Sheffield rail passengers to experience Bank Holiday disruption due to £15m signal upgrade work

Passengers hoping to travel to and from Sheffield train station over the Bank Holiday weekend are being urged to check-ahead, as a number of services are not set to run in order to allow for £15m signal upgrade work to take place.
Rail passengers travelling to and from Sheffield station over the May Bank Holiday are expected to experience significant disruption as 15million of signal upgrade work is due to be carried out.Rail passengers travelling to and from Sheffield station over the May Bank Holiday are expected to experience significant disruption as 15million of signal upgrade work is due to be carried out.
Rail passengers travelling to and from Sheffield station over the May Bank Holiday are expected to experience significant disruption as 15million of signal upgrade work is due to be carried out.

The complex electrical work, which will take place over the bank holiday weekend of Sunday, May 1 and Monday, May 2, will lead to some services not running with buses replacing trains instead.

****SCROLL DOWN TO SEE FULL LIST****

The work is being carried out in order to upgrade signalling in Sheffield and other parts of South Yorkshire in a bid to provide a 'more reliable train services for passengers'.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It is part of Network Rail's £15m investment project that will see the control of signals – the traffic lights of the railway – around Sheffield, Rotherham, Swinton and Mexborough moved to the state-of-the-art Rail Operating Centre (ROC) in York which already controls the signalling across large parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

Passengers are being urged to check their journey plans before they travel, with all lines set to reopen on Tuesday, May 3.

Rob McIntosh, route managing director for Network Rail said: “Moving the signalling to the ROC is an important step in our £40bn Railway Upgrade Plan to provide a bigger, better more reliable railway for passengers and means that passenger and freight services become more reliable, while also helping to bring down the cost of running the railway.

“Although there is never a good time to disrupt passengers, we know that fewer people travel over bank holidays and we deliberately avoided doing this project at Christmas to help support Meadowhall and the region’s retail economy. I thank passengers for their patience and understanding while this upgrade takes place and assure them that the long term benefit will be worth the few days of inconvenience.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The vast majority of the work required to ‘recontrol’ the signals from their current location at Sheffield Power Signal Box through to York ROC was carried out before Christmas without disruption to services, and teams will work 24/7 from Saturday night until Tuesday morning to complete the final steps in the process which require the tracks to be free of trains.

Passengers are urged to check before they travel at nationalrail.co.uk. Sheffield Supertram will continue to run and serve all locations, including Sheffield and Meadowhall. Travel South Yorkshire will make a full list of services available at travelsouthyorkshire.com/disruptions.

Jake Kelly, Managing Director for East Midlands Trains, said: “We have worked closely with Network Rail and other train operators to make sure that our customers can keep on moving throughout these works. As well as the major replacement bus service in place on Sunday 1 May, we’ll have extra staff at Sheffield station to help customers with their journeys.

“We would strongly advise anybody planning to travel through Sheffield to check their journey in advance online.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Alex Hynes, Managing Director for Northern, said: “Investment in infrastructure helps contribute to a real improvement in performance and reliability for our customers on this line of route. Our advice to customers is to check before travelling and allow additional time where they can.”

A full list of services is available below and for further information click here.

0001 Sunday 30 April to 0530 Monday 1 May:

Cross Country:

• Reading – Newcastle terminate at Derby

• Plymouth – Edinburgh – replacement buses between Chesterfield and Wakefield Westgate adding up to an hour onto journeys.

TransPennine Express:

• Cleethorpes – Manchester Airport start and terminate at Doncaster. Replacement buses between Doncaster and Manchester airport adding approximately 40 minutes onto journeys.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

• Extended Newcastle – Manchester services to Liverpool via Warrington central

East Midlands Trains:

Nottingham – Liverpool services start and terminate at Chesterfield. Replacement buses between Chesterfield – Stockeport/Sheffield connecting with trains

• Sheffield/Leeds/York – St Pancras start and terminate at Derby. Replacement buses Sheffield – East Midlands Parkway

Northern:

• Nottingham – Leeds/Sheffield and Huddersfield/Sheffield – Leeds (via Barnsley) start and terminate at Barnsley. Replacement buses Barnsley – Sheffield/Nottingham

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

• Sheffield – Leeds (via Rotherham) start and terminate at Doncaster with a connecting bus service Sheffield – Moorthorpe

• Sheffield – Hull/Wolds Coast start and terminate at Doncaster with a connecting bus service Sheffield – Doncaster

• Sheffield – Lincoln and Sheffield – York all replaced by buses

• Sheffield – Manchester start and terminate at Chinley. Replacement buses Chinley – Sheffield

0530 Monday 2 May – 0530 Tuesday 3 May:

Cross Country:

Reading – Newcastle terminate at Derby

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Plymouth – Edinburgh – northbound divert via Barnsley, running approx. 10 mins later between Leeds and Edinburgh. Southbound services will arrive slightly later into Derby but will then run as scheduled.

TransPennine Express:

Manchester Airport – Sheffield and Doncaster – Cleethorpes replacement buses between Doncaster and Sheffield adding approximately 45 minutes onto journeys.

East Midlands Trains:

Southbound trains from Leeds leave approximately 15 minutes earlier as they divert via Barnsley. Northbound services via Barnsley run later to Leeds by approximately 30 minutes.

Northern:

Nottingham – Leeds/Sheffield (via Barnsley) some minor changes to the timetable

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Sheffield – Leeds (via Rotherham) start and terminate at Moorthorpe. Replacement buses Sheffield - Moorthorpe

Sheffield – Hull/Wolds Coast start and terminate at Doncaster with a connecting bus service Sheffield – Doncaster

Sheffield –– York all replaced by buses

Sheffield – Lincoln and Sheffield – Manchester