Hambleton Jcts.

[InkyScrolls]

Do any passenger services travel via the West and South Hambleton junctions? Including diversions. At present all I can see is the occasional ECS movement. On the surface it looks like a good alternative for reaching the ECML from Leeds.

 

[TheBigD]

LNER's 0656 Skipton to Kings Cross on Saturdays uses this route.

 

[InkyScrolls]

LNER's 0656 Skipton to Kings Cross on Saturdays uses this route.

Did not know that - thank you. I'll have a look.

 

[endofthetunnel]

It is indeed often used by diversions to/from ECML - Leeds, both planned ones and short term alterations.

 

[Watershed]

At one point it was proposed to be used for London services on a regular basis, and for the line from Hambleton S Jn to Leeds to be electrified. As you say, although it is longer than the route via Wakefield, it takes pretty much the same time. I guess the ability to gain revenue from local journeys to/from Wakefield was too attractive to justify the re-routing.

 

[YorksLad12]

At one point it was proposed to be used for London services on a regular basis, and for the line from Hambleton S Jn to Leeds to be electrified. As you say, although it is longer than the route via Wakefield, it takes pretty much the same time. I guess the ability to gain revenue from local journeys to/from Wakefield was too attractive to justify the re-routing.

GNER's "electric horseshoe" proposal from back in the day, when they paid over the odds to retain the franchise and then had no money to pay for an electrification project. Or the franchise.

But also, in the time of the bimodes, the third London-Leeds service, skipping Wakefield but pointing in the right direction at Leeds to extend to Harrogate. No clear explanation of how it would be pathed between Hambleton and Leeds, given all the other traffic that has to fit through there, I seem to remember

 

[InkyScrolls]

What prompted my query was wondering whether there's pathing available for a direct service between Ilkley and Kings Cross; there's certainly the market for it!

 

[zwk500]

What prompted my query was wondering whether there's pathing available for a direct service between Ilkley and Kings Cross; there's certainly the market for it!

There may be, but as it has to fit into everything else between Micklefield and Leeds it probably isn't a very good one. You'd probably be no faster than the reversal overall.

 

[D6975]

LNER's 0656 Skipton to Kings Cross on Saturdays uses this route.

It is supposed to, but when I first tried it we went via Westgate non-stop. I had to wait till my next NE trip 2 years later to do it.

 

[Halish Railway]

According to this Roger Ford Informed Sources article, the counter-bid from Virgin/Stagecoach included a proposal for a new 205 mph parallel route from Hambleton South Jn to Connington South!

INTER-CITY EAST COAST

A TRAGI-COMEDY IN SIX ACTS A sorry saga of multiple lessons...

www.modernrailways.com

Virgin’s counter proposal made 140mph ATT seem mundane.

At its heart was 105 miles of new high-speed line paralleling the ECML from Conington South, past Doncaster to rejoin the main line at Hambleton South Junction. A further 14-mile cut-off would avoid the curves at Morpeth and Widdington. Exploiting this new alignment, 205mph Virgin à Grande Vitesse (VGV) trains would give a headline London to Edinburgh journey time of 3hr 15min. The full service would start in 2009.

 

[InkyScrolls]

Wow - what might have been! The optimism of the early days of Privatisation seem a world away.

 

[Danfilm007]

Wow - what might have been! The optimism of the early days of Privatisation seem a world away.

Shame that it all worked out like it did. Even in 2012-2014 there seemed to be lots of hope for the railways to grow exponentially...