How punctual are the trains on the Hope Valley Line ?

[General Zod]

Hi,
Are the trains punctual on this most scenic of lines ?
I don't want to miss a connection at Sheffield so should I catch an earlier train from Hope station or stick with the one which is due to connect with my Sheffield train ? I can allow for the Hope train to be 20 minutes late.

TIA
Z

 

[MidnightFlyer]

About standard. Sometimes stuff can be really late though. For whatever reason. Dunno about freight though

 

[Tomnick]

I've known the local trains to be regulated at either Sheffield or Heeley loop for a few minutes heading west, to allow a late-running TPE fast service to run first (as booked). Presumably the same happens occasionally at New Mills heading east to allow a late-running EMT service to run first. They'd never be delayed by anything like 20 minutes for that purpose though. The occasional big delays seem to be suffered by those fast services - if they're more than a few minutes late and end up behind the stopper from Heeley (westbound) or New Mills (eastbound), there's nowhere else to get it out of the way, so the delay quickly increases.

 

[General Zod]

Going to attempt to catch the 18:36 Hope - Sheffield (arr 19:03) which connects to the 1924 Sheffield - Birmingham New Street. I really don't want to miss the latter or else I will be stuffed, hence, me possibly hedging my bets and getting an earlier train from Hope.

Cheers.

 

[scrapy]

I assume you are travelling on a Saturday as this train doesn't run on weekdays

 

[General Zod]

Yes indeed scrapy. I'm traveling tomorrow.

 

[tbtc]

Usually pretty good; they have to be on time as there's very little scope for late running (look at the way the Northern services are running only a few minutes after a "fast" service at one and and arrive just a few minutes before the next "fast" service at the other end.

The Northern trains are generally the best for timekeeping IMO, as the TPE/ EMT services are both long distance (so a small delay at Ely can mean missing a slot on the ECML which means getting to Sheffield late which means getting caught behind another service on the Hope Valley line...)

 

[Invincibles]

Ive never seen too many problems and I usually catch the Transpennine that catches up with the stopper. Yes it can be about 5 or 10 minutes of crawling from Bamford through to Sheffield but that still only means a ten minute delay on arrival at Sheffield at most.

I have never missed the xx27 EMT train yet on the xx11 Cleethorpes so... Sorry that has probably jinxed it.

 

[37372]

They're normally pretty good from past experience. The only time you seem to encounter a delay is when you enter the area under the control of Sheffield PSB, who often seem quite incapable of doing anything right.