A £145m rail upgrade of the Hope Valley line between Manchester and Sheffield will start later this month.
Network Rail and contractor VolkerRailStory Joint Venture (VRSJV) will be building an additional railway line next to the existing tracks, which will remove several bottlenecks on the line so that passenger trains can overtake slower freight trains. At the same time, they will make some key station improvements.
While the work is in progress, on Sunday, 29th May, and every weekend throughout July, Dore & Totley, Grindleford, Bamford, and Hathersage stations will be closed.
The work includes:
- installing a new platform and accessible footbridge with lifts at Dore & Totley station;
- constructing a loop line between Bamford and Hathersage;
- replacing the current foot crossing with a new overbridge at Hathersage West to improve safety;
- improving signalling along the line to improve reliability;
- extending platforms to allow for trains with more carriages.
Dore & Totley station car park will also be partially and fully closed at different periods over the next three months, but alternative parking spaces will be available at Abbeydale Sports Club. Local businesses will remain open and accessible throughout the work.
Changes to train services on Sunday, 29 May and every weekend in July:
TPE: Manchester to Cleethorpes:
- Services will be diverted to run via Huddersfield and will terminate at Sheffield.
- A shuttle service will run between Doncaster and Cleethorpes.
- Customers travelling between Sheffield and Doncaster will need to use another operator.
Northern: Services from Manchester:
- Services will terminate at Hope.
- Buses will operate from Chinley connecting onwards to Sheffield.
- Customers with accessibility requirements will need to change at Hope as Chinley isn't fully accessible.
East Midlands Railway:
- Rail-replacement buses will run between Stockport and Sheffield/Chesterfield.
Further details can be found at http://networkrail.co.uk/hopevalley
Hannah Lomas, Principal Programme Sponsor for Network Rail, said: “We're so pleased to see this major work begin – it'll make Hope Valley stations and train services better, and improve reliability for passengers in the future.
“There will be some changes to services and car park closures while our work takes place, so I'd like to thank passengers for bearing with us and apologise for any inconvenience.”
Tony Baxter, Regional Director at Northern, said: “This work will improve Hope Valley stations and services and we are delighted to be working with our partners on this project.
“We are sorry for any disruption during the improvements and our customers can be assured that both Northern and Network Rail will do everything possible to minimise the impact of the work and deliver alternatives that keep people on the move.
Chris Nutton, Major Projects Director for TransPennine Express, said: “These works are a vital step towards delivering better services across the Pennines between Sheffield and Manchester, improving the infrastructure to help make our customers' journeys more reliable, and upgrading stations we serve.
“While these engineering works take place on the Hope Valley line, there will be a number of changes to TransPennine Express services, and we'd advise our customers to check carefully for the latest advice before they travel.”
Darren Lockwood, Project Director from VRSJV, said: “We thank the local community for their patience and understanding while we carry out these essential upgrade works on the Hope Valley line. The work plays an important part in facilitating this important investment in Northern travel infrastructure.”
£145 million to go back in time .
Electrification could still happen on the Manchester to Sheffield railway line with electrification on the Midland Main Line from Kettering to Sheffield and from Leeds to York, Harrogate and Hull.
There’s a very important component in this project that’s missing from here, the second freight loop/chord between Dore West and Dore South Junctions. Together with the Bamford loop they will allow much better regulation of heavy loads of cement from the Hope Cement Works, and limestone from the quarries around Buxton.
The Dore loop will allow trains to stand between the Hope Valley and Midland main lines. Currently they may queue on the through routes to get from one line to the other causing delays to following services that knock on around the country.
These are very welcome improvements. A lot of them reverse the “rationalisation” work that was done in the late 1960s-early 1970s, particularly the removal of a platform at Dore & Totley, forcing all trains in both directions to use a single line and platform. Thankfully this platform is now going to be replaced. If only the Manchester-Sheffield Woodhead route could be re-opened as well. This was an express route, electrified in the 1950s, with new tunnels constructed, and was, criminally, closed in the early 1970s. I fear, though, that this route is now too far gone for it ever to be considered for re-opening.
This work was supposed to have been done about 10 years ago.Still better late than never.
It’s not a new platform at Dore. The station used to have 4 platforms. Then it went down to 2 and then against all advice the station was reduced further to 1 platform. Thus creating a bottleneck.
So now they are simply putting back one platform. However, the bottleneck into Sheffield won’t we eased as they still have to pull back into the main line.
The only way to ease the bottleneck is to restore all four lines into Sheffield. Until that’s done then nothing will change.