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

[WestTinsley]

1978 . Great post.

With all the talk of more transpennine links and expanding of the Northern rail network .. do you see the re opening of the woodhead line as a viable option/addition?

[1978]

1978 . Great post.

With all the talk of more transpennine links and expanding of the Northern rail network .. do you see the re opening of the woodhead line as a viable option/addition?

 

In a word, no. Both old lines have tunnels that are unsuitable for modern high speed trains without incredibly expensive engineering. Basically, if we really want a 30 minute city centre to city centre service (do we?) HS3 is the best solution proposed. At currently prohibitive expense.

 

It's not just the tunnels. Manchester Piccadilly needs more platforms, and they are planned, but that u expenditure is now in doubt too.

 

Electrifying links from Manchester to Leeds and the North East is another project that is suffering.

 

The positive announcements made in recent years for all these rail projects looked very generous in financial terms, but the engineering challenges to deliver on time to budget were just too great, and should have been spotted early on. Anyone with the most basic knowledge of civil engineering projects should have seen they could not all be reliably delivered in the timescales being suggested. However, politicians love making positive statements. That's not aimed at one party, but all.

 

Rail management and the media are sometimes too reluctant to openly question how our Victorian rail network can be easily integrated into a modern rail network on a crowded island.

[Cyclone]

Just how prohibitively expensive would widening the tunnels be when we're talking about budgets of 10s of billions?

[Eccy Beach]

At least they've found the money for Cross Rail 2...........

[ads36]

1978

 

... Both old lines have tunnels that are unsuitable for modern high speed trains ...Basically, if we really want a 30 minute city centre to city centre service...

 

... if we want a 30min centre-to-centre service, we don't need high-speed trains, we just need slightly-faster-than-an-old-donkey trains.

[pss60]

At least they've found the money for Cross Rail 2...........

Its money no object when it comes to satisfying those in the South East. Crossrail 2 will cost £31 billion. But if we dare to want an inch of line electrifying, its "Oh no, you filthy Northerners, you can't have that". One thing we do know, old bowling ball head won't have the courage to explain his decision in Nottingham, Derby, Leicester or Sheffield. Like the typical Tory, he's thick skinned and yellow.

[onlineo]

Has any other station or part of the route got messed about in the same way as Sheffield has? Did every other area go "awesome, let's do it" or did they ask for the impossible?

Liverpool have got a similar solution. They campaigned for dedicated track to the city centre.

 

So we are now in the same league as those particular cities (no disrespect to any of them) rather than competing with the Birminghams, Manchesters and Leeds of this world.

 

In my opinion this decision is a huge public relations disaster for the city.

 

In terms of rail passengers travelling to London, Sheffield has never had anywhere near as many passengers as Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. The council even had to pay Stagecoach to get the city 2 trains per hour to London

Birmingham and Manchester are significantly larger cities and whilst Leeds is not it has a thriving dense urban city centre that helps with passenger numbers.

[geared]

Just how prohibitively expensive would widening the tunnels be when we're talking about budgets of 10s of billions?

 

Probably cheaper to cut new ones as silly as it sounds.

 

The oldest tunnels are pretty much derelict, so before any work could start they'd need making safe.

Then there's the question if there is sufficient room between the tunnels to make them wider without having issues with weakness and such.

 

The more recent tunnels now contain alot of national grid cables and stuff, so again before even getting any work started you'd need to spend loads of money sorting that lot out.

 

Thats before you get into the question of where do you actually want the new line to go? Follow the path of the old woodhead line or take a new one ???

Edited July 25, 2017 by geared

[Dan_Ashcroft]

At least they've found the money for Cross Rail 2...........

 

The South East votes Tory, so the government will prioritise their heartlands and marginal areas over hard red areas.

[tinfoilhat]

The South East votes Tory, so the government will prioritise their heartlands and marginal areas over hard red areas.

 

But great swathes of london vote labour?