First Group has submitted plans for a new open access service between London Kings Cross and Sheffield.
The new service will see two return journeys a day between London Kings Cross and Sheffield, with stops at Retford, Worksop, Woodhouse and Sheffield and comes as First Group wants to expand its operations as part of its Hull Trains business.
First Group says that currently 75% of trips between Sheffield and London are made by car, and further 9% are made by coach.
Options for rolling stock are being looked into by First Group, which also operates the open access operator, Lumo, with an anticipated start date being as early as the second half of 2025.
FirstGroup Chief Executive Officer, Graham Sutherland said “We want to leverage our extensive experience of running open access services and repeat the success of Hull Trains and Lumo through this new route that connects London and Sheffield. We have seen the level of growth and opportunity that is possible with open access, as well as the positive effect it can have on the wider market, including economic and environmental benefits. The new service will help to drive modal shift from road to rail by offering customers a more sustainable travel alternative between the two cities. We will be working closely with stakeholders as we build our application and our case for this new offering.”
Responses
|if it’s like the London-Edinburgh “lumo” you won’t be able to buy tickets, because the opeartors are total idiots, who won’t sell you a ticket!
Rather confirms what I’ve said for a long time, private TOC’s = expansion, public Toc’s = stagnation.
Do you realise how many services disappeared thanks to privatisation. Try reading railway history. Holiday specials gone, most cross country services gone, local, regional, and even intercity services cut to the bone. All thanks to privatisation. They have improved, but services still aren’t back to BR levels in most areas.
Sounds like it will use the Retford curve down to the lower level, that’s the most obvious route if they are considering Worksop and Woodhouse to stop at.
I suspect that the best route would be Kings Cross to newark then east towards Lincoln using the boultham curve towards doncaster and upto trent jnc then west for Retford low level and worksop and on to Sheffield
At one point (possibly about 2005?) the Master Cutler ran from Sheffield to Chesterfield, and then to Leicester via Totton then non stop to St Pancras.
There is no indication of the way this service will get from Sheffield to the East Coast Main Line.
There is a loop just north of the end of the Retford platforms on the ECML which would take the service onto the Sheffield – Lincoln line. I suspect it would use this and then head through Worksop, Woodhouse and into Sheffield this way.
The loco hauled Master Cutler ran a Pullman service on this route via Retford in the 1960s after the Marylebone line was closed.
The REAL “Master Cutler went Sheffield – Retford – King’s Cross & was a lot faster than the other route
The Master Cutler ran from Sheffield, Nottingham, Rugby and into Marylebone.
That is correct, as a boy I saw it frequently at Wembley in the late 50s
The route into Marylebone used the much lamented Great Central route, departed from Sheffield Victoria and ran via Nottingham Victoria. This route was built as an express route with sweeping curves and all bridges etc to the Continental loading gauge.
It was closed and almost completely dismantled in the 1960s during the Beeching closures. If it had survived it would have been a good basis for conversion to HS2 – and this would have significantly shortened the construction period, leading to HS2 being up and running by now.
The folly of the 1960s rail closures, aided and abetted by the then Transport Minister, Ernest Marples who, in an extraordinary conflict of interest, owned the motorway contruction contractor Marples-Ridgeway.
Chesterfield to Leicester via Totton? Surely not!
Toton
My thoughts exactly !
With EMR walk-up fares two or three times the cost of fares to similar distances from London… might First Group run in competitive mode from Sheffield to St Pancras?
EMR already run trains from St Pancreas that run by Leicester and Derby. They could however, run a quicker service by cutting out Derby by using the Erewash Valley line which has 4 tracks from Toton to Clay Cross. The stops could be Leicester, EastMidlands Parkway, Chesterfield then Sheffield. They could also continue to Leeds
Use the Erewash Valley? Odd choice. A better option would be to run a service which is a dedicated Express route, between London St Pancras and Sheffield, calling at Leicester only.
Not four tracks all the way on the Erewash valley though as it goes down to three roudn Ilkeston
I think the problem is capacity at St Pancras as there are only 4 domestic platforms from the MML. Also paths south of Bedford are limited given Thameslink capacity