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@matt@oslo.townI grew up around Old Trafford and I'm not really sure what I feel about Manchester United's new stadium.
I mean, on one hand, most of Old Trafford is a shit hole and needs a refresh - this will certainly do that. But it doesn't really feel like the new development "fits" into the surrounding area.
Also, the club are a few spots off relegation this season and have had a shockingly bad few years. What a time to announce the new build.
Old Trafford (the stadium) always struggled to build more because the trains ran alongside the place. And then the other side of the train track, none of the residents would sell their place.
I guess Manchester United has finally bought all the houses around the stadium and convinced the local government to shut off the train line to Liverpool whilst they redevelop the entire area.
Some big big money being thrown around here.
@matt the plans definitely have a bit of Munich olympics vibe. This is the stadium from 1972.
@jwildeboer I'm sure that must've been on the moodboard as they were doing the design process. 
In the 90s, I took the Manchester - Liverpool train line a few times and every time I was thinking, why is the train line between the two major cities in the north so slow?
@baggetun it remains a mystery. And slow.
@samsterby @baggetun If my memory serves me correct (its been a while) there are two "main" trains you can get from Manchester to Liverpool Lime Street.
There's the one pictured above that departs from Manchester Oxford Road stops at every station along the way and takes (I think) about 1.5 to 2 hours.
And there's another that goes a lot faster and has just a handful of stops, taking about 1 hour from "door to door".
@samsterby @baggetun To be honest, this track was very useful for me to commute to work and back. You could jump on at the station at the end of my road and then hop off directly in the city center. It's very good at serving the local towns surrounding Manchester City Center.
I liked that it ran the older trains too. They were a little dirty and, like most of Manchester, needs a good clean, but it gave it a little more charm.
@matt @baggetun they’ve changed up the timetable a little, two routes, both of which have a mix of fast and slow trains. Fasts on this southern route take 58 mins. The northern route (electrified) takes 38 mins for a fast train. Bear in mind that those fast ones come at the expense of services to all the little stations that could really do with more than one or two trains per hour.
*standard grumble* If only there were some kind of plan to build a dedicated east-west intercity line 
@samsterby @matt @baggetun
a complaint from day one about the HS2 programme, most of the journey time from north to south is on slow underfunded dirty feeder lines, not one you get on the express trains.
@floppyplopper @matt @baggetun indeed, and that complaint is exactly what HS2 was supposed to help solve. (In the context of the three north-south main lines and all their tributaries)
@matt there’s no way they are going to be able to close that train line. It’s the approach to the freight terminal, and the secondary line to Liverpool. More likely they would bridge over the top of it and keep the line active.
@matt that said, the freight terminal really needs relocating because the current arrangement routes all their trains through the city centre, which is both silly and constrains capacity through Castlefield.
@samsterby You're right. I wondered how they were going to work around this but I just realised if they are going to demolish the existing stadium, they can move the whole thing so its not directly sat next door to the train track. 
@matt What better time to announce it (from the club) to put what you believe is a positive news item out there.
@Geoffairey Maybe. It's a bit of a mixed bag. I suspect there's probably a lot of fans that would prefer they fix the team before they fix their commercial interests. Haha.
@matt it sounds like the stadium is part of a massive redevelopment of the surrounding area, too.