Bradway Tunnel

On Wed, 3 Sep 2008 17:54:54 +0100, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
wrote:

>I've just received an email from EMT saying this tunnel is closed for
>maintenance for three months starting next Monday! (Thanks for the
>advance notice, chaps). Co-incidentally I found out today that I have to
>go to Sheffield next week.

I posted to a thread earlier this year about this. The information I
was given by a X-Country TM at the time suggested that about half
their services would reverse at the North end of Sheffield station,
and take the diversionary route others have mentioned in response to
your post, and that the other half would run straight up and down the
Old Road between Masborough and Tapton Junction, avoiding Sheffield
completely.

Responses suggested this was wrong, and that all X-Country services
would reverse at Sheffield.

The diversion between Sheffield and Chesterfield via Beighton Junction
and Barrow Hill adds about 10 - 15 minutes to the normal journey time.

"Roland Perry" <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote
>
> But how do those trains get from Sheffield to Chesterfield if the
> tunnel's closed? Is there some sort of diversionary route?
>
Go out of the north end of Sheffield and take the Retford line. Turn right
at Beighton Junction and take the 'Old Road' (normally freight only plus a
few passenger services for route knowledge) to Tapton Junction.

Peter

Peter

"Roland Perry" <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote in message
news:5AK$1V0eFsvIFA12@perry.co.uk...
> I've just received an email from EMT saying this tunnel is closed for
> maintenance for three months starting next Monday! (Thanks for the advance
> notice, chaps). Co-incidentally I found out today that I have to go to
> Sheffield next week.
>
> But the information doesn't make immediate sense.
>
> It says the Liverpool-Norwich service will be split into three sections
> with Liverpool-Sheffield on EMT, Sheffield-Chesterfield on XC or EMT
> London Services, and then Chesterfield to Norwich on EMT again.
>
> But how do those trains get from Sheffield to Chesterfield if the tunnel's
> closed? Is there some sort of diversionary route?

Yes - north from Chesterfield trains will take the "old road" from Tapton
Jct into Sheffield via Beighton and Darnall, so entering Sheffield station
from the north.

In message <E76dnWU8aZqoUSPVnZ2dnUVZ8u6dnZ2d@bt.com>, at 18:41:28 on
Wed, 3 Sep 2008, Peter Masson <peter.masson1@> remarked:
>> But how do those trains get from Sheffield to Chesterfield if the
>> tunnel's closed? Is there some sort of diversionary route?
>>
>Go out of the north end of Sheffield and take the Retford line. Turn right
>at Beighton Junction and take the 'Old Road' (normally freight only plus a
>few passenger services for route knowledge) to Tapton Junction.

Thanks. Maybe I'll brave the train's extended journey time for a trip on
that line, as well as the diversion via Derby.
--
Roland Perry

In message <68CdnbH2ObN9SyPVnZ2dnUVZ8vudnZ2d@bt.com>, at 19:26:40 on
Wed, 3 Sep 2008, Paul Scott <notvalidpmscott@> remarked:
>d) and having the service disconnected for 3 months without problems might
>give them the evidence to do it permanently, which was apparently the plan
>in the MML/EMT franchise consultation...

FSVO "Without problems".

I'm fairly sure that splitting the route at Nottingham wouldn't be too
much of a problem as very few passengers travel "through". But perhaps
it would be better in the long run to split it at Sheffield, and have
some other ToC do the Sheffield/Manchester/Liverpool run. The
Nottingham-Manchester leg is already so slow that you'd only do it if
you had a really good reason not to drive, so a change at Sheffield
wouldn't be that much of an issue.
--
Roland Perry

", Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>>I've just received an email from EMT saying this tunnel is closed for
>>maintenance for three months starting next Monday! (Thanks for the
>>advance notice, chaps). Co-incidentally I found out today that I have to
>>go to Sheffield next week.
>

The revised service was included in the current timetables, with details of
engineering work. That was published early May. Four months advance notice
seems pretty good to me. Stations have had warning notices for some weeks.
The website has had details. And today EMT e-mailed just about every e-mail
address it could find.

What more do you want?

David

Bevan Price wrote:

> Now if Chinley - Matlock - Derby was still open, they would have a viable
> alternative route between Nottingham & Manchester ....

If the industry would get on with reopening it, they would have just
that by now ...

Nick Willis wrote:

> It seems ludicrous that three major midlands cities
> (Manchester-Sheffield-Nottingham) are only connected at a similar
> capacity to some rural branch lines i.e. 2 coach DMU hourly (I know
> Manc-Sheff has other services). Perhaps there isn't much
> Manchester-Nottingham traffic (I don't know). No surprise given the
> service quality! It's one train I tend to dread using especially at
> weekends.

Echoes of the week the GC through services were truncated at Nottingham
Victoria without a great deal of passenger information, people told to
make their own way a mile across town to the inconveniently situated
Midland station ... 48 years later, no change there.

The message <1220471243.13361.0@proxy01.news.clara.net>
from "Bevan Price" <meVIAfreeukFULLSTOPcom> contains these words:

> And this same situation probably explains why late-running trains from
> Norwich are sometimes terminated at Manchester Piccadilly or Warrington
> Central, even if a trainload of passengers are decanted, and left to
> try and
> find seats on a later train to Liverpool.

I've never understood why the "express" long-distance trains were routed
via the CLC in the first place, the logical route is via Chat Moss.
Whenever I've used that route because of engineering work on the L & M,
I've noticed that most of the people who were waiting with me at
Warrington Central were leaving the train at Picc., not carrying on to
points east, so it seems pointless to use that route just because there
_might_ be some extra traffic.

--
Dave,
Frodsham

"David Jackson" <dijackson@zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:313030303337333348BF072281@zetnet.co.uk...
> The message <1220471243.13361.0@proxy01.news.clara.net>
> from "Bevan Price" <meVIAfreeukFULLSTOPcom> contains these words:
>
>> And this same situation probably explains why late-running trains from
>> Norwich are sometimes terminated at Manchester Piccadilly or Warrington
>> Central, even if a trainload of passengers are decanted, and left to
>> try and
>> find seats on a later train to Liverpool.
>
> I've never understood why the "express" long-distance trains were routed
> via the CLC in the first place, the logical route is via Chat Moss.
> Whenever I've used that route because of engineering work on the L & M,
> I've noticed that most of the people who were waiting with me at
> Warrington Central were leaving the train at Picc., not carrying on to
> points east, so it seems pointless to use that route just because there
> _might_ be some extra traffic.
>
> --
> Dave,
> Frodsham

Because they drove away most of the passengers who used Earlestown and St.
Helens Junction on the Trans Pennine expresses, due to
1. Deleting the Earlestown stops on most of the expresses.
2. Also omitting the St. Helens Junction stop on some of the most popular
trains.
3. Introducing a 09:30 restriction on cheap day returns, which effectively
led to a substantial fare increase for travellers
(Prior to the late 1960's, outside London, cheap day returns had mostly been
valid all day.)
4. Withdrawing the connecting service between St. Helens Junction and the
town centre (Shaw St., now Central, 2 miles away), leaving passengers to
use buses which became increasingly less frequent and unreliable as years
progressed.

They tried to improve rail services by the 1980's, but by then a lot of
passengers had transferred to using cars, and they mostly failed to return
to rail when services improved. So, somebody thought they might get more
passengers by diverting the expresses via Warrington, whose Central station
is well sited for the town centre.(And, consequently left St. Helens
Junction only with an all stations service to Manchester, inevitably losing
even more passengers, the numbers only starting to increase again when the
Liverpool - Manchester Airport expresses were diverted via the Chat Moss
route.)

Nowadays, the Chat Moss route is even more congested than the CLC route,
with 6 passenger trains per hour between Huyton and Liverpool Lime Street,
so pathing any additional express services is difficult.

Bevan