First Group Sheffield - London via Retford open access proposal

[Meerkat]

Capacity at Sheffield has been discussed here before, and any improvements to the north are going to be very costly. (likely in the 'never going to happen' category)

So a possible (simpler?) solution, London - Sheffield services and Nottingham - Liverpool services both enter and depart to/from the south. Could elevated bay platforms be constructed at walkway level at the London side. Its a falling gradient into the stations, so would actually be less gradient. There is the issue of a couple of overbridges close to the station throat, but if that could be addressed would it help? Advantage is you wouldn't be removing large amounts of bedrock.

This would free some platforms off, but I agree does nothing to increase capaity going north, but getting the two EMR routes separate from Northern, XC and maybe Hull Trains might help

Removing bedrock will be much easier than removing those bridges to the south! Have a look at the levels - they are already on a slope, so I don’t see how you would make them higher.

I’m not buying that four tracking to Nunnery is prohibitively expensive. Several of the bridges arent needed any more and it’s a tatty area. Dig it out, four track it with a lovely faster more flexible station throat, then redevelop the area, possibly over the line - it’s a site near the city centre and station so tidied up it would be worth a few bob.
Just needs a case for the gains in capacity and co-operation with the council over a masterplan (got to have a master plan with pretty pictures and flouncy words these days)

 

[HSTEd]

Removing bedrock will be much easier than removing those bridges to the south! Have a look at the levels - they are already on a slope, so I don’t see how you would make them higher.

I’m not buying that four tracking to Nunnery is prohibitively expensive. Several of the bridges arent needed any more and it’s a tatty area. Dig it out, four track it with a lovely faster more flexible station throat, then redevelop the area, possibly over the line - it’s a site near the city centre and station so tidied up it would be worth a few bob.
Just needs a case for the gains in capacity and co-operation with the council over a masterplan (got to have a master plan with pretty pictures and flouncy words these days)

To four track the section north of the station you are probably going to have to demolish the fairly new student accomodation on the north west side of the trench.
The value of that is not going to be small.
Either that, or demolish a bunch of houses and get perilously close to the Park Hill flats.

Neither option will be cheap or fast.

 

[AlastairFraser]

But if they have to pay for a new station, they'll never make their money back so if they can't fit they'll simply not bother.

There we go then. Not viable, it's been given the RailUK stamp of disapproval

 

[zwk500]

I’m not buying that four tracking to Nunnery is prohibitively expensive.

Of course. If something's prohibitively expensive, you can't buy it

 

[fishwomp]

To four track the section north of the station you are probably going to have to demolish the fairly new student accomodation on the north west side of the trench.
The value of that is not going to be small.

Either that, or demolish a bunch of houses and get perilously close to the Park Hill flats.

that's the job of the experts to determine - I don't even know if it's ever been investigated, let alone the land safeguarded..

fwiw, the accommodation was recently sold to new investors - 666 rooms, but only one of the three blocks is close to the line but still not on top.. It takes £4M in rent or thereabouts (£5k per room in 24/25) - so that's probably a £50M-100M tops in value (you could build a new platform at Victoria for that, or at least fund a feasibility study into having a feasibility study for it) - in the grand scheme of things £50-£100M and residents that actually move out every year is problem solved, in a £500M (?) to (insert random number here) rail project? If you need to knock only 1/3rd of it, that's only £15-35M.

Neither option will be cheap or fast.

The problem is that no-one is harping on about it as loudly as Manchester and the HS2 phase 2 impact, or even as loud as the Bradford must be connected to NPR, heck even Skipton to Colne is in the paper more often!

If Sheffield had a loud and capable politician, this'd be getting attention. Sheffield's issues also impact Leeds and Manchester given their throttling of the services that XC or TPE/EMR can deliver respectively.

 

[Meerkat]

To four track the section north of the station you are probably going to have to demolish the fairly new student accomodation on the north west side of the trench.
The value of that is not going to be small.
Either that, or demolish a bunch of houses and get perilously close to the Park Hill flats.

Neither option will be cheap or fast.

Fairily sure the trench widens to four track width before getting to the tunnel by those flats. Whether some houses have to go would depend whether moving across to the west before them creates too much of a reverse curve.

 

[Killingworth]

Capacity at Sheffield has been discussed here before, and any improvements to the north are going to be very costly. (likely in the 'never going to happen' category)

So a possible (simpler?) solution, London - Sheffield services and Nottingham - Liverpool services both enter and depart to/from the south. Could elevated bay platforms be constructed at walkway level at the London side. Its a falling gradient into the stations, so would actually be less gradient. There is the issue of a couple of overbridges close to the station throat, but if that could be addressed would it help? Advantage is you wouldn't be removing large amounts of bedrock.

This would free some platforms off, but I agree does nothing to increase capacity going north, but getting the two EMR routes separate from Northern, XC and maybe Hull Trains might help

Let's go the whole hog and tunnel under Park Hill to create an extra pair of platforms below Supertram - then continue the tunnel out towards Meadowhall. £xbn and completion 2060 for full tunnel? Less for just 2 platforms out to Nunnery and can be sold as a cost saving at £1bn due by 2055.

 

[Meerkat]

Let's go the whole hog and tunnel under Park Hill to create an extra pair of platforms below Supertram - then continue the tunnel out towards Meadowhall. £xbn and completion 2060 for full tunnel? Less for just 2 platforms out to Nunnery and can be sold as a cost saving at £1bn due by 2055.

pah! Whole hog is selling off the whole site, replaced with an underground station in central Sheffield

 

[Killingworth]

pah! Whole hog is selling off the whole site, replaced with an underground station in central Sheffield

I'd buy that - if I had £500bn spare.

 

[YorksLad12]

pah! Whole hog is selling off the whole site, replaced with an underground water station in central Sheffield

Fixed that for you

 

[Nottingham59]

Fixed that for you

HS2 are proposing to build a £1bn four-platform underwater station an hour's walk from Manchester Airport, so anything is possible

 

[trainswitheddy]

With regards to being "abstractive" I don't believe this service should be viewed at that. I'm sure those who have looked into the feasibility at HT will know far better than I but the current Lincoln-Leeds trains (Which go Ret-Shef and vice versa on return) are already ridiculously overcrowded at times, if Northern won't provide the extra capacity I'd be more than happy to see Sheff-KGX traffic be catered for seperately to get a bit more space on the small 2 car trains.
Again, just an enthusiast but for the sake of the travelling public I think this service has more wins to be discussed and am hopeful it is approved. Time will tell

 

[duffield]

It's not great if it ends up specifically taking Sheffield to London revenue from the soon-to-be state run EMR and transfers that revenue to a private open access operator. Once the new class 810s are in service the Midland Mainline will have noticeably more capacity waiting to be used.

Tax payer subsidies for the railway are already seen as too high in many quarters without further revenue loss.

In fact I'd go further and say that given that open access operations have to be profitable, they should all be subsumed into GBR at some point since in theory that would offset some of the loss making services and reduce the taxpayer subsidy.

I would have a different view if we knew that nearly all the passengers would have driven or got a coach from Sheffield to London if this service did not exist, but that seems unlikely.

 

[357]

In fact I'd go further and say that given that open access operations have to be profitable, they should all be subsumed into GBR at some point since in theory that would offset some of the loss making services and reduce the taxpayer subsidy.

Why haven't the state run companies introduced any of these routes before the Open Access services started?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why subsume the OAOs? If money is to be made from the routes GBR should just start running them.

 

[357]

Why subsume the OAOs? If money is to be made from the routes GBR should just start running them.

Or make money from the Track Access charges and Station Usage Fees without any of the financial risk!

 

[duffield]

Why subsume the OAOs? If money is to be made from the routes GBR should just start running them.

Well, that's what I actually meant by subsuming them - taking over the running of the services.

 

[trainswitheddy]

It's not great if it ends up specifically taking Sheffield to London revenue from the soon-to-be state run EMR and transfers that revenue to a private open access operator. Once the new class 810s are in service the Midland Mainline will have noticeably more capacity waiting to be used.

Tax payer subsidies for the railway are already seen as too high in many quarters without further revenue loss.

In fact I'd go further and say that given that open access operations have to be profitable, they should all be subsumed into GBR at some point since in theory that would offset some of the loss making services and reduce the taxpayer subsidy.

I would have a different view if we knew that nearly all the passengers would have driven or got a coach from Sheffield to London if this service did not exist, but that seems unlikely.

True, but my point was if some of that capacity was from the already overcrowded Leeds-Lincoln services (where passengers may change at RET for the cross) then it's on Northern for not providing that capacity.
I'm for GBR 100% but as I understand it open access works well in Europe providing competition to state owned operators and encouraging improvement to services, unsure how this can be viewed as negative.
Obviously Open Acess isn't without fault, as we've seen in seperate threads discussing the shortcomings of GC lately (180 reliability n that) but I do believe Open Access has a place to be, and if state owned operators aren't running services that CAN be profitable...why shouldn't an OA step in to fill that gap?
Plus it makes the PBO-DON part of the ECML just a little bit more interesting

 

[Meerkat]

In fact I'd go further and say that given that open access operations have to be profitable, they should all be subsumed into GBR at some point since in theory that would offset some of the loss making services and reduce the taxpayer subsidy.

So the railway isn’t a public service, it’s a cash cow for the government?
Price gouge passengers to subsidise basket cases.
If services are deemed socially necessary they should be funded by general taxation, not by gouging rail passengers.

 

[duffield]

So the railway isn’t a public service, it’s a cash cow for the government?
Price gouge passengers to subsidise basket cases.
If services are deemed socially necessary they should be funded by general taxation, not by gouging rail passengers.

Private operator runs the service: Profits go to shareholders. Revenue to GBR decreases, meaning higher fares or greater subsidy.

GBR runs the services: Profits go into GBR, meaning lower fares or lower subsidy.

I know which I prefer.

Yes, profitable services *should* support the so-called "basket cases" otherwise known as the socially necessary railway. Of course they should - that's what having a national rail network run as a public service is all about! And the more of the profitable services that GBR runs, the cheaper the overall fares can be. So less "gouging", not more.

Or we could let the private sector cream off all the profitable services to feed their shareholders, massively increase the subsidy to support the remaining ones and then have a future government close all the unprofitable lines because they're too expensive to run.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Or GBR runs the service badly and it costs a fortune, thereby increasing the subsidy!

 

[3RDGEN]

On the Hull to London route the only ones price gouging are the nationalised LNER and Northern connections with the private First Hull Trains usually cheaper on Advances. Why scrap the OAO's, is it because GBR can't deal with a bit of competition or they don't want to be embarrassed by the OAO's perhaps?

BR used to run numerous services from Hull to London daily but slowly cut them back to just one a day, similar for Sunderland / Bradford and Sheffield via Retford but the OAO's have reinstated those routes by giving passengers what they want. Worksop also gains a direct London service so why not let First Group give it a try.

 

[Iskra]

(Posted in error)

 

[D365]

Plus Meadowhall regaining an Intercity service for the first time in years. It will be interesting to see how popular that stop proves. I’ll be looking to make use of the service and it’s convenient for Rotherham passengers or anyone else coming off the motorway.

I wasn’t aware that Hull Trains will be operating via Meadowhall.

 

[Chester1]

Plus Meadowhall regaining an Intercity service for the first time in years. It will be interesting to see how popular that stop proves. I’ll be looking to make use of the service and it’s convenient for Rotherham passengers or anyone else coming off the motorway.

I wasn’t aware that Hull Trains will be operating via Meadowhall.

It won't stop at Meadowhall. The stops off the ECML will be Worksop, Woodhouse and Sheffield.

 

[Iskra]

It won't stop at Meadowhall. The stops off the ECML will be Worksop, Woodhouse and Sheffield.

Ah apologies, I don’t know if I conflated some speculation on here with the actual proposal. I’ll still be giving it a go however.

 

[D365]

Not to worry, that’s why I was checking, given the subforum we are posting in.

 

[Meerkat]

Yes, profitable services *should* support the so-called "basket cases" otherwise known as the socially necessary railway. Of course they should

Why? Why should passengers in one place be forced to subsidise passengers in another, rather than all taxpayers?

GBR runs the services: Profits go into GBR, meaning lower fares or lower subsidy.

GBR runs the service , fares go up, passengers lose out. It doesn’t reduce subsidy as it’s making a profit.
You mean it creates a slush fund to hide the subsidy cost of basket case services.

 

[trainswitheddy]

On the topic of rolling stock - I wonder if having acquired the Stirling to Euston run from Grand Union, First will do another order of 80xs and tag some on for HTs operation here (If approved to run of course)

 

[JonathanH]

On the topic of rolling stock - I wonder if having acquired the Stirling to Euston run from Grand Union, First will do another order of 80xs and tag some on for HTs operation here (If approved to run of course)

Everything posted recently seems to suggest that Hitachi aren't really that interested in supplying more 80x units.