My ideas for routes between Leeds and Sheffield

[matacaster]

Some time ago, Metro looked at a fast service between the above two places to alleviate overcrowding and reduce the total journey time. They came up with a limited stoppervia Kirkgate and L&YR route (via Darton).

Can anyone advise the likely time for an alternative route - NON-STOP via Woodlesford, Pontefrct Monkhill, Pontefract Baghill, Moorthorpe, Bolton-on-dearne, ONLY stop at ROTHERHAM before Sheffield?


I am aware that
-the direct straight line between methley junction and Castleford south junction (ie avoiding Castleford and Altofts is missing at present - could this be reinstated easily?

-the curve between Mankhill and Baghill is currently missing - is it viable to bring it back to use?

 

[30907]

Houses in the way at Methley Jn.
Big industrial unit at Bondgate in Castleford.
That's just from Googlemaps, not local knowledge.
Can't guess time, but bound to be slower than via Wakefield.

 

[NorthernSpirit]

The curve between Mankhill and Baghill is currently missing - is it viable to bring it back to use?

It would need a full rebuild as the parapet has gone on the viaduct crossing between the two stations.

 

[anti-pacer]

Here's one..... National Express!

Probably faster than the train between Leeds and Meadowhall at least.

 

[yorkie]

could this be reinstated easily?

No, and why would they?

the curve between Mankhill and Baghill is currently missing - is it viable to bring it back to use?

No, what business case would there be?

Reinstating infrastructure in the Methley and Pontefract areas (the latter requiring buildings to be demolished!) simply so that a train could go a long way round, and trundle round implausible curves at Pontefract rather than one of the more existing more direct routes would be bonkers. Sorry!

 

[gerryuk]

HS2 should solve this?

 

[Senex]

You can get 40 minutes between Leeds and Sheffield over the present route via Wakefield Westgate and Moorthorpe, and there is still scope for some small improvement. Short of the construction of an entirely new line the only way to better that would be to restore the North Midland line between Wath Road Jn and Goosehill Jn -- oh but BR Residuary allowed an industrial estate to be built on the alignment at Wath Road.

 

[ianhr]

Short of the construction of an entirely new line the only way to better that would be to restore the North Midland line between Wath Road Jn and Goosehill Jn -- oh but BR Residuary allowed an industrial estate to be built on the alignment at Wath Road.

Yes, this was a good route for non-stop Leeds-Sheffield trains (avoiding Wakefield, but there were once connections at Normanton). It was engineered for speed, was not as congested and had fewer junctions with conflicting movements than the Moorthorpe route. It is criminal that they allowed it to become obstructed.

 

[Blamethrower]

I commuted for a week from Darton to Sheffield. A pacer, all stops, on track that felt like it had been nailed together by an ape. Seriously the most uncomfortable commute ever so I ended up driving in.

Maybe a route upgrade would be better, perhaps the track has been replaced since I was up there, if it hasn't, it needs to be.

As someone has pointed out, hs2 should actually solve this and so I can't see any reopenings or upgrades happening

 

[deltic08]

Yes, this was a good route for non-stop Leeds-Sheffield trains (avoiding Wakefield, but there were once connections at Normanton). It was engineered for speed, was not as congested and had fewer junctions with conflicting movements than the Moorthorpe route. It is criminal that they allowed it to become obstructed.

South of Goosehill Junction speed was eventually raised to 110mph at great cost and then somebody decided to route everything via Doncaster as it was a few minutes faster from York to Sheffield. Now XC travels via Leeds to York taking much longer.

 

[bluenoxid]

I don't think HS2 will solve Leeds to Sheffield journey times and capacity as Sheffield will be served via Meadowhall. A big development will be how the areas networks will develop to serve the HS2 station.

 

[Senex]

South of Goosehill Junction speed was eventually raised to 110mph at great cost and then somebody decided to route everything via Doncaster as it was a few minutes faster from York to Sheffield. Now XC travels via Leeds to York taking much longer.

You're so right about the painfully slow journey between York and Sheffield via Leeds. The Doncaster route is also much slower than it needs to be because of large amounts of pathing time in the schedules, mainly in the Doncaster to Sheffield (and v.v.) section.

But the story of the North Midland is more complicated. The planned high-speed route between Sheffield and Leeds/York was to have been the North Midland, with York traffic turning off at Altofts. That's why Altofts Jn was laid in for 60 and Colton is for 125 both ways. There were plans to put in the fast lines at Normanton (designed back in Midland Railway days and never built) and correct the Castleford kink. But the upgrade of the main line itself never got beyond 90/80 speeds. Then came the attribution of infrastructure costs to single users, which meant that the Cross Country business was landed with the entire cost of Sheffield to Leeds and Altofts to Colton. It's easy to see why in that climate the option of running via the S&K, which by then was pretty well free of subsidence restrictions (not so when the move back to the North Midland began), and South Kirkby to Leeds and via Conisbrough to Doncaster was an attractive one, in that it not only save a good number of miles of track as main user but also avoided the costs of dealing with a major bank-slip that had developed near Royston Jn.

If HS2 is not built and if a fast route between Sheffield and Leeds is still thought desirable, it would still probably be easier and cheaper to rebuild the North Midland line, restoring the missing couple of miles at Wath Road (despite the development there), than massively upgrading any other existing route -- and certainly cheaper than building a completely new line and facing the trouble and costs of 40 miles of land acquisition through a fairly well built up area.

 

[HowardGWR]

@Senex
It is not clear to me which bit near Wath Road you think is built on. It looked clear of buildings to me. Just a crossroad indication would be helpful. Are you trying to connect up the North Midland to the GC around Dovecliff?

 

[Senex]

@Senex
It is not clear to me which bit near Wath Road you think is built on. It looked clear of buildings to me. Just a crossroad indication would be helpful. Are you trying to connect up the North Midland to the GC around Dovecliff?

See Google Earth 53° 29' 55.69" N / 1° 18' 43.74" W as far as 53° 30' 54.58" N / 1° 22' 07.07" W for the section where the formation appears to be lost, with the southern half of this portion now built over. When you travel north on the North Midland as you swing right on to the S&K you look straight ahead at the warehouses on the old alignment. Certainlyh I wasn't thinking of trying to link with the GC line.

 

[Oswyntail]

You can get 40 minutes between Leeds and Sheffield....

That is for 35 miles(roughly) with one stop; Google maps says it is only a few minutes slower by road, city centre to city centre. Not exactly enticing to the general passenger - of whom there are quite a few, judging by how the XC services empty at Sheffield in the morning.
I have long been led to believe that this sluggish approach goes back to typical inter-Riding rivalry, when no one would believe anyone could possibly want to travel between the two, so made it as hard as possible.

 

[BantamMenace]

Does anyone have the line speeds from Leeds to Sheffield via Wakefield Westgate to hand? I'm presuming the ECML bits are 125mph or near enough?

 

[ianhr]

That is for 35 miles(roughly) with one stop; Google maps says it is only a few minutes slower by road, city centre to city centre. Not exactly enticing to the general passenger - of whom there are quite a few, judging by how the XC services empty at Sheffield in the morning.
I have long been led to believe that this sluggish approach goes back to typical inter-Riding rivalry, when no one would believe anyone could possibly want to travel between the two, so made it as hard as possible.

I think the slack timings were originally due to mining subsidence but this is no longer a problem.
However the South Kirby-Leeds section is now severely congested with x2 EC tph + x2 Leeds-Doncaster/Sheffield local 2tph + XC, + EMT workings to Leeds (early morning/late evening) along with occasional freight, ecs & light engine workings. All over a 2 track line with the only passing loops at Hemsworth. Very few trains, of any of the TOCs, run to time over this stretch without signal checks and on time arrivals at Leeds are only achieved because large amounts of recovery time are allowed.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Does anyone have the line speeds from Leeds to Sheffield via Wakefield Westgate to hand? I'm presuming the ECML bits are 125mph or near enough?

I doubt EC ever run at 125mph between South Kirby & Leeds, I think the max permitted line speed is lower than this (100? or 110mph?) & there are several PSRs and frequent signal checks due to congestion.

The slowest timings have to be for Pacers which are often diagrammed for Leeds-Sheffield locals via Moorthorpe. The effect is most obvious climbing the bank from Holbeck to Ardsley tunnel southbound. The timing for Leeds-Doncaster EMUs is 2 minutes less to Outwood than for a Leeds-Sheffield DMU to allow for this.

 

[Bevan Price]

The best & cheapest way to improve capacity is easy - provide longer trains - at least 6 to 8 coaches instead of 4 car Voyagers.

 

[ianhr]

The best & cheapest way to improve capacity is easy - provide longer trains - at least 6 to 8 coaches instead of 4 car Voyagers.

I agree totally!.....the same problem as with TPE!

 

[BantamMenace]

Electrify from Fitzwilliam and Doncaster to Sheffield asap as well so the sheffield stoppers can go over to EMUs as well

 

[Haydn1971]

Electrify from Fitzwilliam and Doncaster to Sheffield asap as well so the sheffield stoppers can go over to EMUs as well

That's not gonna fix anything without additional carriages

 

[tbtc]

I'm not sure what problem the OP is trying to solve here - it seems quite a complicated "solution" (building new sections of railway) to find capacity, when there are only two other trains an hour from Leeds to Woodlesford and two other trains an hour from Barnsley to Meadowhall (one of which has also served the Wakefield Kirkgate to Barnsley section) - so it's not like there's not plenty of spare capacity on the route that the semi-fasts do take.

Running through the Rotherham loop (as the OP suggests) would add more trains to a bottleneck (flat crossing at the north end of the loop, single track at Holmes, flat crossing at the south end), on top of the flat crossings at Moorthorpe and Swinton.

For the cost of a new line in the Pontefract area, we could have a few grade separated junctions and a double track line to Rotherham which would be of much more practical use for many more people each hour.

The best & cheapest way to improve capacity is easy - provide longer trains - at least 6 to 8 coaches instead of 4 car Voyagers.

True.

The problem that we have is that the length of the hourly (Glasgow) Edinburgh - Plymouth service means its hard to add extra capacity to certain bits - if it were a shorter service then it'd be easier.

I've suggested in the past that we run the Edinburgh service via Doncaster instead and replace the current Newcastle - Doncaster - Birmingham (etc) service with one that starts at Leeds (freeing up a Newcastle - Leeds path for a TPE EMU), which would allow the Edinburgh service to be faster to Birmingham and would allow the Leeds - Sheffield/ Birmingham service to be longer (maybe three fewer Voyagers required to run that service pattern, with a few more TPE EMUs required -that should be easier to source).

Electrify from Fitzwilliam and Doncaster to Sheffield asap as well so the sheffield stoppers can go over to EMUs as well

Agreed - having the same traction on the Leeds - Fitzwilliam - Sheffield service as the Leeds - Fitzwilliam - Doncaster service would mean a faster service from Leeds to Fitzwilliam, plus a more consistent journey time between the two stoppers (making it easier to path the "fast" services).

It may even get the Leeds - Fitzwilliam - Sheffield service (approx 1h15) down to something fairly close to the "semi fasts" between the cities (around the hour mark), which would smooth passenger flows better.

Whilst there are other things not on the CP5 list, it's frustrating that this (forty mile?) bit isn't currently on the agenda.

 

[Senex]

Does anyone have the line speeds from Leeds to Sheffield via Wakefield Westgate to hand? I'm presuming the ECML bits are 125mph or near enough?

The speed-profile is very messy indeed. Going northbound it is 15 to clear of Sheffield station (centre at 158½ miles), then rising to 70 and 80 and then 90 at 160.6 miles. You drop to 50 just round the Masborough curve and then after quarter of a mile at 80 go to 100 through to the site of the former Wath Road Jn, where the curve on to the S&K is limited to 85. It's then 100 to ¾ mile short of Moorthorpe where you drop to 60, and then 50 through the junction and round the curve down to South Kirkby Jn. Once on the WR&G line it's 100 to just north of Sandal, then after a short 90 down to 50 and then 35 for the curve into Wakefield. Up again to 75 from the ends of the platforms right through to the approaches to Leeds except for 85 from 177 to 180½. And if you go through the platform loop at Wakefield, it's 25 into it and a really tedious 20 out well clear of the north end of the platform. Approaching Leeds it's down to 60 at 184 miles, 40 at 185 miles, 25 a quarter of a mile further on, and then 15 from the platform ends. It's a very jagged speed-profile, and no trace at all of 125!

 

[HowardGWR]

See Google Earth 53° 29' 55.69" N / 1° 18' 43.74" W as far as 53° 30' 54.58" N / 1° 22' 07.07" W for the section where the formation appears to be lost, with the southern half of this portion now built over. When you travel north on the North Midland as you swing right on to the S&K you look straight ahead at the warehouses on the old alignment. Certainly I wasn't thinking of trying to link with the GC line.

Thanks very much, I've worked it all out now. I see that the line went more or less on what they call Manvers Way on the map. Was it a fast route to Wakefield (eventually) then. I see the line was kept open for the collieries so might it also not have been subject to subsidence?

 

[Grumpy]

The route from Leeds via Westgate is certainly not intensively used. The core service is 2 stoppers, one Cross Country and one or two East Coast per hour.

As someone who has needed to travel from Leeds to Edinburgh on almost a weekly basis, I do not agree that the through Cross Country service should be discontinued. Compared to the previous offering that usually involved a change at York, the through service is blessing and helped kill off the Leeds-Edinburgh air service.

The second Cross Country service that currently runs from York-Sheffield via Doncaster should be diverted to run via Leeds and give Leeds a better service to Birmingham etc. as well as down to Oxford and Reading.

 

[BantamMenace]

The second Cross Country service that currently runs from York-Sheffield via Doncaster should be diverted to run via Leeds and give Leeds a better service to Birmingham etc. as well as down to Oxford and Reading.

I believe this is an aspiration for XC as Leeds is a good source of business but there is no path for it.

Thank you Senex for the line speeds, surely these can be improved to minimum 90 bar the tight curves as well as improve the Wakefield platform entries and exits.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

That is for 35 miles(roughly) with one stop; Google maps says it is only a few minutes slower by road, city centre to city centre. Not exactly enticing to the general passenger - of whom there are quite a few, judging by how the XC services empty at Sheffield in the morning.
I have long been led to believe that this sluggish approach goes back to typical inter-Riding rivalry, when no one would believe anyone could possibly want to travel between the two, so made it as hard as possible.

Sheffield and Leeds were both in the West Riding weren't they? Or was Sheffield in the East? Of course, there wasn't a South Riding, the term 'Riding' being a corruption of 'third'.

Electrify from Fitzwilliam and Doncaster to Sheffield asap as well so the sheffield stoppers can go over to EMUs as well

That's not gonna fix anything without additional carriages

The Leeds-Moorthorpe-Sheffield service is usually a 2/3-car pacer or a 2-car sprinter, with some 4-car services in the peaks. If electrified the likely stock would be 319/321/322 or similar, which at least matches anything on there today for capacity and leaves it for dust speed-wise. EMUs would also cope better with those gradients than a 144!

I mentioned the Holbeck viaduct on another thread, bringing that stretch back into use might relieve congestion at the Western end of Leeds station, with Cross Country services running towards York from Wakefield and v.v. being sent through platforms 15 & 16 and rejoining the current route near the football ground. Wouldn't make a massive difference to overall journey times though.

 

[Haydn1971]

Sheffield and Leeds were both in the West Riding weren't they? Or was Sheffield in the East? Of course, there wasn't a South Riding, the term 'Riding' being a corruption of 'third'.

Sheffield and Leeds were both in West Riding.

The Leeds-Moorthorpe-Sheffield service is usually a 2/3-car pacer or a 2-car sprinter, with some 4-car services in the peaks. If electrified the likely stock would be 319/321/322 or similar, which at least matches anything on there today for capacity and leaves it for dust speed-wise. EMUs would also cope better with those gradients than a 144!

I don't think I've ever seen a Northern four car unit on Leeds-Sheffield run - always 2-3 car Sprinter or 153+Pacer

 

[Senex]

Thanks very much, I've worked it all out now. I see that the line went more or less on what they call Manvers Way on the map. Was it a fast route to Wakefield (eventually) then. I see the line was kept open for the collieries so might it also not have been subject to subsidence?

It was absolutely appallingly affected by subsidence in the 50s and 60s and the Sheffield-Leeds run was painfully slow. But by the early 70s the subsidence had pretty well stopped and it was possible to bring the line back to decent speeds. It never served Wakefield (or Barnsley), the original engineer preferring a good alignment and good gradients to going through the principal towns en route. But that alignment was (is?) a very good one and there can be little doubt that it could have offered a railway good for 110 or perhaps even 125 all the way from the Masborough curve through to Holbeck Jn and the curves of the Leeds connecting line.

But as I've explained, a different approach to route-charging led to its abandonment and we are where we are. Restoration now would not be impossible, but would be much more expensive than it might have been. (As an aside, remember that the closure of Colwich to Stone was also examined, but rejected. That's how desperate they were to cur back InterCity's costs at the time.)

 

[Grumpy]

I believe this is an aspiration for XC as Leeds is a good source of business but there is no path for it.

.

Yes but I have difficulty believing it. The busiest time of day for departures is possibly the period 1640-1740 (7 trains down the line in this period) but they manage to squeeze in the 1640 to Reading. If they can manage in the busy period why not the rest of the day?