Direct rail connection between Mansfield and Sheffield

[NCT]

Sheffield and the wider region needs a systematic, network-wide demand and timetable led reorganisation, observing Germanic network design principles of clockface, symmetry and simplicity. It won't be easy but it's the only way.

 

[ShadowKnight]

A Tram-train conversion of the robin hood line semi-integrated into the NET system would be the likeliest form of upgrade and electrification of part of the route. Particularly as the RHL is county council supported.
If I was the new East Midlands mayoralty I would say that is an easy win in a local transport upgrade

 

[35B]

A Tram-train conversion of the robin hood line semi-integrated into the NET system would be the likeliest form of upgrade and electrification of part of the route. Particularly as the RHL is county council supported.
If I was the new East Midlands mayoralty I would say that is an easy win in a local transport upgrade

Would people living north of Hucknall see that as an upgrade?

 

[Falcon1200]

The sooner Sheffield gets three or better four through tracks from Dore to Nunnery Junction the better.

Given the constricted northern exit from Sheffield, is increasing the number of lines to Nunnery Jc even remotely possible?

 

[Nottingham59]

Given the constricted northern exit from Sheffield, is increasing the number of lines to Nunnery Jc even remotely possible?

They'll need to widen the cutting, but there is space to do that on the Western side. Several bridges across the railway would have to be rebuilt, but it would I think be quite feasible.

EDIT: As shown in this sketch

 

[35B]

They'll need to widen the cutting, but there is space to do that on the Western side. Several bridges across the railway would have to be rebuilt, but it would I think be quite feasible.

EDIT: As shown in this sketch

View attachment 194977

Taking how long, and with what disruption while being done? And that's assuming that the compulsory purchase powers would be granted in the first place - far from sure

 

[Topological]

They'll need to widen the cutting, but there is space to do that on the Western side. Several bridges across the railway would have to be rebuilt, but it would I think be quite feasible.

EDIT: As shown in this sketch

View attachment 194977

How about being really visionary and widening to 4 track and then covering the whole thing over instead of the intermittent bridges and tunnels that are there now. Maybe even some "air rights" developments.

Anyway, this is not needed for the Nottingham - Worksop - Sheffield if it uses the path that was there for the Gainsborough train.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Taking how long, and with what disruption while being done? And that's assuming that the compulsory purchase powers would be granted in the first place - far from sure

If it's worth doing, disruption while it happens isn't a reason to say no. Just look at the Trans-Pennine Route Upgrade. That's still a few years off completion and with more disruption to come, but the end result will be worth it. Any capacity increase to the north of Sheffield Midland wouldn't ride entirely on a Mansfield service, but the capacity gain would make it possible along with the bigger priority of improved services towards Doncaster and Leeds (and possibly Barnsley & Huddersfield- an aspiration of both South and West Yorkshire mayoralties).
You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, you just have to make sure it's the right omelette.

 

[ShadowKnight]

Would people living north of Hucknall see that as an upgrade?

If having, clean, quiet and more frequent electric trains is not seen as an upgrade then I don't know what is

 

[35B]

If having, clean, quiet and more frequent electric trains is not seen as an upgrade then I don't know what is

Indeed. But if those trains then operate as trams, as implied by the “tram train” part of the proposal, that then means a significantly slower journey into the centre of Nottingham with more stops and, probably, less comfortable stock.

 

[DDB]

If it's worth doing, disruption while it happens isn't a reason to say no. Just look at the Trans-Pennine Route Upgrade. That's still a few years off completion and with more disruption to come, but the end result will be worth it. Any capacity increase to the north of Sheffield Midland wouldn't ride entirely on a Mansfield service, but the capacity gain would make it possible along with the bigger priority of improved services towards Doncaster and Leeds (and possibly Barnsley & Huddersfield- an aspiration of both South and West Yorkshire mayoralties).
You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, you just have to make sure it's the right omelette.

But having created those extra paths to/from Sheffield at great expense is it the right choice to use them on providing a service to tiny villages in north Derbyshire that can't support a bus service at the moment?

 

[35B]

If it's worth doing, disruption while it happens isn't a reason to say no. Just look at the Trans-Pennine Route Upgrade.
You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, you just have to make sure it's the right omelette.

I wholeheartedly agree - but cost and benefit need to be matched. The northern exit from Sheffield could certainly do with opening up, but it’s noticeable that neither Midland nor LMS nor BR made any movement on that, and that the geology and topography would make it a challenging project to do, with very high disruption costs to both rail and non-rail.

Desirable as the outcome may be, I’m not sure the resulting omelette would match the number of eggs broken.

But having created those extra paths to/from Sheffield at great expense is it the right choice to use them on providing a service to tiny villages in north Derbyshire that can't support a bus service at the moment?

If there were capacity in those new paths, and a connection to the RHL made sense in other ways, it wouldn’t be wrong to use that capacity. But to mix metaphors, one would have to be careful about what is horse, and what cart.

 

[ChrisC]

I still stand by what I posted earlier in this thread. The first priority should be to bring back the Sheffield to Gainsborough trains which during Covid were cut before they had even been given a chance to succeed. These trains provided better connections at Worksop from the Mansfield area to both Sheffield and Retford. They also enabled the Sheffield to Lincoln trains to be speeded up by them running non stop between Sheffield and Worksop. The extra trains between Worksop and Retford are needed even more now that the timetable has changed on the ECML resulting in very poor connections especially to the north at Retford.

As for the tram train idea. The journey by tram between Hucknall and Nottingham is slow, uncomfortable and at peak times overcrowded, not to mention the gangs of masked and hooded youths and anti social behaviour. Extending this north of Hucknall would just drive even more passengers off the of RHL onto the Pronto and Threes bus services. The route into Nottingham has lost enough passengers already to the buses since it has only been 1tph.

A through train to Sheffield from the RHL would be a nice to have but I can’t see it happening. I would just be happy with anything which removes the need to wait for up to 40 minutes at Worksop for a connection to destinations in the north. It’s even worse now that the reasonable connections into the LNER York train has been lost at Retford.

 

[YorksLad12]

I wholeheartedly agree - but cost and benefit need to be matched. The northern exit from Sheffield could certainly do with opening up, but it’s noticeable that neither Midland nor LMS nor BR made any movement on that, and that the geology and topography would make it a challenging project to do, with very high disruption costs to both rail and non-rail.

True, but we now have Meadowhall, which can act as a north Sheffield railhead, with onward connections by tram to Sheffield Station. Some of the bridges aren't through routes now (at least three), the arches on all of the bridges would need removing (electrification clearances!) and some of the buildings between Duke Street and Stepney Street might have to go. But if the works could be sequenced... I agree it's difficult, which is why no-one has ever costed a plan, but even fitting in a third track would allow parallel departures or arrivals from the north.

 

[Killingworth]

True, but we now have Meadowhall, which can act as a north Sheffield railhead, with onward connections by tram to Sheffield Station. Some of the bridges aren't through routes now (at least three), the arches on all of the bridges would need removing (electrification clearances!) and some of the buildings between Duke Street and Stepney Street might have to go. But if the works could be sequenced... I agree it's difficult, which is why no-one has ever costed a plan, but even fitting in a third track would allow parallel departures or arrivals from the north.

If money and construction complexity can be overlooked, build a new long underground Platform 9a and 9b parallel with 8 below Park Hill leading to Nunnery and Darnall.To be bi-directional and able to take 2 x 6 car trains.

Impossible. I've been dreaming again. Just extending Meadowhall platforms to 6 car length seems to be beyond us at present.

Trouble with the tram and Meadowhall, as has been previously mentioned, is that trams stopping at the back of Midland station don't go directly there. It's slow. You'd usually need to go to Fitzalan Square, Castle Square or Cathedral to change. Much easier to change trains. And of course Lincoln - Leeds trains also have to reverse in Sheffield to get to Meadowhall.

 

[YorksLad12]

Trouble with the tram and Meadowhall, as has been previously mentioned, is that trams stopping at the back of Midland station don't go directly there. It's slow. You'd usually need to go to Fitzalan Square, Castle Square or Cathedral to change. Much easier to change trains.

There's a lot of space in the tram network for more services; it's still only 5ph on the main routes, when it used to be six before the pandemic. You could "easily" fit in a 2ph Meadowhall-Sheffield Station service. There are even extra platform faces and crossovers at Sheffield Station, which have been used during engineering work (or 'trouble' on the Park Square bridge).

And of course Lincoln - Leeds trains also have to reverse in Sheffield to get to Meadowhall.

I'd assumed services from Leeds would stop at Meadowhall, and from Nottingham/Lincoln stop at Sheffield. But I take your point; there would have to be some sort of temporary Nunnery Square station (near the P&R?) for Lincoln services, with an onward tram connection. At which point the Stocksbridge lobby would say "it's silly building a temporary station when we could use it for...".

Impossible. I've been dreaming again. Just extending Meadowhall platforms to 6 car length seems to be beyond us at present.

I'd imagine the curvature doesn't help, for despatch reasons. It's a shame no-one at the time though to divert the track via the old Blackburn Valley route which runs close to the Midland route, as that line ran behind P2. The station could have been built 100m further south with four straight(er) platforms, diverging north of the station, and with more platform flexibility. But they didn't, so ho hum.

 

[Killingworth]

I'd imagine the curvature doesn't help, for despatch reasons. It's a shame no-one at the time though to divert the track via the old Blackburn Valley route which runs close to the Midland route, as that line ran behind P2. The station could have been built 100m further south with four straight(er) platforms, diverging north of the station, and with more platform flexibility. But they didn't, so ho hum.

Meadowhall platforms 1 and 2 are straight and appear to be relatively easy to extend to 6 car, currently for TPE services. If anything longer it would be a little more difficult.

Platforms 3 and 4 would be more difficult to lengthen but how many trains are, or would be, likely to use them?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Meadowhall platforms 1 and 2 are straight and appear to be relatively easy to extend to 6 car, currently for TPE services. If anything longer it would be a little more difficult.

Platforms 3 and 4 would be more difficult to lengthen but how many trains are, or would be, likely to use them?

Back in the distant past (before the pandemic) the Leeds to Nottingham service was scheduled to switch to the route via Wakefield Westgate- which would both allow it to run with more than two carriages (thanks to no longer using P17 at Leeds) and, more on-topic for this discussion, means running via platforms 1 & 2 at Meadowhall.
An ersatz Leeds to Sheffield version of this service began at the recent timetable change, but does not stop at Meadowhall. To answer your question, platforms 3 & 4 serve the lines towards Barnsley which includes the current semi-fast Leeds to Nottingham and Lincoln services, along with the stopper via Castleford and the services to Huddersfield. Of those service it would be the semi-fast Leeds trains that most need a capacity boost- but Leeds platform 17 is the bigger hindrance to that and until that's solved there's not much point looking at extending the platforms at Meadowhall.

If a Mansfield service were to run, and the capacity problems north of Sheffield Midland were to magically be solved, there would likely be some demand to extend it to serve Meadowhall. But if you're running it beyond Sheffield you probably wouldn't want to waste that new path on a service that turned back at Meadowhall, so you'd probably want to run it to Barnsley or Doncaster.

 

[Anetos]

What about Northern modifying some of their services to run Bradford-Leeds-Wakefield Westgate-Sheffield-Mansfield-Nottingham (with more stops if needed)? No Wortley/Crigglestone curve required

 

[NCT]

What about Northern modifying some of their services to run Bradford-Leeds-Wakefield Westgate-Sheffield-Mansfield-Nottingham (with more stops if needed)? No Wortley/Crigglestone curve required

The term 'modifying' suggests some existing services to be modified from. Which such services do you have in mind?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

What about Northern modifying some of their services to run Bradford-Leeds-Wakefield Westgate-Sheffield-Mansfield-Nottingham (with more stops if needed)? No Wortley/Crigglestone curve required

That's what was planned under "Northern Connect", though running via Chesterfield and the Erewash Valley as per the present Leeds to Nottingham (as opposed to Worksop and Mansfield).