New completion date announced for £145m Sheffield-Manchester rail upgrade to add extra fast trains

That’s according to Network Rail, which today said the Hope Valley railway project is now scheduled to be finished in spring 2024. Funding was announced in 2021, at which point the estimated cost was £137m. Work began last year, and at that time it was expected to be completed by December 2023, meaning the new completion date represents a slight delay.

A Network Rail spokesman said: “Work on the Hope Valley Railway Upgrade is due to be completed in spring 2024. This work includes removal of historic bottlenecks allowing faster trains to pass slower trains, station upgrades and increased resilience on the line. The benefits of the upgrade are able to be realised once the work is complete.”

The work includes creating a passing loop near Bamford and an extra track at Dore and Totley station, which is also getting a second platform. Once complete it will enable more passenger services to run between Sheffield and Manchester, with the number of fast trains in each direction between the cities expected to increase from two an hour to three.

The extra trains are unlikely to begin running as soon as the work on the line is completed. It will be up to the train operating companies to come up with new timetables once the upgrade to make the extra services possible is finished.

The work has caused some disruption for passengers on the Hope Valley line through the Peak District, with services having to be suspended at times so new tracks can be laid, and the car park at Dore and Totley station forced to close temporarily.

What is the reason for Sheffield-Manchester rail upgrade delays, and when could extra trains begin running?

Chris Morgan, of the Friends of Dore and Totley Station group, said he understood the original contract with Volker/Story for the upgrade only ran until September 2023 and he had previously seen a schedule suggesting it would be completed by summer 2023, with extra train services potentially being introduced in December that year.

He said he was aware of various delays, with last summer’s extreme weather, the rail strikes and the war in Ukraine, placing pressure on supplies of critical engineering parts, all potentially contributing.

Mr Morgan said he was not confident the new train services would be introduced before December 2024, or even May 2025, though he added ‘I hope I’m being too pessimistic’. “More positively, I think the new freight loops at Bamford and Dore, plus the second platform at Dore, could be operational for the current services by late 2023 if the signalling issues are resolved,” he added.

He also said that before a third fast service each hour between Sheffield and Manchester could be added the existing two must operate reliably, with sufficiently long trains, which he said was currently far from the case. He said that TransPennine Express was ‘struggling to run more than half its current services’, while East Midlands Railway had ‘too few carriages to run all four-car trains, let alone six’. Northern’s stopping service between the two cities was more reliable, he said, and fares were lower, making it a more popular choice for many passengers.

“Demand is currently being driven away by overcrowded, late and cancelled trains. We can't know what the true demand is for a timely railway with capacity, and that we won't be able to calculate until the current industrial conflicts are resolved as well as the Hope Valley improvements being operational,” added Mr Morgan.