Spending £1.5bn Moving Sheaf Street

[BigAl1 142]

19 hours ago, Planner1 said:

The tram-train service is a trial ( essentially by the government) to see how that type of vehicle performs in a scheduled service on heavy rail track and tram track and what effects the vehicle has on the tracks. The success or failure is not about how many people use it, it’s about finding out whether those vehicles are suitable for wider usage around the country. 

I think that the trial is about far more than this  indeed according to the travel south yorkshire.

 

"The pilot will run for two years while customer satisfaction, passenger numbers, reliability and costs are tested"

[Planner1 428]

21 hours ago, Bigal1 said:

I think that the trial is about far more than this  indeed according to the travel south yorkshire.

 

"The pilot will run for two years while customer satisfaction, passenger numbers, reliability and costs are tested"

The reliability, costs and customer satisfaction are part of the evaluation of how the vehicle performs. The trial has always been to assess how these vehicles work on uk heavy and light rail infrastructure. I have a reasonable understanding of this project having been involved with it from the outset (when it was going to be on the Penistone Line) for quite a few years. This type of vehicle operates in other countries but isn't something we've had here, so many questions needed to be answered before it could be approved for wider use.

 

The passenger numbers will be of interest to SYPTE who are now running the trial as they will need to decide what happens with the service to Rotherham after the trial ends (if it ends positively).

[Jeffrey Shaw 88]

But that's not really on topic.

 

I understand that the idea of effectively swapping-over Sheaf Street and the Supertram track is not new! Maybe this time it will come to fruition. I read this:

As it happens, the pre-1974 Sheffield Corporation had plans for urban motorways around the central area, with a revamped A61 running behind the station along what was then Granville Street.

[based on report from Sheffield Omnibus Enthusiasts Society magazine, reproduced by kind permission]

[BigAl1 142]

On 05/05/2020 at 16:57, Jeffrey Shaw said:

But that's not really on topic.

 

I understand that the idea of effectively swapping-over Sheaf Street and the Supertram track is not new! Maybe this time it will come to fruition. I read this:

As it happens, the pre-1974 Sheffield Corporation had plans for urban motorways around the central area, with a revamped A61 running behind the station along what was then Granville Street.

[based on report from Sheffield Omnibus Enthusiasts Society magazine, reproduced by kind permission]

 

Nothing wrong in recyling old ideas when you lack inspiration after all back in 2008 in the Supertram strategy they were floating the idea of 3 extra trams to enable a more frequent service (every 8 minutes or so)and when they got the 3 extra trams what did they do they reduced the frequency and now once again they are thinking of replacing the fleet and including again 3 extra trams to enable them to increase the frequency as proposed back in 2008  by (a target date of)  2027.

 

 

[Annie Bynnol 611]

57 minutes ago, Bigal1 said:

Nothing wrong in recyling old ideas when you lack inspiration after all back in 2008 in the Supertram strategy they were floating the idea of 3 extra trams to enable a more frequent service (every 8 minutes or so)and when they got the 3 extra trams what did they do they reduced the frequency and now once again they are thinking of replacing the fleet and including again 3 extra trams to enable them to increase the frequency as proposed back in 2008  by (a target date of)  2027.

 

 

The 25 original trams on the Sheffield network have  far outlasted all other modern trams in the UK already and by most parameters are a very good design. 

The future of all seven tram trains is not certain, as is the any future replacement of the original trams. 

 

There will be no decisions until the result of the tram train trial, who the new operator is and the nature of the contract will be and Government permission.

 

As to frequency, the  possible and unreliable availability of lending of 3 tram trains to Supertram was always meant that they could only be used to provide cover for the original 25 as they needed increasingly lengthy timeouts for maintenance.

The TT timetable has been greatly effected by the failure of Network Rail to double track all of the route  between Meadowhall and Rotherham .

As TT timetable is governed by the railway, the operation of the whole tram system is now based on  maintaining times at the Cathedral. Increasing the frequency is possible but is undesirable as it increases the number of delays and cancellations across the rail, tram train and Supertram systems. This will be a major part of report on the trial. 

[BigAl1 142]

I don't have any issues with the current trams and the requirement to consider replacement although I can not help noticing that in some countries tram fleets are somewhat older albeit more basic and it is a shame that although they are in good condition that replacement parts are no longer available

 

I wonder if the option of reversing trams at Cathedral  will be a viable option at all with the desire to increase frequencies not just back to the previous 10 minutes but down to the every 8 minutes or so

 

The Mayor reckoned that the he would" invest in tram, tram-train,bus rapid transit, bus networks, active travel and tackle our congestion hotspots in order to solve the problem  that  by 2026 there will be up to half a million extra journeys on our road and rail network every day" (his vision for transport in the region 2018), we have been told that it is envisaged there there will be  "a new fleet of 28 trams entering service by 2027. When combined with the three members of the recently introduced tram-train fleet that are used exclusively on Supertram services, this would enable a squadron of 31 vehicles. The introduction of this new fleet would support frequency improvements on the core blue and yellow routes to a frequency of 7.5 trams per hour".

 

I do not know when the TT report is likely to be delivered  and then of course there will be time need to develop plans as a result agree funding and procure trams and test them to make sure they work but it does beg the question as to when we might see improvement.

 

However I fully appreciate that the current Covid pandemic may influence thinking and my comments above are only based on the public pronouncements made prior to this

[Jeffrey Shaw 88]

Erm, this thread relates to moving Sheaf Street- not to Supertram's future  vehicles.

[ormester 11]

Got off a bus outside the lyceum  who in the right mind as thought of ashfelting the road not even level  to provide more social distance . But there's no one catching the buses   

This is a claim waiting to happen  

[Resident 1,181]

1 hour ago, ormester said:

Got off a bus outside the lyceum  who in the right mind as thought of ashfelting the road not even level  to provide more social distance . But there's no one catching the buses   

This is a claim waiting to happen  

From Winter Garden down to Cathedral Square is now an accident waiting to happen. All the extra bus services jostling for the same space as the regular ones. Buses not being able to pull into the bays meaning all the extra traffic now gets squeezed into one lane & that's before you consider the dangerous driving by taxis, which SCC 'convieniently' ignores. 

[ormester 11]

I agree totally