Sheffield Stoppers via Stockport

[Manutd1999]

The Northern stopper from Piccadilly to Sheffield currently runs via New Mills, whereas the TPE/EMR express services obviously run via Stockport and Hazel Grove. I wonder if there could there be an opportunity in the future to run the stopper via Stockport?

It would likely need a recast of the paths through Stockport, but if the stopper departed Piccadilly immediately after the express and then ran fast to Hazel Grove, there should be enough time to fit it in.

This would give a faster service from the likes of Chinley/Edale to Manchester. It would also create a near-isolated network from the low numbered platforms at Piccadilly to New Mills/Glossop/Marple which would be ideal for a Merseyrail style suburban network, maybe even with devolution to GMPTE.

Any thoughts?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Presume the current arrangement is a trade off / compromise which prevents there being too many stoppers running on the (busy / at capacity?) "main" line between Stockport and Piccadilly and also means that a regular service can continue to be provided on the line(s) via Reddish North and New Mills Central.

 

[edwin_m]

Other factors are the single line connection at Hazel Grove, and the need to provide through journeys eastwards from the Marple line.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

The Northern stopper from Piccadilly to Sheffield currently runs via New Mills, whereas the TPE/EMR express services obviously run via Stockport and Hazel Grove. I wonder if there could there be an opportunity in the future to run the stopper via Stockport?

It would likely need a recast of the paths through Stockport, but if the stopper departed Piccadilly immediately after the express and then ran fast to Hazel Grove, there should be enough time to fit it in.

This would give a faster service from the likes of Chinley/Edale to Manchester. It would also create a near-isolated network from the low numbered platforms at Piccadilly to New Mills/Glossop/Marple which would be ideal for a Merseyrail style suburban network, maybe even with devolution to GMPTE.

Any thoughts?

How would you get from New Mills to Chinley/Sheffield in your proposal?

 

[Manutd1999]

Admittedly I'm not massively familiar with the area, but is there really that much demand from New Mills to Chinley/Sheffield? I would have thought the vast majority of traffic is towards Manchester.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Admittedly I'm not massively familiar with the area, but is there really that much demand from New Mills to Chinley/Sheffield? I would have thought the vast majority of traffic is towards Manchester.

Yes a lot of the traffic is towards Manchester but there is a flow of traffic east and especially so in the summer when people want to escape to the Peak District. You won’t be able to just cut that flow off.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Schools traffic to/from New Mills is another issue.

 

[Iskra]

What about places like Romiley etc, these places always seem fairly busy?

I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve but I don’t think re-directing the stopper (the only currently reliable service) is the answer. An additional train per hour, or actually running the ones that are timetabled, with the correct number of carriages would be much more useful before doing anything else.

 

[Manutd1999]

The main benefit of my proposal is that the south Manchester lines to Rose Hill, Romiley, New Miles etc would be isolated from the rest of the network, so they could develop a much better metro-type service into Manchester. This is difficult to achieve whilst the services have to be pathed around the wider timetable.

Schools traffic to/from New Mills is another issue.

Admittedly that could be a killer issue

 

[Intercity 225]

Couldn’t a best of both world’s situation happen here once the Hope Valley Line capacity is increased?

As I understand it a third "express" service between Manchester and Sheffield is being added to the timetable once the works are complete. If this were to stop at Chinley with a reasonable connection window to the stopper all three existing services could operate as they are and the stations on the Hope Valley line would still gain a time efficient way to travel to Stockport.

I’ve no idea what the demand would be or how much it’d slow the new third "express" down by - does anyone have any ideas?

 

[EllieAquitrain]

The Northern stopper from Piccadilly to Sheffield currently runs via New Mills, whereas the TPE/EMR express services obviously run via Stockport and Hazel Grove. I wonder if there could there be an opportunity in the future to run the stopper via Stockport?

It would likely need a recast of the paths through Stockport, but if the stopper departed Piccadilly immediately after the express and then ran fast to Hazel Grove, there should be enough time to fit it in.

This would give a faster service from the likes of Chinley/Edale to Manchester. It would also create a near-isolated network from the low numbered platforms at Piccadilly to New Mills/Glossop/Marple which would be ideal for a Merseyrail style suburban network, maybe even with devolution to GMPTE.

Any thoughts?

As this is the Speculative forum I should stress I don't believe in the following proposal at all, but out of sheer curiosity: what's the terrain like where the lines via Marple and Hazel Grove meet to the southeast of New Mills? I'm envisioning a New Mills Junction station... That way the school traffic would be provided for — either by just walking or a new bus route being created from Junction station, or if the connections worked out by continuing one stop on a newly-segregated suburban train to Central station!

 

[edwin_m]

As this is the Speculative forum I should stress I don't believe in the following proposal at all, but out of sheer curiosity: what's the terrain like where the lines via Marple and Hazel Grove meet to the southeast of New Mills? I'm envisioning a New Mills Junction station... That way the school traffic would be provided for — either by just walking or a new bus route being created from Junction station, or if the connections worked out by continuing one stop on a newly-segregated suburban train to Central station!

There was an idea a few years ago to reinstate a third track from this junction to a new platform at Chinley, which would have approximately the same effect.

 

[EllieAquitrain]

There was an idea a few years ago to reinstate a third track from this junction to a new platform at Chinley, which would have approximately the same effect.

I gather that would be a single line and single platform. Would you be able to get 2tph down there or would you continue turning 1tph (and any future extra tph) at New Mills as currently? I suppose there's an argument the link would only justify 1tph anyway.

 

[edwin_m]

I gather that would be a single line and single platform. Would you be able to get 2tph down there or would you continue turning 1tph (and any future extra tph) at New Mills as currently? I suppose there's an argument the link would only justify 1tph anyway.

I was thinking you could use it to extend some terminators from New Mills to Chinley, avoiding conflict with the through trains. But there are probably long enough gaps to do that on the existing layout if it was thought to be a good idea.

 

[EllieAquitrain]

I was thinking you could use it to extend some terminators from New Mills to Chinley, avoiding conflict with the through trains. But there are probably long enough gaps to do that on the existing layout if it was thought to be a good idea.

Oh, I meant more in the context of the speculative proposals in this thread to isolate the southeast Manchester suburban network. I was thinking about how many of those suburban trains would terminate at Chinley and how many at New Mills, with none extending further along the Hope Valley.

 

[ChrisC]

The main benefit of my proposal is that the south Manchester lines to Rose Hill, Romiley, New Miles etc would be isolated from the rest of the network, so they could develop a much better metro-type service into Manchester. This is difficult to achieve whilst the services have to be pathed around the wider timetable

The major flow from New Mills is towards Manchester but there’s still quite a significant number of passengers who do travel east towards the Peak District and Sheffield. Although New Mills does tend to look towards travel to Manchester it is not part of Greater Manchester but is a town in Derbyshire. I’m not sure that Derbyshire County Council and local councillors and MPs would be happy with the town being cut off from other parts of the county and also onward journeys via Sheffield. Although there are bus services towards Buxton there are no buses towards the Hope Valley and Sheffield.

 

[Bartsimho]

The major flow from New Mills is towards Manchester but there’s still quite a significant number of passengers who do travel east towards the Peak District and Sheffield. Although New Mills does tend to look towards travel to Manchester it is not part of Greater Manchester but is a town in Derbyshire. I’m not sure that Derbyshire County Council and local councillors and MPs would be happy with the town being cut off from other parts of the county and also onward journeys via Sheffield. Although there are bus services towards Buxton there are no buses towards the Hope Valley and Sheffield.

There should be like 3 bus routes from New Mills Eastwards as well as the train services.

For the train services maybe a rebuild of Chapel-En-Le-Frith Central as the current station is a distance away from the town (How this survived Beeching I don't know).

Sheffield - Piccadilly via New Mills Central 1tph Stopper
Chapel-En-Le-Frith - Piccadilly via New Mills Central 1tph Stopper
Manchester Victoria - Chapel-En-Le-Frith via Ashburys and Hyde Central 1tph Stopper (new station at the Etihad Campus can try and get them to help fund it as well)
Sheffield - Piccadilly via Stockport 1tph Semi-Fast (goes direct Sheffield-Stockport-Piccadilly basically the current Norwich to Liverpool service)
Sheffield - Piccadilly via Stockport 1tph Stopper


Add some Express Bus Services to help aid demand across the Peak District:
Manchester - Matlock (Manchester, New Mills, Whaley Bridge, Chapel-En-Le-Frith, Buxton, Ashford in the Water, Bakewell, Rowsley, Darley Dale, Matlock)
Manchester - Sheffield (alternate timing to the train services running Manchester, New Mills, Whaley Bridge, Chapel-En-Le-Frith, Castleton, Hope, Bamford, Hathersage, Dore, Ecclesall, Sheffield)
Manchester - Chesterfield (Manchester, New Mills, Whaley Bridge, Chapel-En-Le-Frith, Buxton, Tideswell, Eyam, Calver, Baslow, Chesterfield)

 

[Bertie the bus]

It would likely need a recast of the paths through Stockport, but if the stopper departed Piccadilly immediately after the express and then ran fast to Hazel Grove, there should be enough time to fit it in.

This would give a faster service from the likes of Chinley/Edale to Manchester. It would also create a near-isolated network from the low numbered platforms at Piccadilly to New Mills/Glossop/Marple which would be ideal for a Merseyrail style suburban network, maybe even with devolution to GMPTE.

Any thoughts?

I'm confused how a train running fast from Piccadilly - Hazel Grove could be described as a stopper but completely baffled why Edale would need faster services to Manchester. Edale is barely even a place and just about everybody who uses the station is a hiker. If hikers were in a rush they wouldn't be hiking.

 

[Topological]

There was an idea a few years ago to reinstate a third track from this junction to a new platform at Chinley, which would have approximately the same effect.

Have to confess that was my thinking, getting any "Manchester Metro" to Chinley would offer interchange opportunities. An isolated platform could also have charging equipment to allow the "metro" to be battery operated. There is from memory a loop for part of the way from the junction to Chinley station so presumably the third track would leave that loop. I cannot remember if there is a way for Manchester bound trains to access that loop, or indeed a way for them to emerge onto the Manchester bound track through New Mills Central.

Overall, i can see logic in the OP. Might not be high on the to do list though.

 

[Manutd1999]

A lot probably depends on what the desired long-term service pattern to Sheffield looks like.

Once the upgrade works are complete, there will be capacity through the Hope valley for 3ph 'fast' at 20 minute intervals, plus 1x stopper every hour. There doesn't seem to be any impetus to actually implement this though, so perhaps a 2ph fast + 2ph stopper (1x via Stockport) could be an alternative.

 

[Killingworth]

A lot probably depends on what the desired long-term service pattern to Sheffield looks like.

Once the upgrade works are complete, there will be capacity through the Hope valley for 3ph 'fast' at 20 minute intervals, plus 1x stopper every hour. There doesn't seem to be any impetus to actually implement this though, so perhaps a 2ph fast + 2ph stopper (1x via Stockport) could be an alternative.

The current Hope Valle work has a very long history possibly pre-dating the Hazel Grove chord. Network Rail's 2002 Strategic Rail Plan said about Dore Junction "Move junction, build new platform and footbridge, provide for parallel movements" Reason "operational flexibility" Timescale for completion "2003-4." I know the plans were there and on the wall in their Manchester offices in the late 1990s. It will be completed by March 2024.

In the meantime the plans have been redrawn many times, added to and taken away from. The requirement in 2013 was to create 2 extra fast paths along the Hope Valley to provide 4 an hour between Manchester and Sheffield by 2018 requiring loops at Chinley, Grindleford and Dore. It was watered down to 1 extra fast path and 3 trains per hour in 2015 as first the Chinley loop was removed and then the Grindleford loop remove din favour of Bamford.

The November 2021 Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands (see; https://assets.publishing.service.g...an-for-the-north-and-midlands-web-version.pdf) has this to say;

3.93 Works to improve the Hope Valley line are already underway, including line speed and capacity works, the removal of a bottleneck at Dore, and provision of a freight loop at Bamford. These works could help facilitate a possible future third fast Sheffield to Manchester service each hour.

3.94 Network Rail’s capacity analysis suggests that three NPR trains per hour between Manchester and Sheffield can be operated via the Hope Valley Line with trains continuing to Stockport through targeted investment, using the existing Network Rail station at Manchester Piccadilly. This would likely require the doubling of the Hazel Grove chord (to enable three trains to be evenly spaced, around every 20 minutes) and restoration of a third line between Dore and Sheffield, although more detailed analysis is needed to confirm this. The infrastructure required on the Hope Valley route itself is potentially similar if four fast NPR trains are planned. However, operating a fourth train via Stockport into the existing Piccadilly station would require either a major package of interventions on the existing railway or a reduction in other services in the Manchester area.

Back tracking on even 3 fast trains an hour! Currently a reliable service of 2 trains an hour, at full length and running the full route to time would be nice. A third late, cancelled, short formed or failing to run the full route service wouldn't help very much.

Lack of capacity through Stockport into Piccadilly and into Sheffield rather knocks on the head any extra stopping service via Stockport into Manchester. It doesn't seem to help much into Sheffield either.

That said the current stopper from Piccadilly to New Mills could be extended to Sheffield with minimal impact on paths west of the Pennines. Running semi-fast from Chinley into Sheffield by skip stopping (possibly looped at Bamford to allow a fast or freight to pass) it would be OK to Dore but lack of platforms at Sheffield and paths down the Sheaf Valley would remain problematic. Maybe one or two such at peak hour to test the waters?

The do nothing strategy will probably continue until some big issue forces hands - and they'll say, "we've been talking about this since at least 2023, let's get it done". What will "it" end up being?