Doncaster-Sheffield (Finningley) Airport Proposed Station

[mwmbwls]

I have seen some bizarre proposals from Peel Group over the years but this must be the best yet. .

I agree with the main thrust of your comments. Peel as a company has a PMA-OPM philosophy - Positive Mental Attitude about Other People's Money. This has always been apparent at Finningley. How long was the Great Yorkshire Way in gestation? Peel are shrewd operators who banked not only their ability to turn round the former RAF base blessed with a V-Bomber capable runway that can now support large commercial airport but also the flow of public funds into South Yorkshire to regenerate former mining settlements.Plausible promises of high technology jobs based at the airport were given. This was all good "castles in the air" stuff - the problem with such castles is that when you try to move in you will always fall through the floor.

Diverting the ECML is such as a castle - the additional stopping time allowing as well for acceleration and deceleration would pose significant constraints on all ECML operators. However IMHO this story is nothing more than a good example of Peel's ability to spin a good yarn for public funds..

Peel will have observed the success of Stobart's Southend Airport Station which involves a station built on an existing railway that happens to run past the airport's perimeter. (I appreciate that Southend's success also has been built on the basis of a lack of airport capacity in the south east). It should be possible to build something similar in scale, on or near the old Finningley Station sight - linked to airport terminal by a people carrier similar to that being installed between Luton Airport Parkway station and Luton Airport.

The problem comes on the southern and eastern approaches to Doncaster where the Joint Line merges with the ECML. A similar problem occurs at the south end of the route at Peterborough where proposals for a grade separated junction at Werrington are being put in place - similar to those recently executed at Norton Bridge on the WCML - which from my experience is working just as it says on the tin. A segregated junction at the south end of Doncaster is the next logical step in extending the rail freight route from Felixstowe - a process that began with the FTN project. Reliability on the ECML fast trains would be improved.

However north and east of Doncaster there are a number of rail routes formerly used by deceased coal trains that could provide alternative routes to Leeds which could if opened to passenger traffic provide the connectivity stimulus to West and South Yorkshire that is much vaunted but vaguely explained in the Northern Powerhouse think-tankery stuff.

This is how synergy can be created. Add together the costs of a new station at Finningley, a grade separated junction, and new stations/routes in West Yorkshire and then work out the benefits. Diverting the ECML is just blowing in the wind or rather blowing other people's money in the wind..

 

[Class 170101]

Cargo is possibly an area they could target. There is a huge railport planned on the M18 spur. Doncaster has good rail links that could move freight quickly but would need road transport from airport to railport. East Midlands has built up a night time business with UPS DHL etc. With greater capacity DSA may find a niche here.

I would have thought Cargo is unlikely unless it takes business off East Midlands Airport.

Frankly unless EMT or NT could do a trip from either Doncaster or Lincoln and back in marginal time I can't see it working. Another issue is that I don't think this line is currently open on Sundays as I don't think its under Doncaster PSB or Lincoln Signalling Centre.

 

[lincolnshire]

Given that London is already served by London Stansted and London Luton both of which are served by the type of no frills airlines that serve Doncaster-Sheffield and at a cheaper price I don't see why someone in London would travel to Doncaster to get a flight.

I think its time for Peel to accept that maybe airports aren't their thing, they have tried run an airport only 25 miles from where there is currently an aiport (Humberside Airport) and serving an area where they already owned a failled airport (Sheffield City Airport). They gave it a ridiculous name (Robin Hood Airport) which meant they had to explain why a figure associated with Nottingham should feature in Doncaster airport's name, having to explain something when your selling it is never a good sign.

Doncaster-Sheffield Airport is one of the airport that poped up around the early 00s when money grew on trees and airports such as Liverpool, Sheffield City, Cambridge, Oxford, Coventry, Shoreham, Newquay, Manston Kent or whatever its called, Swansea, Plymouth, Durham Tees Valley, Dundee and Blackpool all of them did well for a while but then the finacial crisis came and they lost loads of passngers. Mind you though Carlisle Airport is going to take schedule flights soon which may join the list.



Indeed for starters the East Coast Main Line doesn't serve Sheffield.

By road Humberside airport is 40 miles away and is just about a holiday airline airport with more flights in the holiday period ,

On todays list of flight from Humberside Thursday 15th December 2016 there are 12 arrivals and 10 departures, but out of the total for today 5 arrivals and 5 departures are out to North Sea gas rigs. Daily fights to Aberdeen and Amsterdam.

Where by Robin Hood 12 arrivals and 9 departures to various destinations .

Also Humberside was part of Manchester Airport Group until they unloaded onto Eastern Group which owns it along with North Lincolnshire Council and Peel Holdings has never had any part of it.

So the 25 miles away you was meaning is Sheffield airport which if you read the details on Wikipedia you will find that Peel came into the airport at the end nearly of its life and picked up a part share of the the set up.

One of the reasons i did hear why it was called Robin Hood is the the South end of the runway is in Nottinghamshire and the top end is in South Yorkshire.

Some one also did tell me a tale of Peel holdings didn,t want it to be very
successful at the start as part of the sale was they would have to pay more money for the more successful it was in it first years, then after an allotted time it would take off in to a Liverpool John Lennon airport all been well.

So we will see if they do get there station in the end.( might have to wait along time)

 

[johnnychips]

It isn't called Robin Hood any more, just Doncaster Sheffield.

 

[eastwestdivide]

It isn't called Robin Hood any more, just Doncaster Sheffield.

It still has "Robin Hood" in a stylised tail fin on its website header (at flydsa.co.uk), screenshotted today, attached:

 

[Galaxy]

Within the airport, the tail fin is blank and makes no reference now to this ridiculous name. Thankfully.

 

[mwmbwls]

By road Humberside airport is 40 miles away and is just about a holiday airline airport with more flights in the holiday period ,

So we will see if they do get there station in the end.( might have to wait a long time)

The point is that it is not just Humberside - there are several larger more established airports are within a circle with radius 40 to 50 miles from Finningley and each has a slightly different effect on the latter's catchment area. Manchester Airport is the elephant in the room- it has the largest catchment, followed by East Midlands with the rest trailing behind. Because of night time flying restrictions in the South East - East Midlands has built up a strong market position in Courier Parcels business DHL/SNAS, FedEx, UPS, etc. Being handy for the M1 and M42 helps. The three city Derby, Nottingham, Leicester base provides a home base.
Leeds Bradford is helped by the home cities of Leeds and Bradford plus the southern part of the North Riding and the eastern part of the West Riding. Teeside struggles being caught in the catchment of Newcastle and various southern neighbours. Humberside had a niche market when oil and gas was booming but is fundamentally a peripheral airport. Doncaster falls between stools. The best way of changing that is to change the journey to the airport time in their favour - hence the station idea is not bad as long as it was supported by a service pattern that cut into others catchment advantages. Trains from Lincoln would could into Humberside's catchment, trains to Leeds and Huddersfield could capture Wakefield, trains to Sheffield would compete head on with TPE's South Pennine services from Cleethorpes to Manchester Airport.

For Finningley to succeed it needs to exploit the market niche it can carve out. Will that market niche be big enough to fund a new station, a grade separated junction at Doncaster and new services as part of a Rail North driven revival of train travel east of the Pennines - the answer has to may be but it requires getting a lot of things to happen together. This is often characterised as "getting the herd to move in the same general direction" ( usually before you start to do it) or " teaching elephants line dancing ( when you find out how difficult it is).

The original warp the ECML idea is on a scale of 1 to 10 is a 0, whilst the station on the joint line is a 2 at best.

 

[thenorthern]

The airports official name is now indeed Doncaster Sheffield Airport. The Robin Hood branding was based on the fact I think that Sherwood Forest is closer to Doncaster Airport than East Midlands Airport. It was always a bit of bad marketing though like Gorsafawddacha'idraigodanheddogleddollônpenrhynareurdraethceredigion station on the Fairbourne Steam Railway now known at Golf Halt. Robin Hood Station though would have been funny.

Back to the station though given that City of Derry Airport, Inverness Airport and Durham Tees Valley Airport all either can't get a station built or have regular services calling at the station I think Doncaster-Sheffield Airport is probably asking for something a bit out of their league moving the East Coast Main Line.

 

[Haydn1971]

I recall looking at estimated costs for getting rail to the Airport when I was working on the Sheffield City Region Investment Fund, we pondered three heavy rail options, a terminating link from either the ECML or the Gainsborough Line, or a through line. We never looked at route, but a tram train option was thrown in too, essentially running a dedicated service from Doncaster Station to the Airport, again, no real route options, just a half the route being on heavy, half on light rail idea. In the end, I recall the rail option being binned on economic grounds, I think at the time there were only 7 flights a day or something silly. The magic number for heavy rail is often quoted in transportation circles as being 10m passengers a year, which clearly, Doncaster Airport is a long way from.


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[Grimsby town]

Doncaster Sheffield Airport should never have been built IMO. All it has really managed to achieve is to take the holiday flights away from Humberside but unlike humberside has struggled to maintain a core high frequency route. If it hadn't have been for Wizz Air the airport would have probably have failed already and even with Wizz Air it was losing £5 million per year.

Despite this its the only real airport in the region that has potenetial for serious growth. It has the land for more terminals., it has a runway long enough for all planes and all destinations and it has the political backing of the Sheffield City Region.

As far as a station is concerned, one will be constructed in the future because it has massive political backing. Although I think this East Coast diversion is far fetched, there are many benefits to it. It would mean that Leeds would be around 35 minutes away from the airport and York would be around 25/30 minutes away. These two cities have the potential to be a major source of airline traffic if they are connected at these times. A parkway station in this area has the potential to reduce congestion in Doncaster and reduce pressure on the car parks around the train station allowing some to be developed. This area is also currently a massive blind spot as far as rail travel is concerned. Bawtry (population of nearly 4,000 with large amounts of commuters and an important nightlife economy) is almost 10 miles from a railway station.

The barriers to a station at the airport will probably be too great to overcome. West Yorkshire won't support potentially damaging LBA. North Yorks may support it but won't contribute funding. As I previously mentioned I think the money would be better spent provide stations in Bawtry, Rossington, Finnigley and Auckley (near the airport) which would still cost probably half what diverting the ECML would cost.

 

[najaB]

...given that City of Derry Airport, Inverness Airport and Durham Tees Valley Airport all either can't get a station built or have regular services calling at the station...

Inverness is pretty close to getting a station at Dalcross as part of the Aberdeen-Inverness enhancements.

 

[thenorthern]

Looking at other airport stations its a bit hit and miss really if they work or not for example.

Birmingham International - Probably the best airport stations if you ask me as its very well connected to the country and the people mover works well, most importantly people use it. Manchester Airport station is similar and so is Stansted Airport and Gatwick Airport.

Liverpool South Parkway and East Midlands Parkway have never really worked in connecting passengers to the airports they serve. Silvertown on the North London Line was similar.

Heathrow Airport's rail links haven't really ever worked as the tube is still rather underused compared to the airports size, Heathrow Express has never really worked and the bus links have never really worked.

Teesside Airport station, no just don't go there its safe to say the station built in 1971 is a complete and total failure.

I don't think a Doncaster Airport station would end up in the top category.

 

[Class 170101]

Silvertown on the North London Line was similar.

Now has a DLR station instead closer to the terminal, I believe, and links to Stratford and the City of London - 20/30 minutes away.

 

[thenorthern]

Now has a DLR station instead closer to the terminal, I believe, and links to Stratford and the City of London - 20/30 minutes away.

Yep and its located within the airport complex as generally passengers don't want to get taxis to the airport or shuttle buses they just want to walk out of the station and be in the airport.