2013/04/19 Railways III
Ride Report
A great ride Friday. About 32 of us rode out to Chapeltown and back following the paths of the railways and expertly led by Simon. By the time we got home then everybody would have done over 20 miles; that cycle path up along Blackburn Brook makes cycling feel effortless and comfortable. Moonlit, stars in view and coolish but warm enough to sit and socialise outside. And what a great pub, The Commercial, in Chapeltown, good beer, food and friendly service. Now I’ve got my old git’s travel card I’m going to ‘train’ it out for a session.
Next SFNR
Railways III North
Friday April 19th
Start: 6.30 pm, Tesco Extra bicycle park, Savile St entrance
Starting at the location of the first railway station in Sheffield we will ride out through Tesco’s car park up the ramp and out onto Spital Hill (partly for the fun and illustration of this short cut and maybe to see if Tesco’s security freaks out) we then ride on familiar paths to Meadowhell but pick out the unfamiliar remnants of stations on the way and then we take the paved fast path on the old Blackburn line (the projected path of the HS2), passing disused stations on the way, towards Chapeltown with a little bit of road at the end (we still need to do a final recce). We stop near Chapeltown Station for a drink before returning the same way to Ecclesfield where we take Green Lane and Ecclesfield Rd also designated as NCN67 back round Shiregreen, Wincobank and through Brightside into town to finally stop at Sheffield station and take our last refreshments at the Sheffield Tap.
Maps: (still works in progress)
Google http://goo.gl/maps/BYwZB
Bikely http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/sfnr-railways-iii#
Heads up: As its railways flattish nearly(!) all the way. Some awkward barriers on the cycle path. Just under 18 miles and a total of approx 830 ft up and down
Badge design to be based on HS2 logo NB HS2 will probably arrive at best 25yrs from now – by which time I will probably be dead
Thanks to Simon for organising this one – his narrative for this ride is below
Sheffield Friday Night Ride- Stations (North)
On this ride we will be collecting donations for the Railway Children charity – or donate online at www.railwaychildren.org.uk
Railways were invented in the North of England. with the Stockton & Darlington (1825) being the first railway as we know them and the Liverpool & Manchester (1830) being the first inter-city passenger railway. Fittingly, then the first railway came in to Sheffield from the North to a station on the Wicker which is now on the site of a rather ugly Tescos superstore and that is where we will start our exploration of the stations and railways to the North of Sheffield .
One of the things that distinguishes Sheffield nowadays is that nearly all of the railways are still in use. The passenger network is thriving and steel and coal are still transported through the city by rail as well as limestone from the Peak District and that major economic output of the 21st century, garbage. With so few corridors available to the iron road, we don’t have the network of disused railways suitable for conversion to cycle routes that cities such as Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, York and Bristol have benefited from. However, on this ride we will visit the Chapeltown Greenway, a disused line that runs alongside the operational line to Barnsley (why two lines were needed along this narrow corridor beats me) and we will be able to view progress on the cycle route to Chapeltown (eventually it will reach Tankersley, linking two sections of the TPT and making for a faster route to Barnsley and onward to Leeds)
From Meadowhall to Chapeltown we will be following the proposed route of HS2 from Meadowhall to Leeds and be able to assess whether the corridor will support the return of two railway lines along with the M1, the B6082 and the National Cycle Network.
This ride will take us alongside those corridors and visit some of the sites of railway stations, some disused, some in use and ripe for further development, and some potential sites that have yet to be developed – with suitable refreshment stops of course!
Our mid-to-end ride pub stop will be the Commercial in Chapeltown, followed by a fast-ish ride back to town for late drinks in the expanded Sheffield Tap for the diehards.
The Ride starts at the Tesco in Pitsmoor – site of the first station in Sheffield.
Stations on this ride (acknowledgements to wikipedia)
Attercliffe Rd The station was opened at the same time as the main line from Chesterfield was opened in 1870 and had 2 platforms. The station was positioned above Effingham Street, although access was from a gated path from Leveson Street; an underpass led to an inclining bridge onto the Down platforms.
Opened by the Midland Railway, it became part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway during the Grouping of 1923. The station then passed on to the London Midland Region of British Railways upon nationalisation in 1948. When sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the station was served by Regional Railways in co-operation with the South Yorkshire PTEuntil the privatisation of British Rail. By the 1980s only certain morning and evening peak trains called at the station, as stopping trains exacerbated capacity problems in the major bottleneck north of Sheffield Midland. By the early 1990s this lack of trains had caused the station’s patronage to dwindle to a level where closure was easily justified, again with line capacity constraints being quoted as the reason, with the end coming in 1995.
Little is left of the station but the platforms which can be seen from moving trains. The underpass is blocked by overgrown foliage although the gated entrance can still be seen from Leveson Street just by the bridge over the River Don.
Brightside railway station was a railway station in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The station served the communities of Brightside and Wincobank and was situated on the Midland Main Line on Holywell Road, lying between Attercliffe Road and Holmes railway station. The station opened in 1838, at the same time as the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway from Wicker station and had two platforms although four tracks went through. The two outside tracks were for freight use whilst the two inside tracks were used by both stopping and express trains. Despite the opening of Meadowhall Interchange in 1990, the station remained open until 1995. A limited service had continued in its last three years and the station closed without fanfare with a poster announcing that all remaining trains could be caught at Meadowhall. The standard South Yorkshire style bus shelter that had replaced the station buildings by the early 1980s was removed in early 2006. A footbridge spans across the three remaining tracks and both sets of stairs to the platforms are boarded. The footbridge remains open.
Meadowhall Interchange to the north of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England is a railway station on the Midland Main Line, a Sheffield Supertram stop, and bus station. It is close to junction 34 on the M1, and serves Meadowhall Shopping Centre. There is direct access to the shopping centre via a covered footbridge over the River Don. The railway station has four platforms: Platforms 3 and 4 for the Penistone and Hallam Lines, from Sheffield to Huddersfield and Leeds respectively via Barnsley, and platforms 1 and 2 for the lines towards Rotherham Central and Doncaster: to Sheffield, Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Airport and Lincoln Central; to Doncaster, Leeds via Wakefield Westgate, Cleethorpes, Scunthorpe, York, Goole, Hull, Bridlington andScarborough
to Sheffield, Chesterfield and Nottingham; to Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield Kirkgate and Barnsley.
The station is in the PlusBus scheme where train and bus tickets can be bought together at a saving. Meadowhall is in the same zone as Sheffield station.
The bus station is served by buses from all over South Yorkshire and beyond.
The Supertram stop is the north eastern terminus of the yellow route, and is served by trams from the city centre,Middlewood, and Herdings Park (limited purple route service).
The station allows onward commuting to Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster with free parking.
The station is covered by a Ditra Systems Public Address System (PA), voiced by Phil Sayer.
Meadowhall is a candidate for a ‘Bike&Go’ hire scheme, as it serves a reasonable flat employment zone that is well served by cycle routes.
Wincobank railway station, previously named Wincobank and Meadow Hall, was a railway station in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The station served the communities of Brightside and Wincobank and was situated on the Midland Main Line on Meadowhall Road, lying between Holmes and Brightside stations. The station was opened on 1 April 1868[2] and had two platforms although four tracks went through. The two outside tracks were for freight use whilst the two inside tracks were used by both stopping and express trains. Only two were in general use as there were two slow and two fast lines. The station was situated just on the Rotherham side of the junction to the “Blackburn Valley” line of the South Yorkshire Railway which itself was just east of the Midland Railway junction which took services from Sheffield to Barnsley. The station closed in 1956 as the immediate area was but sparsely populated and the nearby Brightside station more practical. The remains of the station were obliterated when the Meadowhall Interchange station was built on the site and opened in 1990.
The station changed names several times. In 1868 the station opened as Wincobank. It was renamed Wincobank and Meadow Hall station in July 1899 and back to Wincobank station in June 1951.
Grange Lane railway station was a railway station located on the South Yorkshire Railway line between Sheffield and Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. At the time of its building it was located alongside the lane from which it takes its name with few houses nearby. From the early 1890s it became the interchange point with coal traffic from Grange Colliery (also known as Dropping Well Colliery) at Kimberworth inRotherham, South Yorkshire. The colliery was sunk in 1891 and coal production ceased in 1963. The colliery site is now Grange Park golf course. The station, opened in June 1855, consisted of two flanking platforms with buildings on each. The line and the crossing gates were controlled from a signal box situated at the end of the platform adjacent to the gates.
The station was closed on 7 December 1953 and most buildings still exist; the goods shed and both platforms survive while the station building is a private residence. The platforms are overgrown but still visible and the line—having been transformed into a footpath—has been concreted over. The level crossing’s track remains.
Meadowhall and Wincobank railway station, also known at some time as Meadow Hall, was a railway station in Rotherham,South Yorkshire, England. The station served the communities of Brightside, Wincobank, both in neighbouring Sheffield, and its nearest village Blackburn and was situated on the South Yorkshire Railway, lying between Grange Lane and Tinsley stations.
The line, known as the “Blackburn Valley” line, connected with the Midland Railway, Rotherham to Sheffield (Wicker) line at Blackburn Junction at its southern end and ran to Aldam Junction, near Wombwell. This southern connection closed in August 1864 when the line to Woodburn Junction opened and a passenger service inaugurated between Sheffield Victoria and Barnsley. Meadowhall station was opened in August 1868 and had two flanking platforms. The main station building, alongside Blackburn Road, remains and is in good condition. The station closed to passengers on 7 December 1953.
The line through Meadowhall closed completely from Friday, 31 July 1987 having not seen any traffic since 3 April when Class 2020150 worked from Tinsley yard to Roe Brothers scrap yard and return. The line, from Tinsley South Junction to Meadowhall, was lifted during the following year.
The line was transformed into a cycle path when the South Yorkshire Railway Preservation Society closed in 2004.
Chapeltown railway station, originally known as Chapeltown South, is a railway station in Chapeltown, a district of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The station is 7.25 miles (12 km) north of Sheffield on the Hallam andPenistone Lines.
[edit]History
The present station was the first to be opened under the governance of the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive in the late 1970s; the original station, a quarter-mile or 600 m nearer to Barnsley, closed at that time. The platforms, shown in the photograph of the old station looking towards the new station just visible in the distance, were retained, the Barnsley bound platform being used as a walkway to connect the original access to the new station. CCTV was installed in March 2008 for the purposes of crime prevention[citation needed]. Improvements to the station included new signs, lighting, nosing on the steps, and for the first time, installation of passenger information display screens passenger information system to provide real-time service information. However, services were depleted when the fast service from Nottingham to Leeds started.
[edit]Services
Services run twice an hour Monday to Saturday to Sheffield (hourly on Sundays) and hourly to Huddersfield on the Penistone Line and Leeds on the Hallam Line respectively (two-hourly Sundays). On a weekday there are two stopping and two through trains in each direction an hour. On Saturdays only, there is a service to Nottingham departing at 6.35am which is the only Nottingham train to serve Chapeltown, and is the only scheduled service to be operated by a Northern 158 DMU.(I checked this and it’s true!)
Riding out North East through Attercliffe to Meadowhell and then North up to Chapeltown – and back, taking in the proposed HS2 route.
As its railways flattish nearly all the way
Map and details soon
Thanks to Simon for organising this one