🚄 First Thoughts on the Liverpool–Manchester Railway (LMR) Proposal

Last week the Manchester and Liverpool Mayor’s published a proposal for the Liverpool–Manchester Railway (LMR). Although it isn’t geography I’m that familiar with, it’s great to see an ambitious, collaborative, and locally led transport scheme being brought forward.

Much of the UK’s original Victorian infrastructure was built through exactly this kind of local ambition—and in recent decades, many of the most successful megaprojects have emerged from devolved authorities. It’s encouraging to see more proposals like this, and a real testament to the progress that devolution has made over the last decade.

The LMR proposal is, of course, still in its early stages with many details to be worked through. But if we’ve learned anything from Crossrail (and other major schemes), it’s that building consensus takes time. Publishing this report is a strong first step—starting to form that consensus, build public awareness, and create political momentum.

I had a chance to read the proposal while on the train, so thought I’d share some initial thoughts:

👍 Positives and Strengths in the LMR Proposal

A Clear Capacity Case—With Parallels to Glasgow–Edinburgh

Comparing to a similar “City Pair” in Glasgow-Edinburgh (which I do know well) – you can see the potential for another railway line clearly exists. That city pair is served by four electrified, well-used lines. Liverpool–Manchester, despite being larger, currently has just two—only one of which is electrified (though historically it had four!). Clearly, there’s untapped potential.

Addressing Manchester Piccadilly’s Bottleneck

The proposal rightly identifies Manchester Piccadilly as a national constraint—not just for current services but also limiting the potential of other industry megaprojects like HS2, the TransPennine Route Upgrade (TRU), and now LMR. Solving Piccadilly's limitations could unlock significant value across all those other massive capital investments.

Focus on Transport-Enabled Development

This isn’t just a railway project—it’s an economic growth strategy. Transport alone rarely justifies projects of this size; it's the potential for unlocking city-centre densification, productivity uplifts, and agglomeration benefits that really count.

Too often, local authorities act as blockers in this area. In contrast, the fact that this scheme is led by devolved bodies that actively want to deliver those ancillary benefits is a significant strength and selling point when asking for central government funding—especially when compared with projects like the Oxford–Cambridge Arc, where local government has at times appeared hostile to growth.

Sensible Route Outline

The broad alignment—tying into Warrington Bank Quay and following the former HS2 alignment into Manchester—looks correct, albeit with some challenges for phasing with caveats below.

Lessons from Past Projects

The proposal’s focus on phasing, learning from past projects, and creating a pipeline of infrastructure work is excellent. That said, even the proposal acknowledges its phasing plan isn’t yet fully deliverable. For example, HS2 was also “phased,” but the reality of delivering each phase has proven far harder than initially envisaged. Still, the emphasis on maximising private investment and involving investors early is spot-on. Having stakeholders with “skin in the game” helps enforce discipline and mitigate scope creep.

⚠️ Key Challenges the Proposal Will Need to Address

Is Capacity on the Existing Routes Maxed Out?

LMR would be a gigantic capital investment – and that can only be justified if it can be shown that existing assets are being used to the very max.  That was the case with HS2 and the southern WCML: 11-car trains, overcrowding, high fares, and limited further upgrade options.

Comparing again to Glasgow–Edinburgh, ScotRail operates on average 6-car, modern electric trains on every path between the two cities. Liverpool–Manchester, in contrast, typically sees 4-car services, with more diesel and less capacity. In terms of service share, 30% of Edinburgh Waverley’s departures are Glasgow terminating services (with half being express services), while only 13% of Liverpool Lime Street’s are Manchester terminating services.  While total proportion of services serving the two city pairs are similar (about 40% for each) there is a cost to through services providing wider regional connectivity versus city terminating services – through reducing performance and punctuality, and slowing journey times.

If Liverpool–Manchester is truly a priority, it would be helpful to see local leaders taking early action—like increasing rolling stock capacity (which Northern’s procurement may help with), reprioritising express services over some local calls, and making tougher network choices to signal intent by prioritising the city pair over wider regional connectivity.

Liverpool Lime Street: A Major Constraint?

Piccadilly isn’t the only bottleneck Liverpool Lime Street is just as big an issue.  Liverpool is quite unique in having such a small terminus station relative to its size, and not having any other major stations or past decommissioned stations to redevelop.  Lime Street has 10 platforms, and these are already working hard with a 16tph service. The proposal anticipates 12(!) more services. Realistically, no intercity terminus station in reliably handles more than 2tph per platform for intercity traffic (e.g. Milan Termini). Without radical changes, this simply won’t work, and the investment case for the project won’t stack up if only provides an additional 4tph into Liverpool. Yet the report is largely silent on this issue—and I’ve not seen any other proposals for solving the Liverpool terminus capacity issue.

❓ What's the LMR Actually For?

This is perhaps the biggest conceptual gap in the proposal. Currently, Liverpool–Manchester is served by two mixed-use lines. So what should the third be?

• A high-speed passenger route?
• A mixed-use corridor?
• A freight-focused bypass?

The proposal hints at all three: journey time targets suggest high-speed aspirations (though the proposal carefully avoids using the term!), while the emphasis on surrounding freight and manufacturing hubs implies a mixed-use approach.

In my view, if this scheme ties into the HS2 alignment, it leans toward high-speed. But that introduces new potential issues with the intermediate station locations…

🏗 Intermediate Stations – Valuable or Vulnerable?

Intermediate stations can make or break a project’s business case.

 You need large developable sites which are only possible round brownfield/greenfield intermediate station sites unlike round developed city termini, yet if your intermediate stations slow down the journey too much the value of those stations and the route overall disappears. 

The main criteria for intermediate sites are:

• connectivity - how many additional destinations does it give your route
• catchment area - how many additional passengers they can get into your system
• development potential -how much economic potential can they unlock

 I feel people underestimate just how critical the intermediate stations on HS2 will be to its eventual operation – Old Oak Common scores incredibly well on connectivity and catchment, and Birmingham Interchange scores very well on all three.  The proposed LMR intermediate stations look more challenging.

Let’s assess each:

▪ Warrington Bank Quay

This is the strongest candidate. It offers solid connectivity and reuse of existing alignments. But to maximise catchment, it will require investment in surrounding road infrastructure, and development potential hinges on ambitious/ruthless redevelopment of low-density area around the station. Is there the political will?

▪ Manchester Airport

The report is strangely airport-centric. While useful for connectivity, stations located directly on or adjacent to airport property limit catchment and offer little scope for dense development (few people want to live next to a runway). Old Oak Common and Birmingham Interchange work better precisely because they are near airports, not within them.

▪ Liverpool Gateway

Realise this is the least developed but it is still the weakest concept at present. The proposed area lack interchange value, serve relatively low-density areas, and have limited urban regeneration potential without major intervention. Link to Liverpool Airport seems immaterial – as I suspect this route if successful would suck all airport demand from Liverpool to Manchester Airport (which is also better positioned for future growth).  Similar city “gateway” stations have a history of going unused for fast intercity services (e.g. Stratford international for HS1)

🧩 Making the Pipeline and Phasing Work

Diversify the Infrastructure Pipeline

There’s a danger in betting everything on LMR (and the track record from NPR isn’t great sadly). If delayed, the region risks losing both its delivery pipeline and its internal capacity to develop projects. .  Having a range of smaller and medium sized infrastructure to pursue in parallel would increase resilience and guarantee local residents get something rather than the risk of just getting decades of feasibility studies with nothing to show for it.

Devolved governments in both Scotland and Wales also both initially considered similar “megaprojects” before deciding to focus on more deliverable smaller projects (Scotland’s electrification programme, Cardiff’s Metro). The results are now tangible.

Similarly, accelerating Merseyrail expansion, electrifying the CLC line, and boosting rolling stock capacity are all compelling—and deliverable—complementary schemes.

Fix the Phasing Problem

Other projects like TRU show the benefit of a project that deliver incremental benefit at every stage.  The LMR project also has a large political risk of being linked to the HS2 project.  However while the proposal currently attempts to show how it can be phased – it admits itself that each phase struggles to provide value without either HS2 or the subsequent LMR phases.   This issue would also be “poison” to any hopes of private investment.

 My rough, initial suggestion: explore how the Manchester terminus element could be decoupled and made independently viable. It’s a known bottleneck, and even with added cost, finding a way to connect into the existing WCML would allow early-stage value capture and massively de-risk the programme.

💬 Final Thoughts

Apologies for potentially rambling slightly – but hopefully my initial thoughts on the proposal are interesting. 

Despite the challenges, it’s still fantastic to see the proposal reach this level of maturity. These kinds of complexities & challenges are normal at this stage of project development. What matters now is how the LMR Board and stakeholders refine the vision, close the gaps, and build confidence around its deliverability.

For anyone in the transport industry—or interested in economic development more broadly—I’d highly recommend reading the full proposal. I’d also love to hear from others on what they make of it:

• Does this feel like the right next step for the North West?
• Is the route and  the intermediate stations the right ones?
• How can the terminus issues be solved?
• How should phasing be approached?

Let me know your thoughts and feel free to point out any glaring errors I may have made in my initial read through!