HS2 Station In/Around Sheffield

[Crookes]

I thought a poll would be interesting - would you rather that the proposed HS2 station was:

• At Sheffield Victoria (access to the Wicker/ Hotels area) on the edge of the city centre but not integrated with other public transport. It would mean there was probably no chance of re-opening the Don Valley line for local trains though.
  
• At Nunnery Square - not exactly walking distance to the city centre but connected to the tram and handy for the Parkway. Could build a new station on the Lincoln line for local trains to stop here for services to Midland Station. Again, would probably mean no space for local services to Stocksbridge etc.
  
• At Meadowhall - not in the city centre but good for the tram/ local trains/ motorway. It may change the "gravity" of Sheffield a bit though...
  
• Rotherham - the easiest route from London/Birmingham to Leeds/Newcastle would be down the Rother Valley so wouldn't need to be diverted through Sheffield at great expense. The land should be cheaper too.

[muddycoffee]

trouble is that, with this is that, "rather" is extremely irrelevent. Lilkely is where the budget will stretch.
So many people on this section think that sheffield has the same finance, power and influence as New York city, when all we are is a 2 bit town in the north of england. We are never in a million years going to get a HS2 tunnel to the middle of town, I would be surprised if we are lucky enough to get a HS2 station near meadowhall.

Just look at the topography people! We will be extremely lucky to get it to this side of rotherham.


Rather! -- I would rather it was built in the hole in the road. You are mental if you think it will be anywhere close to the city centre. cannot go on victoria as the scale is way too small.
Face reality !!

[LNGCats]

Why not have the poll...

Would you like the DfT to give you £1m, £2m or £3m?

[Rothbiz]

Tinsley Marshalling Yards.

[larven]

Meadowhall.....for the varied reasons and ideas I've been outlining in the Sheffield transport thread.

[lovesheffield]

I feel its important to have such a huge development near/or within the city centre. Transport links can be made after the HS2 locates at Sheffield Victoria. Other locations are too far or unsuitable for the sphere of infulence required from this project.

[paulmat]

Think it has to be Meadowhall for the through route, there's no way of building the route through the city centre while maintaining high speeds.

Would definitely like to see a (lower speed) spur from MH to the city centre though so we could have some trains direct from the centre.

[LNGCats]

Originally Posted by paulmat

Would definitely like to see a (lower speed) spur from MH to the city centre though so we could have some trains direct from the centre.

Not going to happen.

All paths are already allocated on the core of the network and far to little demand to justify captive trains from Sheffield.

[muddycoffee]

Originally Posted by LNGCats

Not going to happen.

All paths are already allocated on the core of the network and far to little demand to justify captive trains from Sheffield.

Although, some of that will presumably be covered by the supertram, possibly the new tram-train depending where any meadowhall area HS2 station was located.

[LNGCats]

Yes, but if as expected the South Yorks station is near Meadowhall, you won't be seeing any HS2 trains in the city centre on a spur as it simply makes no sense from a demand point of view or a HS2 trunk capacity point of view.

[larven]

Tram trains running on the mainline from Meadowhall into Sheffield, timed with the arrivals and departures of the HS2 trains would be perfect. The classic supertram route into the centre would probably be too slow for time conscious users of the high speed trains.

Sheffield should be concentrating on securing funding for this sort of infrastructure that will support HS2 rather than lobbying for a station at the old Victoria site which is never going to happen.

[poshbakerloo]

Site of the old Victoria station.

Well I know that is probs not possible but I think that in that general area would be best. having a station to far from the city centre would make the whole thing pointless. Why people people pay more to use HS2, if they have to spend 30mins getting to the station to use it. The Sheffield I think should be on a spur off the main route like Birmingham so that trains just passing can use a straight line near the M1, whilst trains stopping at Sheffield come off on a lower speed line for a short distance.

[muddycoffee]

Originally Posted by poshbakerloo

Site of the old Victoria station.

Well I know that is probs not possible

Clearly you haven't seen the size of st pancras nowadays.

[LNGCats]

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpo...postcount=2681 explains why there is very little chance of a spur into Sheffield.

[Steely_Blade]

Speaking of trains, and actually I see this as much more of a pressing issue but under the new reforms from the government about cutting the cost of the travel by rail are worrying.

It's already expensive enough, but it's just going to keep going up and up.

This is the comment that worried me most:
"Ms Greening said she would be consulting on the idea of introducing variable fares depending on the time of day, to discourage people from travelling during the morning and evening rush hours."

I appreciate that over-crowding is a problem at rush hour. I've experienced it, but a bigger problem is actually getting to the place of work.
Put people off travelling by rail and in some cases they will be forced to leave their job because of the cost.

If they really want to make savings on the train industry they need to actually buy back the train service. It will cost an awful lot, but what they could do afterwards is regulate everything and basically have a train service that isn't there to make profit.
Just provide a service as it should do.

Funny isn't it that another Conservative Government got us in this mess by starting the ball rolling for priviatisation of rail.
In fact the decisions being made right now by this government are so short sighted it's untrue...

[larven]

I've been told that the cost of the tunnelling alone for a city centre 'through' station would be £900m.

[Crookes]

Originally Posted by LNGCats

Why not have the poll...

Would you like the DfT to give you £1m, £2m or £3m?

Thanks for your valuable contribution.

You miss the point though in that there's not a simple sliding scale where one option is automatically twice as good as an other - because of the geography of Sheffield (and the fact that there's no chance of HS2 at Sheffield Midland) it may be more advantageous to have a station some way out of the city centre (e.g. Meadowhall) than a relatively central station that isn't connected to other infrastructure.

Given the trade off between having a "central" station and having an accessible station, I though the poll would give a flavour of what Sheffield people thought was more important (bearing in mind that I couldn't add a poll to the existing "transport" thread).

There's also the issue that using the upper Don Valley route for HS2 services (i.e. by using Victoria or Nunnery Square) would stop any hope of running local services to Stocksbridge/ re-opening Woodhead for "normal" trains. Would people still want a station close to the city centre at the cost of giving up any ambition for re-opening those lines for conventional trains? Hence the poll...

[jt132]

Originally Posted by larven

I've been told that the cost of the tunnelling alone for a city centre 'through' station would be £900m.

Sounds about right- think paddington crossrail station is costing £500m. Stick that in your CBA!

[lewisskinner]

Nunnery. Close enough to the centre, practical amounts of space (in contrast to Victoria) and with regular trams to the centre (although not presently on the rare third side of the triangle to the station) and the chance of a stopping train service connecting the two in fewer than 10 minutes.

I also don't think that this option need necessarily demand the abandonment of the Don Valley Railway Project.

[LNGCats]

Would the population of Sheffield pay £1bn in additional local taxes to fund the city centre station given it is unlikely that the fare revenue would ever cover the cost.

Or are you expecting people from elsewhere to cover the cost?