Not sure what it would achieve. There's still the Nunnery to contend with. Regards the two Sidings, the Centre Siding is used many times per day. The Down Siding alongside the road, would be useful, but drivers won't use it because there is no walking route. And it's been out of use since the freight train derailed. But there's no reason to reinstate it because of the walking route issue.
Not worth it with NPR, HS services (of some form) and MML electrification potentially looking for quite major changes not a lot later.
I assume major rebuilding will be restricted by the heritage status of the buildings?
Why would you need eight through platforms? There are only about four through trains/hour in each direction. Other stations handle more through trains with only 2 through platforms. Although I am not suggesting only 2 be provided.
To use them as double-ended ’turnaround’ platforms. Derby platforms 3 & 4 are typically used in this manner.
May as well have long through platforms if the signalling can allow them to be used for simultaneous terminating/reversing trains from both directions - more flexibility.
Yes but with only 4 through trains/hour in each direction why would you need more than, say, three or four through platforms?
It's also passenger convenience to be able to keep the service running though, which if you limited the number of through platforms available would be harder. And having bays potentially would bring available platform lengths down, whereas with long through platforms and permissive working you can be more flexible in that regard.
Thats now though, things can change.
Maybe there aren’t many through services because there aren’t enough through platforms…..
If we're talking about what we'd do if we had the magic money sofa (similar to the magic money tree), buildings can be dismantled and moved. Just look at what's happening at Huddersfield with the building on the island platform.
That was a wooden building, not a sizeable stone one!
The terminating platforms likely have to be in the middle of the layout to eliminate crossing moves, which means bay platforms will still have passengers using a footbridge.
Stone buildings have been dismantled piece by piece and reassembled too... including, famously, a bridge which was moved from London to Arizona.
Stone buildings have also been encased in framing and moved as complete structures before, or mounted on skids or similar and slid to new positions.
However I think it can safely be assumed that the money or poltical will to do anything significant with the platform structures wont be there, so the practicalities of how or whether you can demolish the buildings can be glossed over, especially if this is a 'money no object' discussion
Money being no object (for the sake of discussion) would mean that going to the expense of moving listed buildings can be considered... but would not (in my interpretation) mean you can ignore their listed status entirely and be permitted to demolish them... though of course if you really did find a magic money tree, you'd be able to avoid the repercussions.
So I was suggesting that for the purposes of the discussion, it can reasonably be assumed that sufficient permissions and resources would be available to do whatever need be done to the platforms.
As both are north of Sheffield, you would only be extending terminating services from the south. That means the Northern Hope Valley train, or the London trains. Highly unlikely London gets extended given the order for 810s is only just about big enough for the current service. The Liverpool - Nottingham (Norwich) is like a terminating train, but that reverses to go out and would need splitting to run through.
Do you mean seating capacity when you say 'big enough' ?
Nice idea, although limited capacity on approaches is a constraint (although being looked at for NPR AIUI).
The easiest train to extend would be the Penistone line train but that'll be a much slower journey time than changing at Leeds. Or you'd be extending something terminating at Leeds from Sheffield. It's safe to assume that anything currently going to Leeds won't be diverted away from there.
Isn't Sheffield-York served by a regular hourly service by XC (temporary timetable notwithstanding)?
IIRC York has 2 platform faces disused at the South end (behind platform 1, so marginally more awkward side for anything direct to Sheffield) and 2 platform faces disused at the North end (the one next to 8 and the Examination siding next to 2, which can only access the Scarborough Line). York's platforms are busy enough that NR looked at adding two additional through platforms in one of it's long-term studies. There may have been further Scarborough line platforms behind the examination siding, not sure as the car park obscures it. There's not a lot of room at York to just chuck trains at it, as can be seen on RTT if you look either at how quickly disruption compounds itself, or at how many alterations get made for specials/amended traffic.
Yes
Indeed. Given a sensible design with more North and South bays with level access to the entrance, the only passengers needing to use the footbridge should be from/to southbound through trains. Most terminating trains are only 2 car DMU's. Even the St. P trains are predominately only 5 car
I'm not sure how feasible it would be to provide bays with level access to the entrance.
Trains are likely to get longer in the future though, and putting all bays on the entrance side forces conflicts between arriving and departing trains.