- Sheffield - Lincoln line should be served by East Midlands Railway rather than Northern
If you're looking for Northern services to transfer to EMR then (based on pre-Covid timetables) I'd consider the hourly Doncaster - Scunthorpe service
Then again, I'd be happy with EMR taking over the Nottingham - Sheffield - Leeds - Sheffield - Lincoln - Sheffield - Leeds - Sheffield - Nottingham circuit, but these things are often a lot more about where depots are located than anything else (e.g. the Reading - Gatwick service has been Thames Trains/ FGW/ GWR because the depot is at Reading)
The proposed Manchester area changes would be a lot simpler if Northern operated the Llandudno - Manchester service (I don't think it's unrealistic to give Manchester - north Wales to an "English" TOC, given that Bristol - south Wales is part of GWR), but I can't see the politicians being happy to apparently lose control over it (and politics matters in such areas)!
I’ve often heard this point about a through link to Meadowhall having to be maintained from Worksop, Retford and other stations on the Sheffield to Lincoln Line. Whenever anyone suggests any changes on the Sheffield to Lincoln route this is often given as a reason why it can’t be done. I remember this being given as a reason when someone suggested a Lincoln-Sheffield-Manchester service would be a good idea and it would also cut down on the number of trains needing to reverse from the bay platforms at Sheffield. Again this is often raised when someone suggests Sheffield to Lincoln is given to EMR.
If this link is so important why hasn’t it been restored following the reduced timetables during Covid? Trains have not run from the Lincoln Line through to Meadowhall for at least a year now and as far as I understand will not do so again until December this year at the very earliest. I would like to suggest that the link to Meadowhall is most important for the local stations between Worksop and Sheffield but that was lost 2 years ago when the Lincoln trains ran non stop between Sheffield and Worksop. This was following the introduction of trains to Gainsborough Central, which is another service that has not been restored after Covid.
Yeah... my understanding was that it was an SYPTE requirement to maintain a through service from the "south Rotherham" stations to Meadowhall (which is why the Lincoln stopper ran through to/from Huddersfield/ Leeds/ Adwick/ Scunthorpe at various periods)...
...however the loss of that direct link happened when the Lincoln service was sped up (as you say), so I don't know whether SYPTE dropped their objections as part of the price for providing additional capacity from the "south Rotherham" stations to Sheffield (by splitting off the long distance passengers and local ones)? << I don't know, I'm just guessing