Campaign grows to switch the building of HS2 station to Sheffield city

[mogwai84]

Andrew - respect to you for keeping up the fight. The points you make are intelligent and well-reasoned unlike much of what passes for debate on here (not all - I have a lot of respect for Annie Bynnol for instance). As for me I'm afraid I don't have the time to do battle with the anhydranencephalic hordes as I'm in France at the moment (excellent railway system BTW - stations generally in city centres).

Julie Dore's signed the Victoria idea off so one would hope that the real decision makers will be taking a serious and informed look at all sides of the economic arguments, not the wishful thinking some on here.

 

That just isn't true. The French system is great as a customer, but it's also a hideous white elephant - financially crippling and underused. The TGV has many out of town stations - this means that if the station isn't being served then the trains can do 200mph as they fly past the station.

[AndrewC]

Why do you keep asking the same questions? Are you hoping you will get the answer you would like instead of the truth?

 

Which question? I've only asked if you had presentations from pro-Victoria representatives once, above?

 

As I keep stating, I am not on the transport committee but I am on the policy & external affairs committee covers these issues too. A lot of people are on both committees. They have been to lots of meetings with the group wanting Sheffield city centre to be the location of the station instead of Meadowhall.

 

I had a look back through the thread and you've only once explicity mentioned you sit on that committee - though I must have missed that so, apologies.

 

Their argument / reasoning is based around the desire to have the station in the city in an attempt to regenerate it and no other reason.

 

On the one hand I'll say that - as I've said before - greater regeneration of Sheffield should prove of greater benefit to the wider city region. So to say it's just about regenerating the Victoria area doesn't really tell the whole story, does it? I'm suprised; did they really explicitly say that?

 

On the other hand, I might be a cynic and point out that actually, in a way these are actually just excuses for local regeneration, which it seems a lot of people think would have the greatest impact at Victoria, not Meadowhall? You don't see much call for stations in Leeds or Birmingham to be more central to the wider urban areas they sit in. It's all about money, after all!

 

If you fail to understand now, I give up.

 

Now now! That's not very committee like! Stay professional.

 

HS2 told us there would not be two stops close together as it would slow the train down too much. I don't know if anything has changed as this presentation was some time ago.

 

Don't think that's changed, and quite right too.

Edited December 21, 2015 by AndrewC

[E-Man Groovin]

That just isn't true. The French system is great as a customer, but it's also a hideous white elephant - financially crippling and underused. The TGV has many out of town stations - this means that if the station isn't being served then the trains can do 200mph as they fly past the station.

 

What just isn't true?

 

The French cities that I frequent (large ones comparable to Sheffield) have city centre stations. Obviously Paris does, but I spend a lot of time in Toulouse and Montpellier (fastest growing city in France BTW) - they also have city centre stations. As do Bordeaux, Marseille and Lyon. Any major French cities I've missed out?

 

I think not.

[AndrewC]

Mogwai's comments seem to suggest that you may be right from a customer point of view, i.e. it's a fantastic system to travel one, but not so great for a shareholder, i.e. it's losing money, not efficient etc. (No idea if that's true, just that seems to be Mogwai's argument).

 

Has parallels with Sheffield's recent bus changes. People have complained a lot about the frequency dipping and more crowded busses, which is perfectly fine, but I do recall often travelling from town to NGH around 9am and sharing a whole bus with single-digit fellow passengers. I recall I once made it from Nursery Street to NGH without a single other person on the bus bar the driver, who even said to me as I got off something like "you got yourself a private taxi service today!".

[mogwai84]

What just isn't true?

 

The French cities that I frequent (large ones comparable to Sheffield) have city centre stations. Obviously Paris does, but I spend a lot of time in Toulouse and Montpellier (fastest growing city in France BTW) - they also have city centre stations. As do Bordeaux, Marseille and Lyon. Any major French cities I've missed out?

 

I think not.

 

saying that most of the stations are in the inner city. I travel a lot in France, and you're right, in biggest cities the TGV will stop at at a station in the centre. However for many large towns and cities in between the major places (I mean, Lyon, Paris, Marseille etc) the stations tend to be out of town (which makes sense on one hand, as I explained).

 

I'm not from Sheffield, and so I tend not to have this view that Sheffield is this sleeping giant with business queuing to move here that automatically deserves a city-centre located HS2 station. I agree it'd probably be the best solution for Sheffielders, but the whole idea of HS2 and HS3 is to release capacity down south and provide a high speed way of connecting the major cities in England - personally I don't think Sheffield is a major city like Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds - we'd need a very convincing argument for slowing the journey between Birmingham and Leeds, and I'm yet to feel that it's been made.

[SteelCityAle]

Indeed, the French TGV model links major cities and goes city centre to city centre. Other places along the way are served by out-of-town stations built at the closest(ish) point on the line, the line doesn't detour to serve these towns. A town the size of Barnsley might have such an out-of-town station, whereas a city the size of Sheffield would certainly have the trains run into the main station, both to serve the city itself and to provide connections

 

One particularly insidious trick of the French though is to deliberately make services on the 'classic' routes worse to unusable to force people onto the premium-priced fast trains - imagine East Midlands & Cross Country ceasing to run north of Derby/Nottingham, with the only connections being infrequent trains stopping at every lamp-post, often leaving Derby 5 minutes before the train from London arrived. Wouldn't put it past D(a)fT to do likewise here…

[sgtkate]

Surely the main question is one that's probably been asked many times, but, one about connections. Using London as an example, you arrive at a hub station and then almost everyone gets onwards transport, tube or bus, to their actual destination. If we consider the 'Sheffield region' to be London, then nothing is very different in the proposal of putting the HS2 station at Meadowhall, where onwards connections are far easier than at Victoria. I cannot understand the choice of Victoria in anyway. I'd support it if it was to call at the current Sheffield Station as then connections for travellers not staying in the city centre would be as easy as from Meadowhall, but adding in a 15 min transfer between Victoria and Sheffield just makes it pointless. It'd be quicker to get a train connection from Meadowhall into the centre than to walk there from Victoria.

 

For me, it's got to be directly into Sheffield station or to Meadowhall. The Victoria option is just baffling.

[Mad Hatter]

What just isn't true?

The French cities that I frequent (large ones comparable to Sheffield) have city centre stations. Obviously Paris does, but I spend a lot of time in Toulouse and Montpellier (fastest growing city in France BTW) - they also have city centre stations. As do Bordeaux, Marseille and Lyon. Any major French cities I've missed out?

 

And not-so-major cities either. Perpignan is on the Paris-Barcelona TGV route; TGVs stop at the city-centre railway station.

 

Perpignan has a similar population to Rotherham, though it is the capital city of the Pyrénées-Orientales department.

[E-Man Groovin]

And not-so-major cities either. Perpignan is on the Paris-Barcelona TGV route; TGVs stop at the city-centre railway station.

 

Perpignan has a similar population to Rotherham, though it is the capital city of the Pyrénées-Orientales department.

 

I've never stopped in Perpignan but I've passed it may times. I hear that it's quite nice.

 

And it's not only France. In November I was in Sweden and travelled from Copenhagen to Malmo to Gothenberg to Stockholm and to Sundsvall on consecutive days. All the meetings were in the city centres as was my accommodation. Thankfully the train stations in each of these cities were in the centres making things a whole lot more pleasant in terms of a) choice of accommodation, b) availability of meeting locations and c) businesses able to attend.

 

The only time I had to take a shuttle was to get to Stockholm airport on my way home.

[AndrewC]

Surely the main question is one that's probably been asked many times, but, one about connections. Using London as an example, you arrive at a hub station and then almost everyone gets onwards transport, tube or bus, to their actual destination. If we consider the 'Sheffield region' to be London, then nothing is very different in the proposal of putting the HS2 station at Meadowhall, where onwards connections are far easier than at Victoria. I cannot understand the choice of Victoria in anyway. I'd support it if it was to call at the current Sheffield Station as then connections for travellers not staying in the city centre would be as easy as from Meadowhall, but adding in a 15 min transfer between Victoria and Sheffield just makes it pointless. It'd be quicker to get a train connection from Meadowhall into the centre than to walk there from Victoria.

 

For me, it's got to be directly into Sheffield station or to Meadowhall. The Victoria option is just baffling.

 

Why would you walk between Victoria and Midland - you get the new tram connection, or even just walk to the new interchange to the east of Victoria where it's likely a lot of local servcies would be connected to.