Alternative History - shutting Hope Valley line

[Bevan Price]

Even if it had lost passenger services, I think that the Hope Valley line would have remained open for freight - although partly reduced to single track. Thus. there would be continuous campaign to restore passenger services. A sizeable amount of freight from the Peak Forest / Tunstead area heads East rather than South or North, and alternative routes would all be difficult or tortuous.

Before the rundown process, Sheffield Victoria probably had better connections than Sheffield Midland; the only difficult connection was "Woodhead Route" towards Derby on the MML.

 

[Pigeon]

...Beighton - Tapton - Chesterfield...

 

[Dr Hoo]

Even if it had lost passenger services, I think that the Hope Valley line would have remained open for freight - although partly reduced to single track. Thus. there would be continuous campaign to restore passenger services. A sizeable amount of freight from the Peak Forest / Tunstead area heads East rather than South or North, and alternative routes would all be difficult or tortuous.

Before the rundown process, Sheffield Victoria probably had better connections than Sheffield Midland; the only difficult connection was "Woodhead Route" towards Derby on the MML.

Although a good amount of Peak Forest/Tunstead stone does now head east, that was far from the case back in the day. Wasn't Chinley South-East curve even closed for a time? So the only 'core' Hope Valley freight would have been to/from the cement works. Possibly influenced by where the coal came in from, I suspect that only one 'end' would have been kept to act as a branch line. Similar to the Mendip quarries. It would probably have been preferred to let the very wet Totley Tunnel go and keep Cowburn.

Access between Hope (and the whole Peak Forest complex) and Woodhead was a piece of cake in planning terms: Chinley-Romiley-curve to Woodley-curve from Apethorn Junction to Godley East (change to/from 1,500V dc electric).

 

[Mat17]

They should have shut Midland station and focused all the services at Victoria. It was electrified and not as great a bottleneck as trying to get north out of Midland.

The only routes not served by Victoria would be the Hope Valley (a backwater) and the route through to Barnsley. Victoria could easily have served everything else.

Instead we're stuck with a diesel only station, in a constricted cutting to the north. A cement train derailment showed all too well how poor Midland's northern escape is. Then there's a meandering route to Manchester lined with long Victorian tunnels. Basically, a second rate railway system.

I don't think Sheffield will ever be electrified in my lifetime.

 

[fishwomp]

They should have shut Midland station and focused all the services at Victoria. It was electrified and not as great a bottleneck as trying to get north out of Midland.

There's been plenty of opportunity to fix Midland - just not the priority to do so. @GardenRail would tell you half a dozen fairly simple signalling interventions (today I got the usual 3 mins to examine the stonework of the cuttting north of Midland, again).

The only routes not served by Victoria would be the Hope Valley (a backwater) and the route through to Barnsley. Victoria could easily have served everything else.

The _current_ route to Barnsley would've have been a different route had Victoria prevailed. Into the mid-80s there was a line up to Chapeltown (at that point, to a coking works) from the Woodburn J - Rotherham line. It was within yards of the current Barnsley line (the supertram takes its route under Tinsley viaduct) - but there were also other lines (railmaponline.com is a gem for this).

Midland is at least on a NE-SW/London axis - whereas Victoria would've been a reversal for today's York-Birmingham services, and reversals would never succeed due to unpopularity on railforums.co.uk (and back in the day would've involved a loco change or run round).. although they could've run York-Leeds-Huddersfield-Penistone come to think of it..

Instead we're stuck with a diesel only station, in a constricted cutting to the north. A cement train derailment showed all too well how poor Midland's northern escape is. Then there's a meandering route to Manchester lined with long Victorian tunnels. Basically, a second rate railway system.

.. or how neglected..

I don't think Sheffield will ever be electrified in my lifetime.

I hope you're not the youngest contributor to this forum! I'd wager its within about 15 years,.

 

[Transilien]

there's a meandering route to Manchester lined with long Victorian tunnels.

Most railways in the UK are Victorian!! It always frustrates me when people say that this is the problem.

 

[yorksrob]

Most railways in the UK are Victorian!! It always frustrates me when people say that this is the problem.

Indeed, if the post war lot hadn't screwed around with the system so much, there wouldn't have been as many problems.

 

[Mat17]

Most railways in the UK are Victorian!! It always frustrates me when people say that this is the problem.

You miss the point I was trying to make.

The Hope Valley has long tunnels that are fairly old - robustly built no doubt, with possible Victorian over-engineering - but nontheless requiring a lot of maintenance. The Woodhead route had fewer tunnels, certainly shorter for the most part, except for Woodhead tunnel itself which was a new build.

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I hope you're not the youngest contributor to this forum! I'd wager its within about 15 years,.

I'll believe it when I see it. The targets and dates always slip!

 

[edwin_m]

You miss the point I was trying to make.

The Hope Valley has long tunnels that are fairly old - robustly built no doubt, with possible Victorian over-engineering - but nontheless requiring a lot of maintenance. The Woodhead route had fewer tunnels, certainly shorter for the most part, except for Woodhead tunnel itself which was a new build.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Oct 2024 ==



I'll believe it when I see it. The targets and dates always slip!

Most of the Hope Valley route is actually younger than Woodhead, with the obvious exception of the replacement Woodhead tunnel.