Hope Valley Railway Upgrade
We have upgraded the railway between Manchester and Sheffield to help remove several bottlenecks along the route, providing more reliable and faster journeys for passengers.
The scheme formed part of the government’s commitment to upgrade the rail network across the North of England, and meet future passenger demands.
Working in joint venture with Story Contracting our teams have completed:
- A new platform and accessible footbridge with lifts at Dore & Totley station - The first time the station has had two platforms since the 1980s
- A 1km railway loop between Bamford and Hathersage, to allow passenger trains to overtake slower freight trains along the line
- A new overbridge at Hathersage West, replacing the current foot crossing to improve safety
- Signalling improvements along the line to improve reliability
- Platform extensions to allow for more carriages on services
Sustainability
We also made a commitment to deliver a minimum of 10% biodiversity net gain across the project. Our efforts were recognised by the industry, and resulted in us receiving the Sustainability and Environmental Excellence Award at the 2023 Rail Business Awards.
Judges commented that we had: “put in place a template for any project that aims to achieve challenging sustainability targets, community benefits and a positive experience for the workforce.”
Social value
As part of the project, we made a commitment to invest in the local community while completing upgrade work along the Hope Valley line.
Since 2021, the team has delivered over 3,000 volunteering hours to support local charities and schools in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, including volunteering, schools’ engagement, work placements and other opportunities for young people.
Charities and local community groups that the joint venture has worked with include the Peak District National Park, the National Trust, S6 Foodbank, St Luke’s Hospice, Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice, Green City Action, and the Sheffield Vulcan Rotary Group, along with several Friends of the Station groups along the Hope Valley line.
Volunteering ranged from footpath maintenance tasks with the Peak District National Park, clough woodland tree maintenance with the National Trust, bag packing with the foodbank, and sorting through donations at St Luke’s Hospice’s charity shop.
VolkerRail Specialist Businesses
Throughout the project, VolkerRail Specialist Businesses has provided support to the joint venture across various areas of expertise, including telecoms, piling and signalling capabilities. Our power division also upgraded four 650v signalling power feeders from Sheffield through to Hope and Unstone via Grindleford, and installed new points heating systems. The works consisted of
- 70 new FSP’s
- 34,000m new '2core' 70mm copper cable
- 2 ASP’s
- 5 new DNO supplies
- Associated switchgear for Sheffield PSP and new PSP
- 3 new points heating systems on new S&C installed.
Throughout the project our Plant division supplied a range of rail plant and equipment, including RRV’s, MEWPs and our Beaver tamper. Our Kirow crane team also installed an 11m bridge deck, weighing 58 tonnes.
Keeping up to date
Communication with the local community is very important to us, and to ensure everyone could be kept up to date outside of letter drops, and local drop in sessions, we launched a Hope Valley Railway Upgrade community engagement app,
The app had great success, with over 1,000 followers, and provided information of upcoming work activities, news, and initiatives and events for the local community.
Want to know more?
Visit our Hope Valley Railway Upgrade YouTube playlist, for video updates of the project.
