MML electrification "paused"

[ricoblade]

Spot on.

Looking at the quality of services into and out of Sheffield over the last 20 years or so show that we are a backwater compared to the towns and cities that are on the East and West Coast Main Lines. Which again brings to the fore the shortsightedness of the closing of the original High Speed 2 line, namely the Great Central all those years ago. And don't get me started on the Woodhead route.

 

You sound like my dad!

[Anna B]

British management seems useless , it seems to be one shambles after another, last week the banks this week the chairman of network rail sacked for incompetence. Time to get foreign management in and show them how to do the job properly like the bank of england have done.

 

But wait, that can't be right.... After all, we pay these people oodles and oodles of cash (and massive bonuses) to do the job.....because after all, 'we have to have only the best.'

[Speckled Hen]

British management seems useless , it seems to be one shambles after another, last week the banks this week the chairman of network rail sacked for incompetence. Time to get foreign management in and show them how to do the job properly like the bank of england have done.

 

Last week I drove to Leeds and back and also to Derby using the motorway. On Leeds trip 75% of the journey on the motorway involved 50mph speed limits on the Derby trip 100% was on 50mph limits. On all 4 journeys I never saw a single person working on the "road works". What is the point in spending billions to take 10 mintues off the journey time to London if we continuously waste 20 minutes on motoraway journeys locally?

[Annie Bynnol]

Last week I drove to Leeds and back and also to Derby using the motorway. On Leeds trip 75% of the journey on the motorway involved 50mph speed limits on the Derby trip 100% was on 50mph limits. On all 4 journeys I never saw a single person working on the "road works". What is the point in spending billions to take 10 mintues off the journey time to London if we continuously waste 20 minutes on motoraway journeys locally?

 

You will get to Derby twenty minutes quicker.

We will spend money to get you to Derby quicker.

We will spend it on new lanes, roads and junctions for you.

 

Will you put with the inconvenience of road works?

 

In the future we will get you to Derby even quicker.

We will spend money on removing some traffic causing you to be slowed up.

We will spend it on moving more people by trains to Derby/Nottingham/Birmingham/Leicester Northampton/Bedford/London.

 

Will you be prepared to help this happen?

 

If your answers are no then be prepared to put up with increasing traffic, increasing road works for repair and road building, increasing pollution, costs to you and difficulty and costs of parking.

 

If you can move 20% of the cars in front of you then you journey would be much better and if you were one of the 20%...

[geared]

I'm happy they're doing the work, but do they really need to close of miles and miles and miles of motorway all at the same time????

 

They're never bloody doing anything, you see like 1 or 2 work crews on the entire stretch????

 

Couldn't they just close it off in sections of a few miles, do everything and then move on to the next one??

The section from Derby to Sheffield is 30 miles of roadworks!!

Edited June 29, 2015 by geared

[truman]

I'm happy they're doing the work, but do they really need to close of miles and miles and miles of motorway all at the same time????

 

They're never bloody doing anything, you see like 1 or 2 work crews on the entire stretch????

 

Couldn't they just close it off in sections of a few miles, do everything and then move on to the next one??

The section from Derby to Sheffield is 30 miles of roadworks!!

 

I live just south of Sheffield,my office is near Dewsbury..I have to go through sets of roadworks if I go into the office..the one around J29,the one North of Tinsley and the one near Wakefield...

[ShefStealth]

Looking at the quality of services into and out of Sheffield over the last 20 years or so show that we are a backwater compared to the towns and cities that are on the East and West Coast Main Lines. Which again brings to the fore the shortsightedness of the closing of the original High Speed 2 line, namely the Great Central all those years ago. And don't get me started on the Woodhead route.

 

I agree that it was unfortunate that the Great Central was shut, however it was inevitable that it wouldn't stay open during the Beeching era when they were actively pushing road traffic. The government thinking at the time was that it would be cheaper to maintain roads than railways in the long run, as the the government wouldn't be paying for the maintenance of the majority of vehicles that operated on it, which would in turn generate its own industry in its own right. The tax revenues generated from vehicle ownership would also help pay for road maintenance. There was also a lot of lobbying by the oil industry at the time and some believe that Beeching wasn't exactly impartial to this. His removal of steam in preference to Diesel locos, and even the axing of other infrastructure that had been electrified (e.g Woodhead) are fairly easy arguments to support the idea that he may have had other interests outside of his remit for the cuts he imposed. Given that overall view of roads over rail, they maintained MML over Great Central even though the latter had a better loading gauge and was the faster line in order to further try and persuade people to use the road network over the railways.

 

However, to say that MML hasn't had any improvements over the past 20 years is a fallacy. All the major stations have had improvements within that time, most notably St Pancras international. There has also been line speed improvements at numerous locations along the route which has meant that journey times have dropped. The majority of journeys are now on Class 222 DEMU Meridians, where as as recently as 2003 the majority of journeys were on older HST 'slam door' trains. I remember travelling down in the early 2000s and journey times were approximately 2 hours 50mins from Sheffield to St Pancras. With the line speed works and the introduction and expansion of the DEMUs, I believe journeys now average 2 hours and 7, though I know that there were further line speed projects in the works that would reduce this to 1 hour 59mins. Yes, MML is currently and remains a cinderella line and has been for years, however to think that absolutely no investment has been made for the past 20 years is a blinkered view. Indeed, EMT have had a much easier ride of their franchise on MML than the previous 'Midland Mainline' TOC did, as the old TOC had to put up with all the various station and line projects, and all the major network slowdowns due to Hadfield/Paddington disasters etc.

 

I would love it if they could get MML fully wired up, but I also realise that it would be better still if they could also expand our capacity with additional 4 tracking at certain sections, and if that were to happen then it would be easier to sort electrification out after the actual track work is completed. We've waited this long for investment and improvements and various areas have campaigned for MML electrification. So long as this IS just paused whilst other improvements are made then I'm okay with it. If it is actually cancelled/not mentioned at all for CP6 then I'll be a lot more unhappy with it.

 

Last week I drove to Leeds and back and also to Derby using the motorway. On Leeds trip 75% of the journey on the motorway involved 50mph speed limits on the Derby trip 100% was on 50mph limits. On all 4 journeys I never saw a single person working on the "road works". What is the point in spending billions to take 10 mintues off the journey time to London if we continuously waste 20 minutes on motoraway journeys locally?

 

The motorways have the same issue being upgraded that the railways do i.e the contractors are having to work in a 'live' environment with all the associated dangers that it brings. That whole works process is to bring that area of the M1 to be a 'managed motorway' the view of which is that it should ultimately make journeys quicker by improving capacity at the expense of the hard shoulder at busy times. The view is it's better to keep traffic flowing, albeit at a slower speed rather than having traffic stopped and tailing back in reaction to any issues further ahead.

[ricoblade]

I agree that it was unfortunate that the Great Central was shut, however it was inevitable that it wouldn't stay open during the Beeching era when they were actively pushing road traffic.

 

Don't underestimate the railway politics at the time with the Midland region (ex LMS) at Derby being highly influential and noone really (politically) owning the old GC line.

[geared]

I live just south of Sheffield,my office is near Dewsbury..I have to go through sets of roadworks if I go into the office..the one around J29,the one North of Tinsley and the one near Wakefield...

 

bet you love to see all the workers so busy :hihi::hihi:

 

on the plus side tho, doing all those miles at 50mph must do wonders for your fuel economy??

[Speckled Hen]

You will get to Derby twenty minutes quicker.

We will spend money to get you to Derby quicker.

We will spend it on new lanes, roads and junctions for you.

 

Will you put with the inconvenience of road works?

 

In the future we will get you to Derby even quicker.

We will spend money on removing some traffic causing you to be slowed up.

We will spend it on moving more people by trains to Derby/Nottingham/Birmingham/Leicester Northampton/Bedford/London.

 

Will you be prepared to help this happen?

 

If your answers are no then be prepared to put up with increasing traffic, increasing road works for repair and road building, increasing pollution, costs to you and difficulty and costs of parking.

 

If you can move 20% of the cars in front of you then you journey would be much better and if you were one of the 20%...

 

I'm not really sure why you wasted so much time writing all that lot. The point I made was about miles and miles of 50 mph limits where there were thousands of cones but no actual roadworks or roadworkers to justify the hold-ups.

 

---------- Post added 29-06-2015 at 16:52 ----------

 

The motorways have the same issue being upgraded that the railways do i.e the contractors are having to work in a 'live' environment with all the associated dangers that it brings. That whole works process is to bring that area of the M1 to be a 'managed motorway' the view of which is that it should ultimately make journeys quicker by improving capacity at the expense of the hard shoulder at busy times. The view is it's better to keep traffic flowing, albeit at a slower speed rather than having traffic stopped and tailing back in reaction to any issues further ahead.

 

 

But there were no contractors having to work in a 'live' environment with all the associated dangers that it brings. There were just miles of cones and no one working whatsoever. But of course the 50 limit was being policed by those pesky cameras that are there to make sure that we don't endanger the cones by averaging 51mph, and no doubt many will have received fines for endangering these cones.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Speckled Hen