Victoria Station

[little malc]

Hi! siren, glad to hear from someone who has pops book, he had actually started writing a second book, but died before completing it, I have the draft of it tucked away somewhere in the loft. We moved to Scarborough to live two years ago, and still have not got round to sorting everything out. If I can winkle it out, I will probably post some of it on the Forum.

[Siren]

Little Malc

Sorry about your dad, his stories really captured life as it was for people who had to work for a living. Is the manuscript he left behind sufficient for his old publisher to be interested blended in with what he may have told you. Why not give them a try when you find it.

Hope it goes well, keep us up to date

Siren

[Guest poppins]

Iloved victoria station, i was in the W.R.A.C. i remember comming home on leave and dragging my cases down those steep stairs,

the lift never worked when you needed it,if it did the man that ran it was always upstaird drinking tea.

[Sony]

Is the Victoria Station going to reopen?????????

[Greybeard]

Originally posted by little malc

My dad worked as a fireman for the LNER during and just after the war, he was the first to take a loco over the Wicker arches just after a quick repair job after the unexploded bomb made a hole in it.

He wrote an interesting book about his experiences on the railway at this time called "Footplate Memoirs", it should still be available in the City library if anyone is interested.

 

Thanks for the tip, - I've reserved the book.

 

Would you believe there is just one copy of this available in the whole Sheffield library system.

 

They make me mad, - spending huge amounts on upmteen copies of the memoirs of some unscupulous politician yet are really miserly about buying stuff of local interest.

 

I had an old friend who was a fireman on LMS during the war. His favourite tale was how after his last stint up to St Pancras he would dash over to King's Cross and come home via LNER so he could grab a couple of pints in the Coach and Horses before closing time. It seems in those days LNER was about 30 mins faster than LMS on the London run

[foghorn]

Interesting thread this, with interesting views. Although the calls for re-opening of train lines tugs at the heart strings, the economics usually don't stack up.

 

On Beeching, the fact stands that he did save the country billions by closing down railways that no-one bothered to use until the closure notices went up. However the good Dr Beeching never proposed to close Victoria or the Woodhead route - quite the opposite - he proposed that the current slow Hope Valley route to Manchester be closed instead and that the much faster (and electrified) Woodhead line be the main Sheffield - Manchester route.

 

There were two main reasons why Woodhead closed to passengers in the end: firstly in the late sixties BR didn't want two mainline stations in Sheffield, but wasn't prepared to spend the money on building a curve to allow the trains from the Woodhead line to access Midland station directly; secondly, political intervention from Westminster had decided that Woodhead would become freight-only for reasons of economic planning - this was the 'white heat' era of central economic planning and after all, the future of passenger transport was the car, wasn't it? Both of these are unfortunate: the former as the whole area where the curve would have been was razed to the ground at the time as Park Square was being built, so it was a good time planning-wise to build the line then; the latter because of the complete lack of foresight of the near-death of rail freight and shift of passengers back to rail in the subsequent 30 years.

 

Any viable proposal to re-open Woodhead via Deepcar must include a link to Midland station; it just wouldn't make sense otherwise. And it is this costly stumbling block that will prevent its re-opening. The recent proposals that were aired when the rail franchises were re-negotiated involved Sheffield - Manchester trains travelling via Meadowhall and Barnsley to access Woodhead, a much longer and therefore slower route than the direct Deepcar route. The Great Central Railway proposals which seem destined to never make it off the drawing board contain an option for a re-opened Victoria and Deepcar route over Woodhead, but this is not to be connected to the rest of the rail network so wouldn't involve local trains.

 

But, overall there are many more important improvements that need to be done on the railways in South Yorkshire that make more sense economically and don't involve the expensive re-opening of lines: the doubling of Holmes Chord in Rotherham, opening a Wath Parkway station at Manvers, improving capacity at Aldwarke and Swinton, quadrupling the southern approaches to Midland station and re-opening the southern suburban stations, improving capacity in the Northern approaches (quadrupling would be ideal, but very expensive). After that electrification to Doncaster and to Leeds via Dearne and maybe out to Chesterfield.

 

Only when they've got that far does re-opening Woodhead really enter into the equation, along with some of the more arcane proposed re-openings like Sheffield - Finningley via Maltby and Barnsley - Wath - Doncaster. But there'll never be the cash available for them, in my opinion.

[LedZeppelin]

They should increase the tram system in Sheffield along the old victoria line. It runs alongside the tram depot and could extend out to Stocksbridge and along the north side of Sheffield branching back into town to meet the hospital and university stop. It could carry on around the outskirts till it gets to dore and join the railway there and take in millhouses etc on the way back to town. It could also extend out to Woodhouse and onto Swallownest. The tram is fast enough to have a higher speed circular service. The old viaduct on the wicker could be

cleaned up and it would look good. When the tram goes from White Line to Birley the drivers turn on the power and with a good higher speed service the tram could be like a light railway.

More fast trams and more faster lines and more stations.

 

Thanks for reading my humble ramblings!!

[sheffexpat]

Good idea LedZeppelin.

When they close down railway lines,they just seem to leave a lot if them to rot ,instead of using them. I suppose there're loads of complicated red-tape reasons why they haven't used it for something like you suggested.

Great memories of the old Victoria Station,though.

The main one was in 1955,about 16 of us went with 2 teachers and a French University student to Paris for 10 days [£25 !] .We met for the midnight train to London at Victoria Station.For a young kid that was very exciting ,like one of those Continental films---"Night Train to Bucharest" or something.---especially since they were still steam at that time.

My spending money for the 10 days was £5 and it lasted well in Paris. When we got on the train at Victoria we were in a compartment with the French student and the first thing he did was to hand the cigarettes round. He'd be in the slammer quicksticks today !

Also, we could get in some bars in Paris and sit there drinking wine and practicing our French .Our group were all about 13 but no--one bothered.Red wine was about 2p.a glass then.

Sorry about getting carried away but "Victoria Station" brought back the memories.

[muddycoffee]

Originally posted by LedZeppelin

They should increase the tram system in Sheffield along the old victoria line. It runs alongside the tram depot and could extend out to Stocksbridge and along the north side of Sheffield branching back into town to meet the hospital and university stop.

 

This is a good idea, but the tram already shadows the line a mile to the west. It currently stops at middlewood where I used to have an allotment in the 1980s. Now interestingly on both sides of middlewood park and Winn Gardens it is just woods around the river Don. It would be fairly easy to extend the tram along side the new estate in the old Mental Asylum, before right turn, through Beeley Woods over the river, and then joining the old rail bed for a fast run to Oughtibridge, where they're throwing up new houses like billy ho. Not much further on is Warncliffe side, where there's more houses, and another couple of fast miles there's Deepcar and Stocksbridge.

 

I am sure that this wood be cheaper than using the Wicker arches because much less track would have to be laid per thousand extra potential passengers, as much of the old neepsend line goes through areas where the old terraces were cleared 20-30 years ago.

 

Sadly I suspect that the supertram is too expensive to be extended, and extension is unlikely to be on the cards unless an opposition Labour is promising things like this to oust a conservative government (unlikely for at least 8 years)

[mega_monty]

Originally posted by muddycoffee

I am sure that this wood be cheaper than using the Wicker arches because much less track would have to be laid per thousand extra potential passengers, as much of the old neepsend line goes through areas where the old terraces were cleared 20-30 years ago.

 

Would look quite impressive though, seeing supertrams gliding along the top of the Wicker Arches