extend to Nottingham and Glasgow at each end of course
HOUSE!
More seriously, I've got the suggestion of... maybe just letting this as-yet-untested service bedding in for a year or so before we can tell what further improvements are needed?
I appreciate this won't go down well on here but maybe a year or so of operation will show us:
1. Are the trains appropriate/ too big/ two small?
2. Has this new service removed much pressure from the XC train (which is currently the only service that covers the twenty nine crow-miles between Sheffield and Leeds in under an hour)?
3. Has this new service removed much pressure from the "semi fast" Barnsley services?
4. Are paths/ staff/ units reliable enough?
The first question may affect any proposed Meadowhall stops. I'm in two mins here. The shopping centre is clearly a huge draw/ interchange etc, as well as acting like a Parkway for half of Rotherham
However, I'd like to believe that there may be demand for at least some of these new Sheffield -Leeds fasts to be doubled up, which the platforms at Meadowhall (specified in the penny pinching era of 1980s British Rail) might not cope with (e.g. a doubled up 170)
So, even if paths were available for a stop there, I can see the logic in skipping Meadowhall until it's known whether to prioritise longer trains between the cities or whether there would be room on a three coach unit to accommodate short distance passengers too
Remember, given the penalties for delays etc, it's a lot easier to NOT serve a market than to serve it 90% of the time (but have to deal with compensation for the 10% of times you can't run it) - I'm not defending the status quo but such penalties may explain the reluctance when it comes to making improvements that can't be sufficiently guaranteed
Same goes for ripping up the current Lincoln- Sheffield- Leeds - Sheffield - Nottingham diagrams. Logically, you'd be better to have Nottingham getting a faster service to Leeds but losing the Meadowhall link from Chesterfield/ Dronfield wouldn't be popular - let's just see how things develop over the next year or so
For the second point, this has long been one of the biggest pressure points on the entire XC network. It must be frustrating for longer distance passengers to have to deal with the local scrums (especially now ECML stations have lost the vast majority of "via Doncaster" trains to Birmingham etc, meaning a twenty minute penalty on the busier Leeds route)
The third point would need to be known before adding in local stops at places like Normanton.
I've long argued that the Platform Seventeen issue at Leeds could be improved if you effectively merged the existing trains to provide a kind of half hourly Sheffield - Barnsley- Kirkgate - Platform Seventeen - Castleford - Pontefract - Knottingley diagram (not advertised as a through service, but running them that way could mean a single train occupying Platform Seventeen for a ten minute layover then a five minute gap before the next train did so) meaning that each train could be three/ four carriages, instead of the nonsense of two single DMUs cramming in together where the Castleford train can't leave until the semi fast does
That would mean that the two semi fast could each pick up ONE of the stops currently served by the stopper (Darton OR Knottingley), with the stopper withdrawn north of Barnsley (since the Huddersfield service covers the link from Kirkgate to Castleford, and the Castleford to Leeds service would continue to be half hourly as above)
However, for now. we don't know whether sufficient Sheffield passengers will free up capacity on the existing services to facilitate anything like Knottingley calls, especially as that time penalty would potentially mess up the already-fragile situation at Platform Seventeen, so I'd forget about such changes for a year or two
And fourthly... Who knows? I'd like to think that Northern will find the units and staff for this service (even if that's just with the savings they've made by scrapping the Gainsborough stopper that Arriva managed to resource...), but let's walk before we run. Maybe it'll run okay midweek but struggle to find staff willing to do weekend overtime in the run up to Christmas (which is when a Meadowhall service would be most useful)
(And, by the time the answers to the above are known, maybe we'll know whether there'll be any kind of "TPE" in the brave new world of GBR... I'm doubtful)
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