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Flooding disruption around Sheffield and Doncaster (7 November onwards)

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rick pike

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Just seen on Tracksy a Doncaster to Scunthorpe aproaching Hatfield on the Skellow line which took me by surprise.
How long have Northern been running that way?
 
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43055

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EMR now reporting flooding between Derby and Chesterfield (at Breadsall). Matlocks suspended and London's diverted. This will add to the delays on Cross Country services to and from Scotland.

A lot of the A6 is underwater as well which runs along the same route as the Matlock branch.
 

johnnychips

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So, coaches are actually running every 30 mins between Doncaster and Sheffield. Staff at sheffield told me Northern are not ‘advertising’ them as they have been organised by TPE and CrossCountry.
Nothing at Doncaster to get anyone towards Hull, even though the roads are open to Goole. Only option given was to wait 2 hours for a Hull Trains service.
Seems to me like Northern have taken the easy option here, no trains running Hull to Doncaster via Selby. Just a ‘do not travel’.

Thanks for posting this. Currently on a RRB from Doncaster to Sheffield as opposed to the x78 I was expecting to take. To be fair, there is now more organisation at Doncaster, with staff directing passengers to the coaches.
M18 really busy and standing with fields around looking like lakes.
 

John Webb

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Well this is the signalling diagram for the affected area - Rotherham's 'FLUD WATA' has been in the affected area for most of yesterday. I wonder if there's any truth behind the control failure too at Conisbrough...

View attachment 70251
I would suspect that water has got into cables and/or Location cabinets disrupting control of the signalling, fouling up track circuits etc, hence the 'control failure' given on the train describers.
 

thejuggler

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I have family in the Whiston/Kiveton Park area and they say it was worse than 2007, the last time Sheffield flooded. The only description they gave me when I spoke to them today was monsoon conditions lasting for hours.

For context it rained all day yesterday in Leeds, at times very heavy. Rainfall readings were however only 35mm. In Sheffield they received almost 90mm.
 

_toommm_

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I have family in the Whiston/Kiveton Park area and they say it was worse than 2007, the last time Sheffield flooded. The only description they gave me when I spoke to them today was monsoon conditions lasting for hours.

For context it rained all day yesterday in Leeds, at times very heavy. Rainfall readings were however only 35mm. In Sheffield they received almost 90mm.

I lived in Whiston for 18 years, and the photos from the past few days on Facebook definitely depict it being worse than 25 June 2007 when Ulley reservoir burst its banks.

The two main routes out of Whiston, Worrygoose Lane and Moorhouse Lane, were both flooded and subsequently closed. It's clear that there are no flood defenses at all from the relatively small brook that runs through, and something really needs to be done. It's a shame as Whiston is a really nice little village, and even the council estate around Greystones Road is far from atypical.

Here is Moorhouse Lane at its lowest point - it was that bad in 2007, they had to raise the whole house to the left of the first picture:

Screenshot_20191107-123607_Facebook.jpg Screenshot_20191107-123620_Facebook.jpg
 

johnnychips

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RTT won't be accurate in such short notice circumstances. You won't find anything unless a scheduled and locations have been drawn up for RTT to match to.
Thanks, and I will certainly bear this in mind in future. I think what misled me was that the 0708 from Sheffield was shown as cancelled but the 0701 wasn’t, so I now assume the former cancellation had been inputted but the latter hadn’t.

Meanwhile at Sheffield station, the information given is, to put it mildly, inadequate. All the cancelled services are withdrawn from the information screens. There is no indication that RRBs are running (if you don’t know Sheffield they always run from the Interchange, about 400m away). There are no ‘human’ voices just the robotic ones announcing the ones that are running, as well as the ones telling you not to slip on the stairs etc. It did say on the information screen, intermittently, that there would be no trains between Derby and Matlock, but no mention of Doncaster or Lincoln.

Trains seem to have started running again on the Dearne Valley Line but still not stopping at Rotherham Central.
 

class 9

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This is this afternoon between Conisborough & Mexborough.Still shut as of 1750. IMG_0094.PNG
 

_toommm_

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According to the Piccadilly announcers, disruption to TPE services through Sheffield expected until Monday at the earliest - unsure how true this is though!
 

Iskra

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I have family in the Whiston/Kiveton Park area and they say it was worse than 2007, the last time Sheffield flooded. The only description they gave me when I spoke to them today was monsoon conditions lasting for hours.

For context it rained all day yesterday in Leeds, at times very heavy. Rainfall readings were however only 35mm. In Sheffield they received almost 90mm.

I've only lived in Sheffield 4 years, but it has been the worst, heaviest, most unrelenting rainfall I've ever seen anywhere ...and I've previously lived in Lancashire, the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales which are all known for their wetness. There is a lot of localised flooding. I'm amazed that there are trains still running.
 
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sheff1

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I live close to a tributary of the Don (but up a steep hill :smile:) which flooded in 2007. After that, the riverbed was cleared, vegetation removed from the banks and the channel effectively widened. I believe the same was done on the Don itself in Sheffield. This time the water reached the parapet of the bridge by us but did not overflow. The river also seemed to be flowing a lot faster than I recall from 2007.

Obviously all the water which bypassed our area this time had to go somewhere and it would appear those dowmstream in Rotherham and beyond are the ones who are suffering.
 

30907

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Thanks for posting this. Currently on a RRB from Doncaster to Sheffield as opposed to the x78 I was expecting to take. To be fair, there is now more organisation at Doncaster, with staff directing passengers to the coaches.
M18 really busy and standing with fields around looking like lakes.
Interesting that XC are running the coaches in one direction only according to NRE.
 

londonmidland

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All lines are blocked north of Derby due to an unsafe bridge. Services are diverting via the Erewash valley.

The River Derwent is continuing to rise.
 

rg177

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Well in the end I ended up on a XC service all the way from Sheffield to Newcastle and got home 40 minutes early, so can't complain at that despite the very cosy conditions- first time travelling via Barnsley on a Voyager!

But yes, I've lived in Sheffield for two years and this is the worst rain I've seen. I live near Kelham Island and despite warnings, the Don thankfully didn't burst its banks there.
 

Trainfan2019

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Flood delay information at Sheffield was hardly existent this morning apart from repeated cancellation announcements.

No announcements on how to get to Derby and no mention of the long diversion from Sheffield to Derby. I knew about the diversion and planned ahead but there would have been many passengers who wouldn't know.
 

Class 170101

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In a pleasing example of cooperation between operators on the modern railway, as a secondary impact of the flooding at Sheffield, Crosscountry ran a planned ECS as a passenger service in place of EMR's 23:10 Nottingham - Leicester at the end of last night. Not often that you get a Crosscountry Turbostar calling at East Midlands Parkway and Loughborough.

Good to see co-operation happening for a change.

No estimate on when the line between Sheffield and Doncaster at Conisborough is expected to reopen, so Crosscountry South West - North East services continue to divert via Barnsley, which is fairly rare. No Reading - Newcastle trains running north of Birmingham at all it seems, so I assume that what Crosscountry trains are running are going to be even more crowded than usual!

Do Cross Country not sign the route between Altofts Jn and Whitwood Jn then? Their Reading to Newcastle services could run via Barnsley and Castleford avoiding Doncaster and their usual diversionary route via Ferrybridge (not available due to the flooding).
 

Class 170101

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Their was some Sunday diversions a decade ago when the Stainforth Junction was being re modelled.

I did it more recently than that but was for a couple of trains on a Sunday morning but I guess it was to allow more time for maintenance on the booked route.
 

HullRailMan

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Northern not running any trains between Hull and Doncaster today, only the stopper running from Hull but terminating at Goole. Still no buses as a replacement, advice still ‘do not travel’. Hull Trains only running 4 trains today due to engineering work. Loads of people use these Northern services to connect at Doncaster, I still don’t think providing an alternative is good enough.
I’ve seen people asking Northern about using trains to connect at York or Leeds instead. Advice has been that they will need to buy new tickets to do that or just not travel. Really poor.
 

ohgoditsjames

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Not sure how they can have the audacity to tell people “not to travel”, some people have no choice but to travel and their only option is the train. I’m sure if people could just drop their travel plans at the top of a hat they’d never use trains again.

I managed to get back to Sheffield from Leeds today with the XC service but many of northbound XC services from Sheffield are severely delayed.
 

bramling

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Not sure how they can have the audacity to tell people “not to travel”, some people have no choice but to travel and their only option is the train. I’m sure if people could just drop their travel plans at the top of a hat they’d never use trains again.

I managed to get back to Sheffield from Leeds today with the XC service but many of northbound XC services from Sheffield are severely delayed.

But conversely a lot of people *do* make non-essential journeys.

I recall the day the year before last when it snowed just before Christmas, and the London area degenerated into total chaos - partly because the weather forecast had got it a bit wrong with both the severity and timing. Nonetheless, I was able to judge just walking out of my front door that there was going to be trouble and it was wiser not to risk taking the car to work.

Yet at High Barnet there was hell to play because a train sat in a platform awaiting a driver for a while, with a group of women livid that their Sunday Christmas shopping outing to Oxford Street was being disrupted. Their ignorance was made clear to them using robust language.
 

mpthomson

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Northern not running any trains between Hull and Doncaster today, only the stopper running from Hull but terminating at Goole. Still no buses as a replacement, advice still ‘do not travel’. Hull Trains only running 4 trains today due to engineering work. Loads of people use these Northern services to connect at Doncaster, I still don’t think providing an alternative is good enough.
I’ve seen people asking Northern about using trains to connect at York or Leeds instead. Advice has been that they will need to buy new tickets to do that or just not travel. Really poor.

I trust you’ve offered your expertise in dealing with adverse weather conditions to them?
 

brompton rail

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I trust you’ve offered your expertise in dealing with adverse weather conditions to them?

Northern’s Hull crews have knowledge of the route via Selby but it isn’t being used. Clearly there is no substitute between Doncaster and Mexborough, however Northern have not sourced buses to serve some or all stations on the route, and, no, the roads are not blocked. No buses Google to Doncaster either, which could be linked by a direct M62/M18 journey, serving Thorne North if required, though access to Stainforth and Kirk Sandall is quite possible. And, no, advice not to travel isn’t appropriate or acceptable in 2019.
 
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