Sheffield area remodelling: current layout is not fit for purpose

[WestRiding]

The track is that rusty and worn out, I doubt it would even activate the track circuits

It would more than likely need some metal zig-zaps akin to what's on Platform 3 and 4 for it to be used.

It's not track circuited, so not a problem.

 

[Killingworth]

For information the bottleneck at Dore should be resolved by end 2023. Invitations to tender for a 30 months design and build contract were issued in October with a closing date in November. They'll be being considered now with a decision anticpated later in 2020 when the DfT should finally allow the Hope Valley Capacity Improvement Scheme to go ahead. Spades not due in the ground until 2022.

That will incude lengthening the Heeley loop as well as redoubling through Dore & Totley station and adding length to the Dore West to Dore South Junctions chord to accommodate longer freight trains.

The HS2 project includes raising most of the bridges from Dore into Sheffield with the whole length made 3 track. This is broadly what seems to have been planned for MML electrification where an electricity feeder station was pencilled in beside Dore West Junction.

There's no longer room to rebuild 4 tracks into Sheffield from the south. Even slewing tracks between the Tesco's and Sainsbury's supermarkets at Archer Road will be tight. Various other obstacles have appeared along the former trackbed since the original tracks were lifted and the remaining tracks slewed. Of course demolishing Tesco's and building a new supermarket above the railway might be a good idea, with a park and ride facilty to back a new station on the restored slow tracks beneath - dream on.

I'm not totally convinced that there isn't room to do a dive under for the Hope Valley tracks at some point. The Sheaf can't be a greater obstacle than was encountered by all those tube lines below the Thames, but it would be costly.

Remodelling of Sheffield station was anticipated for MML electrification and is now for HS2, some time soon? (soon - railway parlance = 15-20years)

Congestion at the north end of Sheffield impacts the south. TPE trains from Cleethorpes are frequently delayed, possibly at Grimsby, Scunthorpe or Doncaster, but if they get through on time they often come to a halt in a queue to get through Meadowhall and the throat into Sheffield. (XC trains suffer from the same congestion issues.) The xx.11 departure slot is missed and Northern's xx.14 is delayed. That can be held further after the TPE service has left, possibly for XC or EMR trains in either direction.

There was an option to add extra crossovers at either side of Dore that would have allowed bi-directional traffic through the station. They have been omitted from the work to be done, as has any access to the chord/loop from the Sheffield direction. Either would have been useful to allow greater resilience and might have allowed an option for an occasional train from the north or east to run down to terminate at Dore instead of Sheffield. When remodelling does eventually take place at Sheffield platform space will be in short supply while the work proceeds.

 

[Meerkat]

There's no longer room to rebuild 4 tracks into Sheffield from the south. Even slewing tracks between the Tesco's and Sainsbury's supermarkets at Archer Road will be tight. Various other obstacles have appeared along the former trackbed since the original tracks were lifted

What else is in the way other than the supermarkets?
It would be a disgrace if quadrupling is stopped by tin sheds that could be altered or rebuilt really quickly. There is a pretty good chance that in the current retail market the supermarkets would welcome being paid to reduce floor space!

 

[MarkyT]

What else is in the way other than the supermarkets?
It would be a disgrace if quadrupling is stopped by tin sheds that could be altered or rebuilt really quickly. There is a pretty good chance that in the current retail market the supermarkets would welcome being paid to reduce floor space!

Thing is three tracks with some bidirectional on some or all might actually be better, or at least better value while being perfectly suitable, than four throughout, considering the crossing moves required at the junctions and Sheffield station. The middle track could be thought of as a 'centre turning lane' approaching each junction for instance. Something like this at Dore could be very flexible:

 

[Meerkat]

Thing is three tracks with some bidirectional on some or all might actually be better, or at least better value while being perfectly suitable, than four throughout, considering the crossing moves required at the junctions and Sheffield station. The middle track could be thought of as a 'centre turning lane' approaching each junction for instance. Something like this at Dore could be very flexible:
View attachment 73269

This is true but I assumed the HS2 would need a clear run all the way which might be hard to timetable on 3 lines (bearing in mind how essential it will be to hit the HS2 trunk right on the money).

 

[MarkyT]

This is true but I assumed the HS2 would need a clear run all the way which might be hard to timetable on 3 lines (bearing in mind how essential it will be to hit the HS2 trunk right on the money).

Well the other way to achieve that would be to give the HS2 expresses absolute priority through the area in real-time, which means having somewhere to hold other services clear if they're running late with minimal knock-on delay to each other.

 

[Killingworth]

This is true but I assumed the HS2 would need a clear run all the way which might be hard to timetable on 3 lines (bearing in mind how essential it will be to hit the HS2 trunk right on the money).

We might think that but the HS2 modelling is currently for 3 tracks. This is where the blockage is. A Meeting house for the Pymouth Brethren, some commercial units and Tesco's have been built on the old track bed on the left and Sainsbury's is on the right. Since taking this picture another building has been built beside the railway on the right. A third track can probably be squeezed through with some slewing.

Various other bits and pieces, from both railway and other parties, have encroached onto the old trackbed down the Sheaf valley making it very costly to restore all 4 tracks all the way as they were until the 1960s. The bridge over London Road would need to be rebuilt at a higher level than it formerly was to allow traffic through beneath.

 

[edwin_m]

Thing is three tracks with some bidirectional on some or all might actually be better, or at least better value while being perfectly suitable, than four throughout, considering the crossing moves required at the junctions and Sheffield station. The middle track could be thought of as a 'centre turning lane' approaching each junction for instance. Something like this at Dore could be very flexible:
View attachment 73269

With one extra crossover it could alternatively be worked so that Nottingham->Liverpool trains used the westernmost track out of Sheffield and run to Dore without touching the Fast lines. This assumes there is a platform available for it to reverse on the west side of Sheffield station, and something similar could apply to the stopper. Trains in the opposite direction would use the Down Fast however, so their paths would cross somewhere in the Dore area.

 

[Killingworth]

With one extra crossover it could alternatively be worked so that Nottingham->Liverpool trains used the westernmost track out of Sheffield and run to Dore without touching the Fast lines. This assumes there is a platform available for it to reverse on the west side of Sheffield station, and something similar could apply to the stopper. Trains in the opposite direction would use the Down Fast however, so their paths would cross somewhere in the Dore area.

As the lengthening of the Heeley loop won't be complete until late 2023 (already gone out to tender and too late to change anything) any further improvements won't be happening for some time. The lead times from idea, to plan, to tender, to completion and actual use are very long.

 

[Meerkat]

If it all works with 3 tracks then great, but once 3 are slewed it will be a pretty permanent capacity restriction.
For a project of this scale a few sheds with zero heritage value should not be allowed to be a problem.
With Sheffield council etc on board the whole site could be redeveloped to everyone’s advantage.

Of course more likely is that the railway is compromised and then a few years later Tesco’s redevelop anyway.....

 

[HSTEd]

It's not like HS2 is going to significantly increase traffic..... two trains an hour extra at most from the South and thats about it.

 

[Senex]

Aren't the two buildings closest to us in Killingworth's picture (the red brick one and the one with the very shallow roof-incline immediately behind it) both very much more recent than the main supermarket building beyond? If that's the case, why was planning permission ever given for them if by that time both Network Rail and the City Council were aware that there might be a need for re-widening the railway? The two lines there at present look as if they are simply on the alignment of the old fast (earlier slow) lines that were the original widened pair.
"Hear, hear" to Meerkat's comments in his lines 2 and 3 above, but given that this is Britain, I suspect his line 4 is all too correct!

 

[Meerkat]

It's not like HS2 is going to significantly increase traffic..... two trains an hour extra at most from the South and thats about it.

Two fast trains that really need to hit their path on HS2!
And are other services slowed down or prevented by the current restraints - TPE/XC/EMR?

 

[HSTEd]

Two fast trains that really need to hit their path on HS2!

The simple answer is to take a leaf out of modern railway playbook.
Pad the path to death.
Done.

 

[MarkyT]

The simple answer is to take a leaf out of modern railway playbook.
Pad the path to death.
Done.

No. Put the high priority trains on the graph first with minimal recovery time, give them absolute real-time priority, then build everything else around them and incorporate reasonable pathing and recovery time in THEIR schedules, ensuring the infrastructure provides suitable places for them to be regulated as necessary without too much knock-on delay. That's robust.

 

[Spartacus]

No. Put the high priority trains on the graph first with minimal recovery time, give them absolute real-time priority, then build everything else around them and incorporate reasonable pathing and recovery time in THEIR schedules, ensuring the infrastructure provides suitable places for them to be regulated as necessary without too much knock-on delay. That's robust.

Then you find you can’t fit in all the services you need and end up with bizarre solutions that don’t work in any form apart from as a box ticking exercise as happened to services either side of Huddersfield, local services and freight being squeezed out.

Clearly you can’t make a 60/75mph train do 100/125mph to make it fit the white space on a graph, but you can slow the fast one down to do so. It’s what has to happen on a congested railway to fit in different services.

Pathing is a good deal different to padding too.

 

[MarkyT]

Pathing is a good deal different to padding too.

And it wasn't me who used the padding term.

 

[HSTEd]

Pathing is a good deal different to padding too.

I was referring to simply having the train wait ten minutes (or more!) at Birmingham International or Toton before proceeding into the core.

 

[edwin_m]

I believe the 18TPH on the core is made up of 3min intervals with a 6min interval every 30min. So if a train turns up late is can be dropped into the next slot, delaying others by 3min each until the next 6min gap. 3min delays should be recoverable within turnaround time at destination, the original late train hasn't got much later but might have to be put on some kind of quick turnaround contingency plan to be on time for its next working.