Is there a case for extending some St Pancras to Nottingham services to Mansfield?

[Mattderby]

Hi All, is there a case for extending 1 or 2 trains per day from Nottingham to Mansfield to provide a direct service to London? Seeing as it has a population of 110,000 I am sure there will be some demand? Seeing as Harrogate or Skipton are smaller but see LNER Leeds services extended to them.

 

[Brubulus]

Hi All, is there a case for extending 1 or 2 trains per day from Nottingham to Mansfield to provide a direct service to London? Seeing as it has a population of 110,000 I am sure there will be some demand? Seeing as Harrogate or Skipton are smaller but see LNER Leeds services extended to them.

1tpd extensions aren't that useful, either they're badly timed and a fresh air shuttle or they take stock away from strengthening peak services. What would be much better for Mansfield would be a Nottingham to Sheffield via Mansfield service that could then restore 2tph on both the Worksop-Sheffield and Nottingham to Worksop lines, as existed pre-COVID, but more useful since Mansfield would have a direct link to Sheffield.

 

[A S Leib]

1tpd extensions aren't that useful, either they're badly timed and a fresh air shuttle or they take stock away from strengthening peak services. What would be much better for Mansfield would be a Nottingham to Sheffield via Mansfield service that could then restore 2tph on both the Worksop-Sheffield and Nottingham to Worksop lines, as existed pre-COVID, but more useful since Mansfield would have a direct link to Sheffield.

Given it looks like there's currently a half-hour wait at Worksop either way for Mansfield to Sheffield, I don't think that would need much or any retiming to be particularly useful.

 

[AlastairFraser]

1tpd extensions aren't that useful, either they're badly timed and a fresh air shuttle or they take stock away from strengthening peak services. What would be much better for Mansfield would be a Nottingham to Sheffield via Mansfield service that could then restore 2tph on both the Worksop-Sheffield and Nottingham to Worksop lines, as existed pre-COVID, but more useful since Mansfield would have a direct link to Sheffield.

Perhaps a connection at Worksop into that proposed Hull Trains Sheffield route would be wise too.

 

[Brubulus]

Perhaps a connection at Worksop into that proposed Hull Trains Sheffield route would be wise too.

That'll be pretty infrequent, not much faster than via Nottingham and unlikely to even happen in the first place given the DfT and NR opinion on open access.

 

[AlastairFraser]

That'll be pretty infrequent, not much faster than via Nottingham and unlikely to even happen in the first place given the DfT and NR opinion on open access.

It will be, but it's additional capacity which may be available at a much more reasonable price than a currently franchised operator would offer tickets at, so it may incentivise people to connect into it there (or use buses/drive in if the local rail service doesn't offer the optimum connections).

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Hi All, is there a case for extending 1 or 2 trains per day from Nottingham to Mansfield to provide a direct service to London? Seeing as it has a population of 110,000 I am sure there will be some demand? Seeing as Harrogate or Skipton are smaller but see LNER Leeds services extended to them.

The experience of the past forty years or so has shown that if a proper service is provided to well-populated areas, patronage increases substantially. As Mansfield has a large population, it seems obvious to me that a good and regular service to London should be laid on, if only as an experiment. This new service should start at Worksop which, I believe, has about 60,000 residents. I'd be particularly interested to see what would happen if this service did not call at either Nottingham or Derby but instead ran non-stop from Mansfield to East Midlands Parkway, then calling at Loughborough and Leicester.

 

[A S Leib]

How frequent and well-used was the Barnsley to St. Pancras service before it was ended?

 

[43074]

The experience of the past forty years or so has shown that if a proper service is provided to well-populated areas, patronage increases substantially. As Mansfield has a large population, it seems obvious to me that a good and regular service to London should be laid on, if only as an experiment. This new service should start at Worksop which, I believe, has about 60,000 residents. I'd be particularly interested to see what would happen if this service did not call at either Nottingham or Derby but instead ran non-stop from Mansfield to East Midlands Parkway, then calling at Loughborough and Leicester.

There's not much point starting at Worksop in fairness, it'll always be far quicker going to London via Retford than trundling down the Robin Hood Line. As for Mansfield having a London service, EMR don't have the luxury of enough Intercity units for that - even if they did have a surplus of units it would be far more worthwhile running more 10 cars on the core route.

 

[ChrisC]

I don’t think a through train to London from Mansfield will ever happen, but a town the size of Mansfield should have a more frequent service than it has had since the Covid timetable reductions. The Mon-Fri Nottingham to Mansfield Woodhouse trains should be returned to the timetable to bring back 2tph between Mansfield and Nottingham. A half hourly service perhaps operated by 2 car 170’s would then release the valuable 3 car 170’s currently on the route to be used in other services.

Better connections at Worksop for journeys to the north would also be good and that was also lost during Covid when the short lived Sheffield to Gainsborough Central trains were withdrawn.

 

[edwin_m]

I'd be particularly interested to see what would happen if this service did not call at either Nottingham or Derby but instead ran non-stop from Mansfield to East Midlands Parkway, then calling at Loughborough and Leicester.

As for Mansfield having a London service, EMR don't have the luxury of enough Intercity units for that - even if they did have a surplus of units it would be far more worthwhile running more 10 cars on the core route.

A separate Mansfield train would also need another path into London, unless it knocks a hole into the regular interval Nottingham or Sheffield service. There's really no capacity for that south of Bedford.

There was a proposal (dubbed the Maid Marian Line) to run from Mansfield or even Edwinstowe via the freight-only line to Pye Bridge then to the proposed Toton interchange and possibly onward to Leicester or Derby. That, I assume, has died now the interchange is no longer happening.