Originally Posted by
LEEDS APPROACH
Whatever it costs should be divided over the last 30 years aswell as future years. The investment that that rail link would have brought to the region if built when the runway extension was completed would be immense. The business men that travel on trains over the pennines to use AF, LH, SN, SAS etc etc would not have been spent boosting the Manchester economy but would have boosted the Yorkshire economy. The families, literally millions of them every year from Yorkshire alone plus Hull Grimsby Middlesbrough all spending less to get to Leeds instead of Manchester-take that money off the cost too. All those extra train seats over the pennines that did not really need to be used if only a short spur of railway had been built.
There's some absolutely extraordinary, and completely unproven assumptions here.
You assume that millions of passengers prefer to take the train to the airport rather than drive.
Even if they did, you assume that the mast majority of those would head for LBIA rather than Manchester if only there were a direct rail link.
You assume that the extra cost of travelling to Manchester Airport by train is significant enough to put travellers off doing so if there were an alternative.
You assume that lower costs to travel to LBIA would somehow contribute towards the costs of a rail link (for the life of me I can't figure that one out.....)
And you assume that building of a rail link to LBIA would create spare capacity on the Trans-Pennine Line.
I know this must hurt, but has it ever occurred to you that that having a railway station at Manchester Airport that air travellers can travel to from throughout Northern England works well. Sufficiently well, in fact, that it eliminates any need for a rail link to LBIA.