Rail links from Sheffield

[Andy C 86]

I see from yesterdays Star that various MPs have been having their usual ill informed rant about speed of trains in the north.

 

Lets look at the examples quoted:

 

Sheffield-Leeds: Virgin Trains take 42 minutes and run every hour. (distance 30 miles)

 

Doncaster-Manchester: Arriva Transpennine takes 80 minutes and runs every hour (distance 62 miles, including trans-pennine crossing).

 

Sheffield-Huddersfield: Local service run by Arriva on behalf of SYPTE, takes 74 minutes and runs every hour (distance 37 miles, includes 15 mainly rural stops inbetween, as specified by local authority).

 

Now the only example above that works out to be a slow average speed is the service to Huddersfield, however this route is designed to link the villages inbetween, not serve an intercity market. As the Transport Executive specifies the service on this route, I would suggest that if the MPs think there should be a fast Intercity service from Sheffield to Huddersfield, they should do something about it to secure government funding for the track upgrade and extra trains, and subsidy as I doubt it would be commercially viable.

 

In fact why do these MPs seem to have to be making such a hobby of bashing the railways?

[Karlt 10]

It's a commuting issue.

 

First train that gets to Leeds in a sensible time is the 07:47 - gets to Leeds at half past eight. May be too late for a lot of jobs.

 

Coming back's not so bad, but I know from experience that the Scotland to South West trains in question are absolutely sardined. And generally late.

 

But I grant you it's better than it used to be.

[riddo7up 10]

You make no reference to the fact that as the fourth cityof Britain, we should be connected to London by an electric service.I think all the top twenty cities apart from those on the St Pancras line do have that facility. Why does Derby, Leicester, and Nottingham have to depend on a less reliable diesel service too ?

It's ironic that St Pancras is the station chosen for connection to the chunnel link, and the ultimate electric service will be standing at a platform opposite to a Sheffield bound diesel Please tell me I'm wrong

[Andy C 86]

I think the whole argument about electrification is a red herring. Due to the geography of the route, a channel tunnel rail link style 186mph line is never likely to get built, so the best that could reasonably be expected would be an increase from the current 110mph up to 125mph, and diesel trains are perfectly capable of that. In terms of reliability, electric trains aren't really that much more reliable, and in fact in high winds they have to slow down to avoid dewirements. Also Diesel trains don't blight the local environment with ugly masts and overhead wires.

 

No one can deny that there are currently performance issues on the Midland Mainline, but that is generally down to 2 things - signal system failures and old trains breaking down.

 

Network Rail is doing a lot of work to improve maintenance of track and signals, and Midland Mainline as well as overhauling the existing High Speed Trains are introducing brand new state of the art 'Meridian' trains, and will then no longer use 'Turbostar' trains. so hopefully by the time the first Eurostar arrives at St Pancras the Sheffield service will allready have been transformed with regular, reliable, nice shiny trains. And without building any power masts!

[riddo7up 10]

I wonder if the flying pigs will be powered by diesel.

"old trains breaking down" oh dear! Some steam locomotives currently running on private lies ran for 50 years without breaking down ... and they could drop sand to make ineffective those "wrong leaves" and "wrong snow" which we are forever hearing about.

When the early lines wer built the construction o the East Coast and the West Coast were obviously given piority, but the lesser lines down the middle of the country were given lowest priority, and it is unfortunate that Sheffield had stations on both the Midland and Great Central lines.

It still does not change the fact that the third city in England is not connected to the capital by electrified lines. If as you say, electricity is very little better , why so much haste to electrify the two coastal main lines?

[alchresearch 214]

Especially considering they got rid of electric lines and gantries around Sheffield back in the mid 80's!

[Andy C 86]

Yes, some steam trains are still going after 50 years, but most have been completely rebuilt and generally chug around at 20mph on tourist lines.

 

Yes, steam trains probably didn't suffer the problems of skidding and signal track circuit failures caused by leaf mulch contaminating the rail head, mainly for 2 reasons - firstly semaphore signals don't use track circuits and secondly if any trees were close to the line steam trains would set fire to them and they would burn down before they had chance to lose their leaves!

 

The East Coast and West Coast mainlines run all the way from London to Scotland, and over that kind of distance the sums do begin to add up in favour of electrics compared to using vast quantities of diesel. Even so there are long distance Diesels running under the wires along these routes. Also the East and West Coast see a lot of long distance freight, and an electric hauled freight train can accellerate faster than a diesel hauled freight train, which is crucial on such routes.

 

Electrification of the Midland Mainline route would not benefit freight operators as freight trains on this route are generally on a cross country journey, and on the passenger service a modern diesel multiple unit such as the new Meridian trains and it's relation the Virgin Voyager both enjoy performance that can match an electric.

 

Therefore the railway would be much better using money on inititiaves that do actually improve the service rather than throw money at a major engineering scheme that would be more for political pride than railway performance.

 

Electrification would be nice, but it's not really what is needed right now.

[Lickszz 10]

In the long term Electriciation should always have been the goal.

 

I can't see it happening anytime soon. How the railways are run these days prevents such a thing from happening realistically. Private companies are only interested in profit/shareholders and will not want to propose electrification.

 

Private railways = Diesels

State Railways = Electrics.

[smartie 10]

Little bit of history here, plus a little bit of hope!

 

*Amazingly*, believe it or not, but Sheffield actually had the *first* all electric intercity mainline railway in the UK, which went to Manchester, via Penistone.

 

It ran from Sheffield Victoria to Manchester Piccadilly on an hourly basis through a modern concrete tunnel under Woodhead Pass, with a quicker journey time than what takes today from Midland.

 

Dr Beeching stated that the route should be developed further.

 

What happened?

 

The passenger service was withdrawn by a *Labour* minister of transport, Barbara Castle, who decided it would be far better to make everyone travel on small diesel units stopping everywhere through the Hope Valley.

 

There is a major proposal in the far future (post 2020) for the "HSL" (High Speed Line) project, by the Strategic Rail Authority to build a TGV/Channel Tunnel Rail Link style line along the West Coast Mainline/M1 to Sheffield, which would then go over to Manchester and then up to Glasgow/Edinburgh through Carlisle.

 

The only thing holding this back is no money, but then, couldn't we ask the EU to chip in, like they do in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, which recieve grants to build theirs?

 

Of course, we're far to proud to ask for a hand out, cos this is (sorry, was) Britain.

[Jess 10]

I would like to use the train for a day trip to London, which might include taking in a show in the evening, but the last train to Sheffield leaves St Pancras at just after 9.00pm. No good at all.

[alchresearch 214]

Originally posted by smartie

Little bit of history here, plus a little bit of hope!

 

*Amazingly*, believe it or not, but Sheffield actually had the *first* all electric intercity mainline railway in the UK, which went to Manchester, via Penistone.

 

It ran from Sheffield Victoria to Manchester Piccadilly on an hourly basis through a modern concrete tunnel under Woodhead Pass, with a quicker journey time than what takes today from Midland.

 

Wasn't there talk of re-opening the tunnel?

[Captain_Scarlet 10]

Hi Guys

 

I read some pretty interesting remarks !

 

The Woodhead route was indeed a good service, running on 1500V DC (so nothing to do with the more usual 25KV AC), the line was run at first by class 76 with BB bogies, then by class 77 CC bogies. For services in the Manchester area, class 506 were used.

 

There are different kind of services; Intercity (or Cross Country) and Local (or suburban).

 

Sheffield is pretty well off, we have the chance of havin both. Whether it beeing Doncaster, Leeds, Manchester, Derby, Nottingham or Lincoln, any of those lines have the two types of services.

 

Doncaster:

Arriva all stops via Rotherham Central (to various destinations). (Pacer or 156)

Transpennine Express, Meadowhall stop (to Cleethorpes). 25m

Virgin no stops (occasional stops at Meadowhall) (to North). 20m (Voyager or HST challenger formation)

 

Leeds:

Arriva all stops via Bolton-on-dearne. (Pacer, 153 or 156 )

Arriva all stops via Wakefield Kirkgate. (Pacer, 153 or 156 )

Virgin XC and Midland Mainline limited stops. (voyager or HST Challenger formation)

 

Manchester:

North Western all stops via New Mills Central. (Pacer)

Central Trains, limited stops via Stockport (to Liverpool some tomes). (158 )

Transpennine Express stop at Stockport (to Airport) (158 )

 

Derby:

Midland Mainline, stop at Chesterfield. (HST 8 coach)

Central Trains from Matlock (for stops between Ambergate and Derby). (Turbostars)

 

Nottingham:

Central Trains stops at Chesterfield, Alfreton, to various destinations south. (153 , 156 or 158 )

 

Lincoln:

Arriva all stops. 1h20m (Pacer, 153 or 156 )

Arriva fast to Worksop, Gainsborough and Saxilby only. ~1h (Pacer, 153 or 156 )

 

(not all destinations are described above)

 

Remarks: The HST is the world's fastest diesel engine, is 25 years old, and is a reliable piece of machinery, putting new stock is not necessary (it can be, but not always). the mk3 stock is a proven confortable coach, think of the poor people on Voyagers and Turbostars (my back is still acking).

 

Voyager is class 221.

HST is class 43.

Pacer is classes 141 , 142 , 143 and 144.

Turbostar is class 170.

Express is class 158. (2 or 3 coach)

Super Sprinter is class 156.

Super Bubble is class 153.

 

So, what do you recon, we're not so baddly off are we ? Think of the poor buggers in Londinium suburbs

 

Regards,

Greg