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HS2 Sheffield

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deltic

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The proposed HS2 station at Meadowhall has long been controversial with Sheffield city council preferring the Sheffield Victoria option and the other South Yorkshire councils wanting it to remain at Meadowhall.

The Sheffield station issue and to a lessor extent questions about Leeds station location are presumably one of the main reasons for the delay in publishing the preferred route option for Phase 2.

Neither the two Sheffield stations options are ideal - is there anyway that HS2 could be rerouted to serve Sheffield Midland station or will we remain with Meadowhall?
 
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Phil.

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This is one of the problems with HS2. The stations are not really near the centres that they are supposed to be serving so any time saved by an expensive railway running at warp drive is negated by the final trudge into the city centre. Meadowhall? Not really Sheffield is it?
 

Ianno87

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This is one of the problems with HS2. The stations are not really near the centres that they are supposed to be serving so any time saved by an expensive railway running at warp drive is negated by the final trudge into the city centre. Meadowhall? Not really Sheffield is it?

But much more convenient for the rest of South Yorkshire (Barnsley, Rotherham, Doncaster) than Sheffield city centre would be.... Added bonus of being bolted onto an existing successful transport interchange and shoppng centre.
 

AM9

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This is one of the problems with HS2. The stations are not really near the centres that they are supposed to be serving so any time saved by an expensive railway running at warp drive is negated by the final trudge into the city centre. Meadowhall? Not really Sheffield is it?

Is Sheffield the only centre (of population) that the Meadowhall stop is required to serve?
 

deltic

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Is Sheffield the only centre (of population) that the Meadowhall stop is required to serve?

Have not seen any proposals for improved public transport connections from rest of South Yorkshire to Meadowhall that would need to be provided to make it attractive for passengers to interchange there
 

AM9

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Have not seen any proposals for improved public transport connections from rest of South Yorkshire to Meadowhall that would need to be provided to make it attractive for passengers to interchange there

That doesn't necessarily mean that it is only really relevant to Sheffield. If those who have a responsibility for the functioning of the various parts of South Yorkshire i.e. Sheffield and the three Metropolitain Boroughs, were to get together with South Yorkshire CC, they might be able to create a very good case for building from the currently available infrastructure to add significant value to the South Yorkshire HS2 stop, - wherever it is to be located. *

* As a southerner, I have absolutely no axe to grind wherever it is located, I'm just dismayed at the way that local bickering delays necessary investment.​
 

MarkyT

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This is one of the problems with HS2. The stations are not really near the centres that they are supposed to be serving so any time saved by an expensive railway running at warp drive is negated by the final trudge into the city centre. Meadowhall? Not really Sheffield is it?

It's about 3 miles or 5 km so for those arriving by HS2 and wishing to take a taxi from Meadowhall it is not an epic excursion to the city centre. Meadowhall is also pretty good for rail and tram connections, not just for the city centre but for the broader South Yorkshire area in general. Almost all trains that serve Sheffield Midland station either already serve Meadowhall as well or could be made to do so. There is space for more classic platforms and platform lengthening to accomodate more classic services and even the new tram-trains from Rotherham might be diverted fairly easily via a new loop constructed across open ground to call at the interchange station. Victoria would be much worse for local connectivity as no other train service calls there, nor any current tram line, and it's less 'central' than the Midland station anyway.

Ideally any Sheffield central station should be adjacent to the Midland station for easy local train and tram connections. That would be very difficult and expensive however and would probably force a bored tunnel approach route from either direction and a very large station box construction under Sheaf Valley Park, not easy due to the steep hillside involved and the likely depth required for the HS tunnels to pass under the river Don nearby.

In addition to it's good and potentially better local public transport access Meadowhall clearly also has very good road access directly from the M1, without any new traffic generated having to get into the centre and clogging up local roads in the process.

I'd love to see a Central station, but not at any cost and most definitely not thereby making it difficult to interchange with other local public transport, so on many levels and most importantly cost / benefit, I'd say Meadowhall wins hands down over Victoria.
 
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Haydn1971

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Neither the two Sheffield stations options are ideal - is there anyway that HS2 could be rerouted to serve Sheffield Midland station or will we remain with Meadowhall?


Back in the early 90s I was involved in looking at options to improve the Inner Ring Road to the north and eastern sides of Sheffield. One option was to review a 1960s proposal to put a motorway to the east of Midland Station.

1968 drawing here - http://www.haydnvernals.co.uk/roads/images/Sheffield-1968-South.jpg

"Our" scheme in 1994 looked at a more sinuous route that put a dual carriageway into a part tunnel in the hillside between Midland Station and Park Hill flats. Ultimately, conceptual level costings made the idea uneconomic vs upgrading the A61 to the west of Midland Station (several options looked at including one through what is now the taxi rank) on the route it takes now.

Anyways, point I'm making is that it would be possible to build a HS2 station in this hillside area behind Midland Station, with a revised concourse that extended over the existing station and under a HS2 station - dropping the tram under, to the same level of Midland station.

The approach from the south would be mostly in tunnel, via a route under Heeley and Oaks Park, passing to the east of Dronfield, picking up a route to the north-east of Chesterfield and onwards to the current alignment. The approach from the north would take a direct high level route over Park Square, above the tram triangle, to the west of Canal Basin and dropping down into a tunnel under Burngreave.

There is some room to the south of Midland Station for revised platform space where the pacer showers are... Essentially giving some terminating platforms at the southern side that would run through the station to the north.

Costly, yes, right thing to do ? I'd say so !
 

Grimsby town

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I think having the station at meadowhall is the most sensible solution providing that the correct infrastructure improvements are made to the classic lines around Sheffield.

These are:
1)quadrupling west of Sheffield and providing either a commuter service or a tram train
2)creating a flyover for the Barnsley line at Doncaster
3)creating a single seperate track for the worksop line junction to Sheffield allowing to seperate these services from services to meadowhall. This will need a small amount of new tunnelling.

If central Sheffield justifies a station then a link from Hs2 to the worksop line is the best way to provide it with the service running on the classic network into Midland from this point.

It's important to remember though that France are reducing the TGV network because its not efficient to run such high spec trains to every town.
 

Chester1

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Back in the early 90s I was involved in looking at options to improve the Inner Ring Road to the north and eastern sides of Sheffield. One option was to review a 1960s proposal to put a motorway to the east of Midland Station.

1968 drawing here - http://www.haydnvernals.co.uk/roads/images/Sheffield-1968-South.jpg

"Our" scheme in 1994 looked at a more sinuous route that put a dual carriageway into a part tunnel in the hillside between Midland Station and Park Hill flats. Ultimately, conceptual level costings made the idea uneconomic vs upgrading the A61 to the west of Midland Station (several options looked at including one through what is now the taxi rank) on the route it takes now.

Anyways, point I'm making is that it would be possible to build a HS2 station in this hillside area behind Midland Station, with a revised concourse that extended over the existing station and under a HS2 station - dropping the tram under, to the same level of Midland station.

The approach from the south would be mostly in tunnel, via a route under Heeley and Oaks Park, passing to the east of Dronfield, picking up a route to the north-east of Chesterfield and onwards to the current alignment. The approach from the north would take a direct high level route over Park Square, above the tram triangle, to the west of Canal Basin and dropping down into a tunnel under Burngreave.

There is some room to the south of Midland Station for revised platform space where the pacer showers are... Essentially giving some terminating platforms at the southern side that would run through the station to the north.

Costly, yes, right thing to do ? I'd say so !

Its only the right thing to do for the people of Sheffield, and only by a small margin. It would be much worse for people in Rotherham and cost the treasury significantly more.

The OP stated that the time saved by travelling at high speed was lost by needing to get to Meadowhall, but even for people living very near the current station the time lost getting to Meadowhall would be marginal. Nearly all the exisiting services between the two would survive, leaving a virtually walk on service that only took a few minutes to get to Meadowhall. It would be a loss of 15-20 minutes compared with an hours gain. For many people in South Yorkshire Meadowhall would be quicker even before HS speed is considered.
 

tbtc

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* As a southerner, I have absolutely no axe to grind wherever it is located, I'm just dismayed at the way that local bickering delays necessary investment.​

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that comment, but it sums up the parochial nature of arguments that we have around here.

For example, I don't imagine people in Sheffield were so fussed about HS2 until they found that "that lot in Leeds" were getting a station - therefore we must have one too...

It's about 3 miles or 5 km so for those arriving by HS2 and wishing to take a taxi from Meadowhall it is not an epic excursion to the city centre. Meadowhall is also pretty good for rail and tram connections, not just for the city centre but for the broader South Yorkshire area in general. Almost all trains that serve Sheffield Midland station either already serve Meadowhall as well or could be made to do so. There is space for more classic platforms and platform lengthening to accomodate more classic services and even the new tram-trains from Rotherham might be diverted fairly easily via a new loop constructed across open ground to call at the interchange station. Victoria would be much worse for local connectivity as no other train service calls there, nor any current tram line, and it's less 'central' than the Midland station anyway.

Ideally any Sheffield central station should be adjacent to the Midland station for easy local train and tram connections. That would be very difficult and expensive however and would probably force a bored tunnel approach route from either direction and a very large station box construction under Sheaf Valley Park, not easy due to the steep hillside involved and the likely depth required for the HS tunnels to pass under the river Don nearby.

In addition to it's good and potentially better local public transport access Meadowhall clearly also has very good road access directly from the M1, without any new traffic generated having to get into the centre and clogging up local roads in the process.

I'd love to see a Central station, but not at any cost and most definitely not thereby making it difficult to interchange with other local public transport, so on many levels and most importantly cost / benefit, I'd say Meadowhall wins hands down over Victoria.

All good points.

Ideally we'd have a station in the middle of Sheffield city centre (though ideally Midland Station would be in central Sheffield, rather than across the inner ring road, at the bottom of the valley...).

The problem is, there's no easy way to squeeze a straight route through Sheffield's valleys (and, given the speed of HS2, you can't get away with some of the bends that Victorian engineers left us with).

Sheffield Midland is build directly above the River Sheaf (if you are interested in subterranean Sheffield then you could lose an hour or two to this thread >>
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/megatron-sheffield-june-and-july-2015.t97955), which means you can't put a railway line underneath the current station (which is often suggested for Birmingham New Street).

Going above the current line would be equally hard - given the various road bridges/ tram line/ foot bridges above the current alignment - as well as Sheffield Parkway and Park Square roundabout.

Given how busy the two track northern throat at Midland currently is (a dozen services an hour or more?), you'll never squeeze High Speed services through the current platforms either.

Meadowhall isn't perfect, but it's currently got nine non-stop trains to Sheffield Midland per hour with a journey time of about five minutes (plus eight scheduled tram services per hour which run through the heart of the city centre and on to suburban Sheffield). So you're not too far away in time terms.

From somewhere like the Cathedral/ University, Meadowhall is about fifteen minutes further away than Midland (pick a time of day/direction to suit your argument - http://www.supertram.com/uploads/KC2266PTESupertramTramGuide2015WEB_4.pdf)

You've got loads of car parking, you've got regular trains to Barnsley/ Doncaster/ Rotherham etc, you've got a busy bus station also served by National Express/ Megabus. There's the M1 next door, so convenient for much of the region.

Victoria is a waste of time. It's not in the actual city centre, it has no trams, it has no trains, it has no bus station, it would struggle for much parking.

Build a route into Sheffield and you run the risk of it being a dead end branch off the main route, i.e. getting one train an hour whilst everything else runs non stop from Toton to Leeds. I can't see Sheffield being important enough to delay Leeds/ Newcastle passengers down significantly. A station at Meadowhall comes with the benefits of allowing everything to stop there.

Obviously with enough money, everything becomes feasible, and we could have some crazy system of tunnels and bridges full op Blue Sky Thinking. But I'd rather we spent some of that magic money tree on some practical improvements (more four tracking for local services, that kind of boring stuff).

PS: I've made no mention of TramTrain because I don't know if it'll be ready by the 2030s... <D
 

Haydn1971

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Absolutely agree on Victoria... If you go to the effort of building near the city centre, you do it where you can get direct connections to other rail services and "near" the city centre, not on the outskirts... Meadowhall despite my concerns for Sheffield City Centre is the right place for South Yorkshire, but not for Sheffield. Victoria is in my opinion is perhaps better for Sheffield City Centre than Meadowhall, but overall, worse for the whole city region.
 

ricoblade

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One consideration for Victoria is the HS3 connectivity on to Manchester (via some Woodhead-esque route), though the current Victoria plans show a western egress from Victoria on the old Woodhead route then some undefined turn north back to join HS2, which knowing the geography of Sheffield and surrounds pretty well, I just can't fathom.
 

HSTEd

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The cost of the Victoria option would likely pay for a couple of new tram lines, or even a tunnelled city centre route as part of a new tram line.
 

Haydn1971

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The best place for Sheffield, just not the City Region - unless there is some parkway station on the Rotherham-Doncaster line
 

quantinghome

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Higgins wouldn't be drawn on the exact details, which will be announced next week. However, it does appear that we're looking at Sheffield being served by a spur, presumably using classic compatibles to avoid a complete rebuild of Midland. The problem with this is that it won't be able to be served by the same frequency of trains as Meadowhall, unless trains from Leeds route through Sheffield, which would lengthen overall journey times. All sounds very intriguing and I look forward to hearing it from the horse's mouth next week.
 

snowball

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The problem with this is that it won't be able to be served by the same frequency of trains as Meadowhall, unless trains from Leeds route through Sheffield, which would lengthen overall journey times. All sounds very intriguing and I look forward to hearing it from the horse's mouth next week.

I suppose there are four possibilities:

1) The layout will allow trains from the south on HS2 to call at Sheffield Midland, continue north and rejoin HS2 to Leeds.

This seems unlikely, because of the cost and the use of the word "spur". They seem to be saying that the new proposal is a cost *saving* on the previous one.

2) The layout will allow trains from the south on HS2 to call at Sheffield Midland and continue on existing lines to Leeds.

This seems very unlikely, as it would be very slow to Leeds.

3) The spur would have a triangular junction with the HS2 (east) main line, enabling trains to reverse at Sheffield Midland to continue to Leeds.

This seems somewhat unlikely, as it would be slow to Leeds.

4) The junction will be south-facing only: some trains will go to Sheffield, some to Leeds, some to York and points north, but no combinations.

We'll see next week or whenever.

Meanwhile, where will the Sheffield bypass run? Will it still follow the Meadowhall route but without a station? Or a different route?
 
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tbtc

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Higgins wouldn't be drawn on the exact details, which will be announced next week. However, it does appear that we're looking at Sheffield being served by a spur, presumably using classic compatibles to avoid a complete rebuild of Midland. The problem with this is that it won't be able to be served by the same frequency of trains as Meadowhall, unless trains from Leeds route through Sheffield, which would lengthen overall journey times. All sounds very intriguing and I look forward to hearing it from the horse's mouth next week.

If this is:

  • The HS2 line from London to Leeds rerouted to the east of Rotherham (flatter land - following the M1 - M18 alignment)
  • A spur into Sheffield Midland
  • No "second" South Yorkshire station

Then that turns Sheffield into a terminus, meaning we may get one train an hour (to the south) rather than several an hour (to London/ Birmingham/ Leeds/ Newcastle)? There's only eighteen paths an hour from Euston, after all.

It makes Sheffield an easy "extra" to drop from the main scheme (or to kick into the long grass - "phase four")

It makes it harder to join to HS3 (no delta junction around Barnsley, if the main line is being slewn over to the east)

If that is the case then I'm disappointed. But, we'll have to wait and see what next week brings, I guess.
 

WatcherZero

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Yes thats my understanding from the local council it becomes a terminus then rather wildly they begin campaigning for additional two sheffield HS2 stations.
 

JohnB57

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Tom Ingall's piece on Look North tonight suggested, as he did on Twitter, that the link from HS2 will allow trains running via Chesterfield and Sheffield to serve those locations using existing infrastructure, joining HS2 again at some point north of Sheffield. He quoted journey times of 75 minutes to London and 22 minutes to Leeds, which seem somewhat optimistic if services are choked on the loop.
 

snowball

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There's an already proposed westward spur at Staveley to connect the proposed maintenance depot. (It has upset the Chesterfield Canal restorers a lot.) That could perhaps be extended further west and serve as the southern connection to Chesterfield and Sheffield.
 

deltic

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Tom Ingall's piece on Look North tonight suggested, as he did on Twitter, that the link from HS2 will allow trains running via Chesterfield and Sheffield to serve those locations using existing infrastructure, joining HS2 again at some point north of Sheffield. He quoted journey times of 75 minutes to London and 22 minutes to Leeds, which seem somewhat optimistic if services are choked on the loop.

I would have thought Snowball's insightful comments were more likely - ie no through running.

The new situation probably means Sheffield loses one of its trains to London and two to Birmingham - bit of a trade off for the benefit of having a city centre station
 

DimTim

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With the news today that HS2 likely to be under funded & a need to cut costs what are the benefits of running both HS stock & classic compatible? Having to provide platforms at each station for both types of stock will be expensive.
As I understand it trains will continue north through York in the East, Preston in the Western spur so there will be much need for classic compatible. A London - Birmingham could reverse to Sheffield, then reverse to Leeds giving improved journey times between intermediate points.
 

HSTEd

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All HS2 dedicated platforms would be built for Captive Trains.
Classic Compatible trains have additional steps to be compatible with them.
 

snowball

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Tom Ingall's piece on Look North tonight suggested, as he did on Twitter, that the link from HS2 will allow trains running via Chesterfield and Sheffield to serve those locations using existing infrastructure, joining HS2 again at some point north of Sheffield. He quoted journey times of 75 minutes to London and 22 minutes to Leeds, which seem somewhat optimistic if services are choked on the loop.
I missed his piece on the teatime edition, which may have been longer, but on the late edition he said what you report, and also that the main route will be unchanged, via Meadowhall, just without a station there.

I'm not sure if this is compatible with the claim I've read somewhere today that the cost of an expensive viaduct at Meadowhall, on difficult geology, will now be avoided.

So in terms of my post #19 it's to be option 1, but the amount of extra high-speed line that will be required is much less than I envisaged at the time I wrote that - existing lines will be mainly used instead.

Tom Ingalls also said there will be two Sheffield trains an hour. I'm not sure if these will be both London or one will be Brum. I haven't been following the discussions about service patterns.
 
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Altnabreac

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I missed his piece on the teatime edition, which may have been longer, but on the late edition he said what you report, and also that the main route will be unchanged, via Meadowhall, just without a station there.

I'm not sure if this is compatible with the claim I've read somewhere today that the cost of an expensive viaduct at Meadowhall, on difficult geology, will now be avoided.

So in terms of my post #19 it's to be option 1, but the amount of extra high-speed line that will be required is much less than I envisaged at the time I wrote that - existing lines will be mainly used instead.

Tom Ingalls also said there will be two Sheffield trains an hour. I'm not sure if these will be both London or one will be Brum. I haven't been following the discussions about service patterns.

I think the issue with the difficult geology is that a 4 track viaduct with platforms as well is much more challenging than just a 2 track through route.

There are the 2 paths that were formerly assigned to Heathrow so it could be 2tph to London but perhaps a Birmingham / London split is more likely.

Once you have come off HS2 and have classic compatbles running anyway it is quite easy to rum through to other destinations. Could serve Meadowhall, Rotherham, Doncaster, Hull, Wakefield, Bradford etc using the same train paths so definite possibilities to open up access.
 

Haydn1971

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The viaduct at Meadowhall would be easier without a station integrated and could also be at a lower level potentially - although that might require some alignment tweaks to avoid the roundabout at J34 South.

There are perhaps more direct and less costly routes to the east of Rotherham, but that would be new territory in terms of route objectors.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Also, the Staveley depot spur wouldn't be appropriate as its too far north for Chesterfield.
 
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