HS2 Northern Branches Discussion

the problem for the Sheffield station site is balancing off the need for a station that serves those going North to Leeds/Newcastle/Scotland, and those going both into Sheffield, and from Sheffield-Leeds.

Undoubtedly, for the later category, Victoria is a much better site. If Victoria's reopening was coupled up with a re-opening of Woodhead and electrificaion through Manchester-Retford, then sending HS2 via Vic would have a much better CBR. As is, it doesn't.

That said, I do think the idea of a 'Sheffield Crossrail' including not only a second Sheffield-Manchester route, but a Penistone/Stocksbridge-Retford/Bolsover regular shuttle would be hugely beneficial. The NW corridor out of Sheffield could allow for an HS route to Leeds, city centre to city centre.

Waverley125 said:

Undoubtedly, for the later category, Victoria is a much better site. If Victoria's reopening was coupled up with a re-opening of Woodhead and electrificaion through Manchester-Retford, then sending HS2 via Vic would have a much better CBR. As is, it doesn't.

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There isn't enough space at the Victoria Station site, I'm not convinced that there is room at Midland Station either... You need about a kilometre in length for a station on the line, this includes platforms to accommodate 400m long trains and about 250m to accommodate the points and tapers each side.

Putting the 1km into context, on the Victoria axis, it's about the distance between the existing Sheffield-Meadowhall line and Rock Street, on the Midland axis, it's about the distance between Granville Road and the northern side of Park Square roundabout - the Midland line in particular would require considerable clearence to accommodate the station and 400kph alignment, the Victoria line would necessitate demolishing the Wicker Arches as they couldn't be assessed for 400kph running of 400m long (heavy) trains nor would provide enough clearence for full speed.

Fundamentally, following the Victoria alignment puts the route on a really bad alignment for north-south travel, so could only ever have been a terminus station, Midland alignment is ideal for north-south travel, but without tunnels difficult to align along the Sheaf Valley without knocking a whole load of buildings and homes down alongside the track and more near the track to accommodate the 7200m radius required for 400kph line speed.

Essentially, Meadowhall is ideal in engineering terms because you can accommodate the 7200m radius alignments without much distraction, it's not that it's too expensive, I'm of the opinion that it's too districtive to have a HS2 station in the city centre, plus did I mention it would be expensive. Short of placing the entire route and station below ground, I can't see any reasonable way of accommodating a HS2 station in the city centre.

steamdrivenand said:

Ah! That makes some sense and doesn't look so sinister, but I wonder why a page like that wasn't moved when the rest was?

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The websites do seem to be continually being dumbed down. The DfT site was something of a mine of information until May 2010 under Labour, but the alterations under the current lot meant a whole load of info wasn't easily available via obvious links at all, and I think the latest move has dropped another load of info into some sort of black hole compared to previously.

I expect their web team are pretty much overwhelmed and under-resourced, just like the franchise team...

Waverley125 said:

the problem for the Sheffield station site is balancing off the need for a station that serves those going North to Leeds/Newcastle/Scotland, and those going both into Sheffield, and from Sheffield-Leeds.

Undoubtedly, for the later category, Victoria is a much better site

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Victoria is a terrible site. It's on the fringes of the city centre, it's got no rail connections, it's got no trams, there's precious little room for parking, its a long way from the Motorway so it's not much use for most people in Sheffield or most people in South Yorkshire.

Handy for Kebabish of course, if any Londoners want to recreate the Four Lions experience

Is the main issue in Sheffield not more that the people who are likely to use HS2 live mostly in the South and West of Sheffield. So building a station to the North East of the City isn't perhaps the best idea. Yes you can get a tram or train from the city centre to Meadowhall, however, if 20-30 minutes of the time saving is used up getting there (allowing time to change at meadowhall) then you're just as well getting on the existing route.

Tunnelling a route through Sheffield would no doubt be expensive, but vast amounts are being spent on tunnels in the south for no reason other than nimbyism, so it seems silly not to spend money on a tunnel or two to improve the service.

Or the London Terminus could be moved to Heathrow and passengers could connect into the city on heathrow express/crossrail, I'm sure that would save money from the tunnelling in North London.

Class83 said:

Is the main issue in Sheffield not more that the people who are likely to use HS2 live mostly in the South and West of Sheffield. So building a station to the North East of the City isn't perhaps the best idea. Yes you can get a tram or train from the city centre to Meadowhall, however, if 20-30 minutes of the time saving is used up getting there (allowing time to change at meadowhall) then you're just as well getting on the existing route.

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You've touched on the issue that concerns me about HS2 and that is the time it's going to take people to get to the very few stations which will negate the time saving that using High Speed Rail provides. Much like using air travel, with its long initial waits and after flight clearance times, along with travel into cities from out of town airports, which negates the shorter in air travelling time for short haul flights.

Out of town station sites usually allow better, speedier access for travellers from a wider area and allow the building of plentiful car parking. In town stations provide easy access for those that live in the town and probably for those commuting in by rail, but parking a car and car access for out of town travellers can be difficult. Six and Two Threes really.

Although I like the idea of an out of town station where I live, I'd not be too happy if my destination station was a couple of miles out of town - so Meadowhall to Leeds or Birmingham would be great for me, I'm really rather concerned that Leeds of Birmingham travel into Sheffield would be very disadvantageous to people wanting to work or meet in Sheffield

Haydn1971 said:

Although I like the idea of an out of town station where I live, I'd not be too happy if my destination station was a couple of miles out of town - so Meadowhall to Leeds or Birmingham would be great for me, I'm really rather concerned that Leeds of Birmingham travel into Sheffield would be very disadvantageous to people wanting to work or meet in Sheffield

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That's very true, parkway stations should be complementary to, not instead of city centre stations. While tunnelling through Sheffield wouldn't be cheap the numbers I've seen suggested were probably 1% of the total cost of HS2, so not serving 1 of the 6 main cities on the route properly to save this amount seems a little silly.

Suburban parkway stations will work quite well if they are convenient for where the majority of likely customers live. Manchester Airport Parkway for South Manchester, Trafford and Cheshire suburbs being a good example. Most of the population of Rotherham and East Sheffield won't be making regular business trips to Leeds/Brum/London to justify the no doubt premium pricing that HS2 will feature.

Class83 said:

Is the main issue in Sheffield not more that the people who are likely to use HS2 live mostly in the South and West of Sheffield. So building a station to the North East of the City isn't perhaps the best idea

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You make a fair point, but (thanks to the lack of suburban railway in Sheffield) there's no site that would suit the west of the city brilliantly. As there's no space in the city centre for a station at Midland, that leaves either Meadowhall (trams, local trains, M1, plenty of space for parking) or Victoria (would be a diversion for longer distance trains, no rail connections, no road connections).

I don't like Meadowhall as an answer, but then I like the alternatives even less.

Class83 said:

Most of the population of Rotherham and East Sheffield won't be making regular business trips to Leeds/Brum/London to justify the no doubt premium pricing that HS2 will feature.

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It could be argued that a HS2 Station for Sheffield should be at Dore or Fulwood.

However, that's like putting the Leeds station several miles out of the city centre - the more I think of it, the better the case for a city centre Sheffield site

I think the key with out of town stations is integration, if there is a sensible service from Sheffield to Rotherham via Meadowhall, or Nottingham to Derby via Toton, then connections become very easy and you do not lose too much by having out of town stations.

The opportunity to fuel redevelopment of areas like Meadowhall (particularly on the Rotherham side) or other decaying former rail hubs is one that should not be missed.

Then again I am very inconsistent because I do believe that they should find a way to get HS2 through Stoke. I always feel it should be possible to build it on a viaduct from the south parallel with the WCML and that from the north there is plenty of land alongside the railway that used to serve steel mills etc. A simple two platform (on loops) station should fit alongside the existing station, maybe sticking out a bit to the south onto the viaduct. I can not see this happening though since no suggested route even goes close to the centre of Stoke.

Really it would be simpler if the whole systme was built underground with city centre and parkway stations.

There would also eb no worry about weather disrupting operations as has recently occured on LGV Nord.... and no need to worry about NIMBYs along the route.

HSTEd said:

Really it would be simpler if the whole systme was built underground with city centre and parkway stations.

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I suppose you could argue that Brum has a Parkway and a Central station planned and that if Manchester Airport gets a station then Manchester would have similar and therefore why not Sheffield. But then East Mids would want a pair and so would Leeds and all of a sudden you've doubled the number of station stops on the network.

It certainly seems to me that one of the planning objectives seems to be to keep the number of stations to the absolute minimum.

I'm wondering if it would be possible to have a Meadowhall station that links into the existing classic network and allows Compatible stock to run into the current Sheffield central station? It would then be able to run like a spur into the centre but Captive stock would stop at Meadowhall and then onward to Leeds.

I guess it's just another example of using the 'spine and spur' approach as we've suggested earlier here for the two Manchester stations and maybe Crewe as well. The 'spine' concept is sensible, but unusual for the UK, where we're used to the Victorian based railways that run from city centre to city centre. In fact you could say that using the 'spine' principle the only city not on a spur might be London. That is if the Toton station has Classic connections for Compatibles to use into East Mids cities and the main 'Spine' bypasses Leeds to connect to the ECML, throwing a spur west in and out of Leeds.

Then the only difference with all these spurs is whether they're high speed for Captives (Brum/Mancs/Leeds) or Classic for Compatibles (Crewe/East Mids/Sheffield).

Well it makes sense to me

Victoria's a better site than Meadowhall than Sheffield City Centre. Because it's in Sheffield City Centre. As a place for a through station with 250mph through running, it's awful.

As a site for a central station with potential for an extended line to Leeds (going from Birley Carr past Worsborough up to Wakefield & Leeds) it's much better than Meadowhall, which is so far out in the sticks that the centre-to-centre journey time against the MML will be basically zero.

Waverley125 said:

Victoria's a better site than Meadowhall than Sheffield City Centre. Because it's in Sheffield City Centre. As a place for a through station with 250mph through running, it's awful.

As a site for a central station with potential for an extended line to Leeds (going from Birley Carr past Worsborough up to Wakefield & Leeds) it's much better than Meadowhall, which is so far out in the sticks that the centre-to-centre journey time against the MML will be basically zero.

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I think you're missing the point Waverley, I don't think HS2 are interested in taking their line through cities. They want an easy, lower cost spine route that goes roughly in the direction of major conurbations.

If they go to Meadowhall, Compatibles can run at HS speeds Meadowhall to London and return, but they access Sheffield centre via Classic lines at Classic speeds. That way Sheffield gets a Parkway station at Meadowhall and a central station for those customers who need the centre and they don't have to change trains with all the delays that involves.

steamdrivenand said:

I think you're missing the point Waverley, I don't think HS2 are interested in taking their line through cities. They want an easy, lower cost spine route that goes roughly in the direction of major conurbations.

If they go to Meadowhall, Compatibles can run at HS speeds Meadowhall to London and return, but they access Sheffield centre via Classic lines at Classic speeds. That way Sheffield gets a Parkway station at Meadowhall and a central station for those customers who need the centre and they don't have to change trains with all the delays that involves.

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Agreed

steamdrivenand said:

I think you're missing the point Waverley, I don't think HS2 are interested in taking their line through cities. They want an easy, lower cost spine route that goes roughly in the direction of major conurbations.

If they go to Meadowhall, Compatibles can run at HS speeds Meadowhall to London and return, but they access Sheffield centre via Classic lines at Classic speeds. That way Sheffield gets a Parkway station at Meadowhall and a central station for those customers who need the centre and they don't have to change trains with all the delays that involves.

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There are no plans for that nor is there the capacity for it...

Waverley125 said:

Victoria's a better site than Meadowhall than Sheffield City Centre. Because it's in Sheffield City Centre. As a place for a through station with 250mph through running, it's awful.

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Victoria is useless for connections to other rail services, current tram routes and importantly, isn't big enough for a 4 platform station - which will be required with 14 trains per hour passing through in total

Waverley125 said:

As a site for a central station with potential for an extended line to Leeds (going from Birley Carr past Worsborough up to Wakefield & Leeds) it's much better than Meadowhall, which is so far out in the sticks that the centre-to-centre journey time against the MML will be basically zero.

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It's not a central station though and I'm struggling to see how a railway corridor that corridor which goes from the east to the north west makes a "good" route for trains travelling between the east of Leeds and the east of Birmingham. Other than the much suggested Meadowhall location, the only way to get a line through Sheffield is to plonk a station in the embankment east of Midland Station, in my opinion at a level higher than the current to make the best use of the embankment levels and clear the tram viaduct to the north and provide an opportunity for a vast ticket hall for the whole station at a single level.

To the north, a high level viaduct through the new flats on Cricket Inn Road, over the current tram viaduct, then dropping over the canal basin to pass over the ring road passing west of the gasometer and east of the new Tesco site and into a tunnel under the hill that Pitsmoor is built on. To the south, viaduct straight south, over the tramway and Midland Line, dropping towards Olive Grove and dipping into a tunnel under the Cricket Ground on Heeley Bank Road.

Popping out north at the northern end of Concord Park and onwards to pass east of Barnsley heading towards a point north of York on the ECML, to the south popping out south of Norton taking a direct line to pass east of Chesterfield and onwards to the East Midlands. All of the above would be very good for integration with the city centre, but potentially cost an extra half a billion over the cost of the route that passes through Meadowhall.

I do this kind of thing for major roads and motorways in the UK, so have a feel for this kind of thing and tend to find that the best route for a new road isn't to follow the old urban road - the same thing goes for new rail, the old victorian alignments aren't suited to the needs of a new high speed route, primarility due to noise pollution to frontages and the disruption of plumbing a new bit of infrastructure into existing live infrastructure.

Philip Elliott said:

There are no plans for that nor is there the capacity for it...

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No plans and no capacity now, but if HS2 came along and said this is how it will be and here's a sack of money?

Haydn1971 said:

Victoria is useless for connections to other rail services, current tram routes and importantly, isn't big enough for a 4 platform station - which will be required with 14 trains per hour passing through in total



It's not a central station though and I'm struggling to see how a railway corridor that corridor which goes from the east to the north west makes a "good" route for trains travelling between the east of Leeds and the east of Birmingham. Other than the much suggested Meadowhall location, the only way to get a line through Sheffield is to plonk a station in the embankment east of Midland Station, in my opinion at a level higher than the current to make the best use of the embankment levels and clear the tram viaduct to the north and provide an opportunity for a vast ticket hall for the whole station at a single level.

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Which is why I said as part of a Leeds-Sheffield line, not the main spine never-going-anywhere-near a city centre line that HS2 are going to be build, and added the corollary of reopening the classic line up to Penistone & Stocksbridge, and East to Bolsover and Retford.

It's worth noting that any short spurs heading only for terminus stations wouldn't need to be 400kph, whether built with the main route or added on later.

Haydn1971 said:

It's not a central station though and I'm struggling to see how a railway corridor that corridor which goes from the east to the north west makes a "good" route for trains travelling between the east of Leeds and the east of Birmingham. Other than the much suggested Meadowhall location, the only way to get a line through Sheffield is to plonk a station in the embankment east of Midland Station, in my opinion at a level higher than the current to make the best use of the embankment levels and clear the tram viaduct to the north and provide an opportunity for a vast ticket hall for the whole station at a single level..........

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that looks like a good plan, and well worth the extra money. Well done.

steamdrivenand said:

No plans and no capacity now, but if HS2 came along and said this is how it will be and here's a sack of money?

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It is only possible if London - Birmingham is 4-tracked.

Ironside said:

that looks like a good plan, and well worth the extra money. Well done.

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Cheers
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Waverley125 said:

Which is why I said as part of a Leeds-Sheffield line, not the main spine never-going-anywhere-near a city centre line that HS2 are going to be build, and added the corollary of reopening the classic line up to Penistone & Stocksbridge, and East to Bolsover and Retford.

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We don't know that Meadowhall is the proposed station yet - what someone saw months ago and leaked, may not be what is published in the next few weeks.

I'm unclear at what your suggesting, are you are saying use the Victoria site for a spur station ? If so, how would that benefit the classic line ? Even if a spur could be justified over an online station, the terminal station would fill a lot of space and would need the classic services to run through the HS2 station and would still be poor for integrating classic services to Chesterfield, Rotherham, Doncaster etc
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rebmcr said:

It's worth noting that any short spurs heading only for terminus stations wouldn't need to be 400kph, whether built with the main route or added on later.

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Accepted, but they would still require a station footprint of at least 600m in length and did I say Victoria is badly integrated with all other transport in the city ?

Haydn1971 said:

I'm unclear at what your suggesting, are you are saying use the Victoria site for a spur station ? If so, how would that benefit the classic line ? Even if a spur could be justified over an online station, the terminal station would fill a lot of space and would need the classic services to run through the HS2 station and would still be poor for integrating classic services to Chesterfield, Rotherham, Doncaster etc

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I'm suggesting integrating the Classic lines that run through Meadowhall at present at a junction with HS2 and take Compatibles into the existing Sheffield Central Station via the Classic existing track. So you have Meadowhall for the Captives to stop at on their way north and the Compatibles turn off HS2 and slide off to central Sheffield. Victoria doesn't figure at all.

Philip Elliott said:

It is only possible if London - Birmingham is 4-tracked.

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Not quite what I recall. HS2 plan 17 paths per hour, I recall reading that 18 paths were possible with current signalling technologies and that more were potentially possible with signalling improvements by the time HS2 Phase 2 opens - that's at least 15 spare paths per day, potentially 45 with 20tph, potentially more ?
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steamdrivenand said:

I'm suggesting integrating the Classic lines that run through Meadowhall

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I understood your idea and it makes perfect sense to me.

I'm unclear of Waverleys idea though

According to Bombardier who were hired on to do the study on the signalling for the line, they estimate that 21 paths are available with a 22nd becoming available if ATO is deployed o the line.

They also concluded that all 22 trains per trains could be handled by pointwork to individual detinations without wasting paths if there was a PSR of 250kph in the area of the pointwork.

OOC's PSR will supposedly add about 45 seconds to the non stop journey.

HSTEd said:

According to Bombardier who were hired on to do the study on the signalling for the line, they estimate that 21 paths are available with a 22nd becoming available if ATO is deployed o the line.

They also concluded that all 22 trains per trains could be handled by pointwork to individual detinations without wasting paths if there was a PSR of 250kph in the area of the pointwork.

OOC's PSR will supposedly add about 45 seconds to the non stop journey.

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Would that mean that a non-stopping train from Leeds (say) having to pass through junctions at Meadowhall, Totton, joining Phase 1 and Birmingham and OOC would lose around 3 to 4 minutes on the total journey and has that sort of effect been factored into the oft quoted journey times?
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Well if the Phase 2 plans were due to be published 'within a fortnight' as I believe was said earlier in this thread, then the DfT have Wed/Thurs/Fri in which to do it. Which day do you think they'll choose or do you think they've developed cold feet again (I suppose it might be the weather for it) and pushed the announcement back even further. If you recall it was due last Autumn.

Haydn1971 said:

Not quite what I recall. HS2 plan 17 paths per hour, I recall reading that 18 paths were possible with current signalling technologies and that more were potentially possible with signalling improvements by the time HS2 Phase 2 opens - that's at least 15 spare paths per day, potentially 45 with 20tph, potentially more ?
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I understood your idea and it makes perfect sense to me.

I'm unclear of Waverleys idea though

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No, the "improved signalling technology" was to increase the paths from 14tph (phase 1) to 18tph (phase 2). All 18 paths are already booked.

Philip Elliott said:

No, the "improved signalling technology" was to increase the paths from 14tph (phase 1) to 18tph (phase 2). All 18 paths are already booked.

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There are 17 paths indicated in the Jan 2012 economic case for the full Y Network.

The Aug 2011 signalling report doesn't say "improved signalling technology" is required to move from 14 paths on Ph1 to 18 paths on Ph2. The report also indicates that potentially 22 paths are possible subject to train performance and automatic train operation under driver supervision, but states that 18 paths as being prudent.

Working on the "prudent" 18tph figure that's an extra spare path per hour, possibly 5 extra paths per hour subject to above, and possibly more when taking into account HS2's aspiration to join and split trains which could theoretically could provide several morning and evening peak services to stations on classic lines if the business case supports such an idea - although I recognise that this hasn't been explicitly said anywhere to the best of my knowledge.