Killingworth
Established Member
Or going Dore - Sheffield - Doncaster/Retford - Kings Cross which can sometimes be cheaper than using the EMR to St Pancras (and excluding engineering works closing the Midland Main Line).
As for Dore - Sheffield being a lot lower than to Manchester, maybe shows that a certain percentage of passengers will get a promise to pay from the TVM and board at the front of the train knowing it is unlikely the guard will get round to sell a ticket in the short journey time.
Certainly a lot on Northern Hope Valley stoppers did avoid payment in the past but enforcement is increasingly effective, made easier as more are using electronic methods of payment. It's much quicker for guards to check the whole train and users can't count on escaping as they did in years gone by. The Dore TVM is now used infrequently.
Although the option via Doncaster is used by a small number (e.g. 8.04 TPE from Dore, single change at Donny) I doubt many would normally consider a double change at both Sheffield and Doncaster/Retford.
The relative numbers in the data tally with very easily observed activity on the platform.
A lot less reliable on a 97/98 bus due every 15 minutes during the core part of the day for a journey timed to take 30-35 minutes against 7 minutes on the hourly train. Bus wins on frequency and convenience of more stops. Loses to cars because buses can fail to appear for half an hour or more.Kite159:
Or maybe use the bus if it's more frequent than the hourly train?
There are 3 trains an hour in the core 2 hour commuting period to/from Manchester - but this is a topic for another thread.
telstarbox: From Dore to Sheffield a lot of people would drive, particularly if they're going to employers along the Don Valley rather to the city centre.
Very true. I used to use the car almost every day even though TPE run between Dore and Meadowhall every hour taking only 13 minutes. By car I needed to allow 30 minutes minimum, at rush hour rather more. Time taken to get from home to Dore then from Meadowhall to work and an hourly service that doesn't even stop at Dore most hours killed that option stone dead! I jogged in more often than taking the train - and used tram/bus back, usually taking over an hour.
Suffice to say these statistics are a very useful source of information but they need to be used with care and local explanations.
That makes sense. I'm sure that, if you add together all modes, there would be many times as many Dore-Sheffield-somewhere-vaguely-central journeys as Dore-Manchester journeys. But for Dore-Sheffield there are much more attractive options, and the relatively low rail frequency is much more of a deterrent for short journeys.
An interesting comparison could be what happens once the Manchester-Sheffield rail upgrade is complete and Dore therefore starts to get a more frequent/more reliable service. My guess is that numbers of Dore-Sheffield rail journeys will go up much more dramatically than numbers of Dore-Manchester journeys.
That's at least a couple of $64,000 questions! Wait until we see what happens in 2025-6.
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