A lot of ‘Northern Powerhouse Rail’ relied heavily on HS2 being built. Without HS2 there is no new fast line between Leeds and Sheffield and no new Barnsley Dearne Valley station. I suspect we’ll just see electrification of the line, but that’s due to happen anyway by 2050 as a result of COP26 and all the other green schemes. Believe me, with the Eastern Leg cancelled we won’t just suddenly see improvements to lines across the north instead.
Life would be easier for me if the NHS fell in line with other sectors and allowed transfers between trusts.
There are already two routes. Why not increase traffic on the route via Moorthorpe? It only has 1 stopping train per hour? The route via Barnsley to Nottingham or Lincoln has two.
I've read the thread and can't add much to the debate, but I just want to add <b> "THIS ^^^ </b>. This comment is probably the one I agree with most on the entire thread. And a mini-rant ... Sheffield to Leeds - 40 minutes quick, on a train which always seems to be late because it's stopped because Sheffield station as has too many bottlenecks. Sheffield to Manchester - 1 hour quick. 2 Fast trains which are generally heaving and a slow one. Barnsley - Doncaster (via communities on the way) - would be used but I suspect much land built upon. Woodhead - lots of opportunity - Cost isn't an excuse. South Yorkshire to the coast - takes too long and costs too much but infrastructure is there. Football specials for that matter -
3 routes - via Doncaster which can be the fastest if your connections work... There are also the CrossCountry trains from Sheffield->Leeds that go through Moorthorpe and just past there is the Leeds->Doncaster traffic. So it might not be able to support more than 1 train per hour.
They could re-instate the line and bridge just north of Meadowhall and join it to the main line east of Meadowhall. Then you could have through trains from Barnsley to Doncaster via Rotherham. Nothing has been built on the track bed.
That's how I get to work on a morning. I catch the train to Doncaster then go from Doncaster to Fitzwilliam and catch the 28 bus through to Pontefract. Quicker if it links up.
In the grand scheme of things, that shouldn't cost too much either and would surely help people around get into the centres of Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster. It's a pain in the arse getting into town from Stairfoot with the traffic so god knows what it's like if you live in Thurnscoe or Goldthorpe both of whom I presume would be served.
The Barnsley - Doncaster line was still in situ until the mid 1980’s. It’s crazy to think it was lifted at a time when plans for new stations and a revival in rail travel was happening. The route is still protected until you get to Manvers. At that point there are a few barriers. Manvers Way is on some of the alignment, a road bridge over the line was demolished a few years ago, some tin sheds have been built on the alignment, and the bridge has been filled where the line passed under Wath Road Junction. A cost estimate of £100 million was provided about 10 years ago to reinstate the line. Woodhead is a non-starter really. It serves no populated areas along the route, has no connection to Sheffield Midland, and the tunnel can no longer be used as it’s now the property of National Grid and is filled with electricity cables. Unless funding could be found to bore a new tunnel, fix the capacity issues at Sheffield Midland and create a new connection to the line, it won’t happen. Yes it would be great to get to Manchester from Penistone in 30 mins, but the passenger demand from there isn’t enough. Unless wholesale changes are made to the bidding and funding processes and how these are analysed, Woodhead will never pass a business case.
There’s no line or former trackbed in that direction. Barnsley - Doncaster trains went via Stairfoot, Wombwell (Central), Wath, and Mexborough.
There was never a curve in that direction as far as I’m aware. If you’re referring to the bridge next to the hotel that was a duplicate line from Sheffield to Barnsley via Chapeltown and Tankersley. Some plans were drawn up to create a curve in that direction when the HS2 plans for Meadowhall were released, but that was to accommodate tram trains that could navigate a tighter curve and steeper gradient.
Cheers for your post, always informative. Such a shame though as the North deserves something better than what we have, but there are always obstacles (quite literally in some cases) in the way.
I think I knew that but I don't know where it starts, I thought it was Birmingham, if so then the Lichfield/A38 and EM Airport sites are effectively redundant.
Home near me at Ardsley sold, well under value when hs2 route went directly under it. The buyer used the hs2 route as their main tactic to reduce the purchase price. It's since been rerouted. Properties around us are currently advertised at and achieving ridiculous levels. The government never intended it to get beyond the Midlands, possibly Manchester.
Was it not on here that someone said it was never intended to run the Eurostar through the country either, but documentation prior to the build said you'd be able to board at places such as Sheffield and go direct to Paris just to get funding (I may have mis-reamembered that but I'm pretty sure my over simplification sums it up)
It runs through the important bits of the country - well St Pancras and Ashford International* *Services from Ashford are suspended until 2022 at the earliest.
There's an important connection near Lichfield onto the WCML classic lines so that trains can be run to the north west as soon as phase 1 opens. Pretty sure a whole fleet of trains were built for this - I doubt they'd go that far just to get funding! They were sold to a company in Canada, if I remember correctly. And anyway, since when has any UK government required buy-in from the rest of the country to get a London project off the ground?!
