metro lines hence the question 'why?' appears.
I've nothing too special to say on the routes here except that they seem to be using this to ignore Washington when it comes to the good stuff again.

Rail Developments:

Now this is interesting. A big question is though are these rail developments to the metro or just general national railway developments?
A development of the line running west to the Metro Centre seems to be on, which is just great, it goes all the way to Prudhoe though, which given its distance would seem to suggest to me this is not the metro but rather just regular trains.
In the north the much talked about passengerisation of the Ashington line is also on, again though I believe this has been talked about as a regular train route and not the metro.
You never know though, this could be as part of a 'semi-metro' given the way they seem to be expanding into lots of other areas of transport.
The one big oddity with this railway extension is rebuilding the railway on from South Hylton and into the fields towards Penshaw where it says 'possible connection to Leamside Line'....To me this seems to suggest the Leamside Line reactivation could already have been approved and be underway? Interesting but odd.

Newcastle West End- Here comes the hard bit

The west end of Newcastle is probably the area most in need of metro access; very densely inhabited and the people there have the metro right under their noses given good transport service to their neighbours in the centre, east and north of the city. The west enders are only ones in the town left to their own devices. And giving the hilly nature of much of the west end of town this isn't particularly nice.

Many of the same reasons which make the west end of Newcastle a desirable place for the metro however are also big factors in making any such extension very difficult (and costly) and therefore not done.

There's little way around it really. A decent west end extension will be costly and can't be so easily done with above ground track as with the other extensions I have mooted.

A few ideas for what route this extension could follow:

1: From central station head down to the Arena then out to Scotswood, crossing a bridge and then looping back to the Metro Centre.
This route is one which really should have been implemented early in the history of the metro system. There was once a railway line which ran along this route with the Scotswood Railway Bridge still being a visible reminder of its existence.
Today however...This route really isn't the best.

Railway lines do still exist coming out from central station and extending all the way to Water Street in Rye Hill. An Arena station fitted onto this would be a very good thing to have today, the Arena being a popular entertainment venue and several other businesses existing in that end of town. There is also talk of redeveloping the area massively to place more businesses (a casino is the main one I remember) around a possibly rebuilt Arena.

The trouble is...There's nowhere really worth stopping after here.
Relaying the track west of where it terminates today wouldn't be too difficult, the old location of the line is still visible along much of its former route. Newcastle Buisness Park is next which could also be a nice place for a station but this river hugging area is generally very sparse, passing well south of the dense residential areas such as Benwell.
Scotswood, our 'destination' on this leg of the line is not a big place. It used to be bigger, looking at photos from just the 2000s reveals a lot of terraced housing which has since been demolished.
Perhaps redevelopment(i.e. resurrection) of this area in co-ordination with a metro extension could be done but as things stand its not great.

If we were to decide not to cross the Scotswood Railway Bridge (a wise choice as this would make us miss Blaydon station and central Blaydon as a whole) then we could get some good use from this line by going further to Lemington and Southern Denton or perhaps with a large west and north loop Walbottle and West Denton.

This route though really not the best is not completely without merit especially if followed as part of a dedicated western riverside redevelopment but still. Its not the best.

2: Branching of the aiport line at some point to take in the western end of the west end. This could be done either through following the A1 southwards after Fawdon and heading deep into the west end or by skimming the western edge of Newcastle after Bank Foot.
This method though possible overland probably wouldn't give the best service however. To get to the city centre (very likely the most popular destination) the metro would have to follow this northwards skimming route whereas buses could just head there directly. The metro could well end up actually being slower than a bus if the traffic is right. It certainly would never be enough of an improvement to be worthwhile.

3: The most sensible tunneling extension which really should be done even if the others are not is a new station on the west end of the new science park development (old location of the brewery).
From here I would then recommend following the West Road up deep into the west end linking up the General Hospital area and Benwell. Then we've a bit of a option, turning north and linking more of Fenham, Cowgate and Kenton or (my favoured choice) continuing ever westwards to Denton.
Again there's another choice: the more aesthetically pleasing on a map heading south to make a metro centre loop or just having the yellow line stop further west than it currently does.

The big trouble here which I'm sure you've realised is there is very little open space in this direction. We need underground track.
Now, this could be done through typical tunneling but this is very difficult and takes a very long time.
I would more recommend cut and cover.
The West Road should be wide enough for this- perhaps if we're very lucky we could even just dig sections and then drop the tunnel in.
The West Road of course will experience a lot of upheaval whilst this building is going on. Even with the most ideal method of dropping tunnels in its very unlikely we could do the work entirely over night and open the road the next morning- or rather its quite unlikely we could do that and very very unlikely the health and safety people would allow it.

Nonetheless I think this is a sacrifice worth making. People can find other routes to work and the long term benefits to the west end will be enormous.

4: Taking aspects of 2 and 3 we could take the option of heading north into Fenham then towards the A1 following track and linking after Fawdon.
This route would be a lot more useful than a flat 2 and give access to areas 3 doesn't. Additionally loops do look great on a map.
The problems I see here are two-fold.
Firstly, much of the route would be a duplication of the already existing green line. A three fold duplication with the yellow line added in on the Gosforth-Monument leg.
Secondly, it would involve just as much difficult tunneling as sticking entirely to the west road and would involve tunneling under narrower and curvier roads.
This could perhaps be an advantage; the smaller roads mean less traffic disruption. But it could also give us less of a 'production line' in tunnel construction.