Ireland 2040 - Rail Elements.
 

It hasnt been officially announced yet and the websire is down (great start).

http://npf.ie/about/

from listening to the radio this morning and other speculation it could be -

1. Metro North
2. DART expansion
3. Rumours of "surburban rail investment" in Cork/Limerick/Galway
4. Something about "Light Rail" in Cork
5. Presumably another re-announcement of DART underground.

What do we think will be in this? Or should be in this?


What will be not in it?

For Cork, I guess it's a case of extra stations on the existing lines - Carrigtwohill West, Dunkettle, Tivoli, Kilbarry, Monard, Blarney and maybe Ballynoe or Grenagh [these last two would require land around them to get zoned though]. Electrification would be helpful for a better service. Electrify Cork-Mallow and Dublin-Port Laoise and you haven't got that much of a gap in between.

For Galway, it's hard to see much scope except maybe stations in Roscam and Renmore. Those aren't going to do much for most commuters though, so you'd question whether the small numbers who may use it for social visits to the city centre justifies the investment. The rail line is far enough from GMIT and NUIG that buses are likely to be preferable for people going to those. There would also need to be a calculation about whether stopping the train more often would be a disincentive for those living out in Oranmore and Athenry.

Limerick could have a quite nice suburban rail network just by building stations on existing lines and investing in rolling stock that can actually accelerate. They are fortunate that very little of their rail infrastructure was ripped up. Costs would be low, but densities would have to increase hugely to make it operationally viable, as unlike Cork, there are limited existing services that could be asked to make extra stops.

yeah a few interesting bits alright about this

Supposedly gone and replaced with Dublin Metro. That will run Swords to Sandyford via Airport. Wonder how this will impact the Green Luas line.

Strangely the only area of this i've heard of is Drogheda?

This would be good news. Certainly Galway Commuter would have been better than the WRC

Another bit of positive news if it happens

This i'm worried about. I'm worried they may be using the PPT in place of this. Is it true as well if this happens Hazelhatch won't get DART services as the tunnel is not compatible?

Is there any possibility of electrification for Dublin-Cork/Limerick or Dublin-Belfast?

Timing electrification to coincide with the end of life of the 201s would make sense.

Metro North/Dublin Metro: I always thought terminating at Stephen's Green was a short sighted plan, so extending South makes sense. I assume it can't be taking over the Green line, as if it was, the destination would be Cherrywood or even Brey. However Sandyford seems an odd destination, as it's hard to see a route that doesn't shadow the Green line. I would have thought Harold's Cross, Terenure and out towards Firhouse and Tallaght would have been a sensible option.

DART Expansion: I see mention of Drogheda and Maynooth, but no mention of the Kildare line.

DART Underground: No mention that I've seen. I saw some options for a "cut price interconnector", including a tunnel from Heuston terminating under Pearse, which would seem to miss the point to me.

Electrification of Belfast/Cork/Limerick: I certainly think this should be in a 23 year infrastructure plan, and I would see it as essential for meeting our climate change commitments, but I very much doubt we'll see anything with so much foresight.

Grapevine has been looking at Metro tie in somewhere near Beachwood, timing issue due development of the Irish Nationwide block on Grand Parade, they need to lock this down ASAP if going ahead as a deep basement could cause issues

DART undergound is all but sunk thanks in no small part to the last decade of poor management and union infighting

So is the proposal for Metro and Luas to share tracks? My understanding of the term "Metro" is total segregation from other forms of transport. I think the number of road crossings on the Green line alignment would make it problematic for a Metro route. Having to intersperse Metro trains with Green line trams would strike me as unworkable, and would severely limit the speed and frequency of the Metro service.

A second metro route which includes Heuston stop or even terminus in the area would be a far better spend than DU. I fully get the benefits of DU but is two different underground systems really necessary.

Well you could in theory be waiting 20+ years for that based on 071 class.

I hope IE (NTA) are monitoring the roll out Hitachi Class 801 (EMU) and 802 (BMMU) across mainlines in the UK which appears to be a good train overall. Cannot see full electrification of a route been completed end to end for a long time and bi mode will be needed.
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Luas to Finglas/Poolbeg are pretty much straight forward projects. Lucan would be a very good addition and take pressure off the Red Line between Heuston-Connolly.

That media proposal a few weeks ago could never work impossible.

An attempt to add third rail to part of Northern Line and improve DART/Commuter/Enterprise.

There are some examples out there where it has been achieved like when the Rotterdam Metro was extended to The Hague and some of the sections in the suburbs of The Hague were shared between The Hague's trams and Rotterdam's metros, but that section only has a metro every 10 minutes, which is not really metro frequency. It is certainly far from desirable.

See departure boards here, where RET is a Rotterdam Metro and HTM is a tram from The Hague

https://9292.nl/en/den-haag/tramhalt...n-laan-van-noi

DART Underground is not surprising given the shenanigans over the last few years, but it's largely engineered by the government's starving IE of funds.

Metro/Luas interoperation: I guess you could have the majority of Metro trains turn back at Stephen's Green. However, on the route planner map it starts to look an awful like the London Underground's Northern Line, which is likely to be split into two separate lines in the future to finally solve its problems.

The plan for the Metro is basically the Metro north plan continuing underneath the Harcourt Street line and then resurfaces at Beechwood

Two options
1. Dual running (completely doable), Metro the Sandyford and Luas onwards
2. Luas has a terminus at Beachwood and runs to Broombridge/Finglas

In both cases the lines will be physically connected

Its starting to look a lot like Cologne and Bonn with its not sure if I'm a tram or metro setup

Grapevine report electrification to Hazelhatch is in the doc

2 billion for Dublin heavy rail.
Electrification is only 200-250 million
Rolling stock 600-800 million
I've got a billion left?

So taking the cheap option, when has it ever worked before!

Its a start but is it worth it, DMU to Hatch-EMU to PPT-DMU and EMU to GCD.

Is there any reason the PPT line couldn't be electrified? Is the headroom that tight? They managed to get overhead lines into the tunnels to Greystones, which seem pretty tight. To my casual observation the PPT seems luxurious by comparison.

Regarding the Interconnector/DART Underground, I'd rather see it left out of the plan than done wrong. I'm hopeful that we'll eventually get a government who actually care about rail and will resurrect it. If a budget interconnector was built on the cheap and wasn't up to spec, we'd probably never get another chance to fix it.

Feel like spending it on some passing loops so that InterCities and longer-distance commuter trains can pass Darts?

The map on page 55 of the strategy document refers mentions that all of the DART lines will use hybrid Diesel/Electricity trains,

Its the road bridge at the Heuston end that is a problem and you can't dig down due the Liffey bridge

The tunnel is fairly tall but has a strange kind of profile so not great for tall containers but won't be an issue for OHLE

Is that the Chapelizod Bypass bridge? That would be a problem whether the line is going to the PPT or into Heuston Station (or for any future mainline electrification). Admittedly it would be avoided by an Interconnector surfacing at Inchicore.

Doesn't sound like an insurmountable problem. Maybe just expensive?

Conyngham Rd is the problem

I would be confident the Chapelizod bypass bridges would be high enough, but there is plenty of space either side to drop the track if needed

So where did 2 billion go in Dublin rail

Electrify 250
New fleet 600-800
New depot 50
New train control centre 50
KRP2 (4 tracks Inchicore onwards) 150?
Level cross elimination?

The real problem here is short term planning means long term cost. The new plans require electrification of Heuston station (which will be painful and the Phoenix park route and possibly 4 tracks down the gullet section which has been advised against. The original plan required no works inwards from Inchicore

Could they not just use the hybrids as diesel on the heuston /ppt side

Ah, I hadn't though of Conyngham Road as a bridge rather than part of the tunnel.

Any idea what the clearance under the bridge is, and what is needed for electrification?

The big mystery to me is what DART station it connects to. It's supposed to cross the Liffey West of Rosie Hackett bridge, according to what I've seen, and join up a Beechwood... which either means it veers strongly east after the Mater (and back again), or strongly east after SSG? But neither of those look practical to me.

Is the R839 the big issue over the gullet, reducing the embankment along the N4 is doable but no way to replace that over bridge with getting very creative and speeding a massive amount of money.

The rail elements of this plan appear to be very badly thought out.

Electrifying to Hazlehatch was always supposed to be part of Dart Underground. Electrifying it as part of a Phoenix Park Tunnel route would seem to be a very high expense for a relatively low frequency route (making it a high frequency route involves huge problems between Connolly and GC Dock, as well as at Islandbridge Junction).

I know that the Green line South of Beechwood was engineered to make it convertible to heaver Metro-type trains. However I suspect that the announcement of Sandyford as a Metro destination might have something to do with votes for Shane Ross. I suspect that having failed to get Stepaside Garda station opened he is trying for a Metro.

There is a terrible vagueness about the exact sequencing of suburban electrification, and nothing at all about Intercity electrification, which is going to be an issue if the transport sector is to really contribute to CO2 emission reduction.

Also why focus on Cork-Limerick motorway and other schemes while nothing really big or strategic about enhancing access to the ports which will be hugely more important post-Brexit, with much greater need for direct links to mainland Europe, bypassing the likely chaos at Dover and other UK ports.

Overall one's worst fears about the quality of the Department of Transport are confirmed. As for the current minister, I had better restrain myself!

Its classic politicians and crayons.

So how does the metro surface at Charlemont? Don't think anyone actually went out and took a look did they?

Maynooth line electrification is obvious quick project, would cut journey times and release a pile of 29k's for other routes i.e. Hazelhatch PPT. Won't deliver a huge amount in capacity really probably only get 2500 extra peak hour capacity.

Without DART underground you aren't going anywhere fast

Colm McCarthy has a good Indo piece on the extravagant costs of the new Metro proposals and also on the likely relatively poor benefits. Costs are in the same ballpark as Dart Underground and benefits do not seem commensurate. See: https://www.independent.ie/opinion/c...-36615041.html

DART Underground is the ideal solution. Everyone accepted that it was, right up to the moment the first cheque had to be written. Then the money vanished into the fiscal space on the most spurious of pretexts and there it has remained.

DART Underground suffers from not exactly being identified with any given Dail Constituancy insofar as it benifits so many areas as a whole. Metro North is easily identified with the North Dublin area (and indeed the proposed southern terminus just happens to be in the minsters area - go figure).

I've got to agree that a Metro route that shadows the green line through the city centre seems a wasted opportunity to widen the net of the city's transport infrastructure. This seems especially true for an underground line that doesn't need to be tied to surface street routing. For example, a Metro route cutting through Smithfield would open a whole area of the city to rail transport.

If we're adding a new north-south line, it would make sense for it to serve an area of the city centre that doesn't currently have a north-south rail connection. The important thing is for it to connect to all of the other rail routes, so that people can go anywhere with one change.

Of course the problem is that without Dart Underground, it's very hard to make Metro connect with the current DART line. Without the Interconnector, nothing works properly.

Tara St is the proposal now with Mater stop dropped despite spending 16 million building a station box for the stop.

The way things are going there will be a totally new route by 2021 if it even starts construction then!

Is there any detail on the new route? To fit in a Tara St stop, it presumably needs to be approaching from the north-west, which may have made the angles through the Mater problematic.

I'm also skeptical that any of this plan will actually get built.

Skipping the Mater seems like madness. It is one of the biggest city centre employers - nearly 3,000 employees and at least as many visitors every day - man of whom would have mobility difficulties so need a station close to the hospital to make it work.

-Mater Stays
-Tara Street
-SSG East and West stop
-13 of 17km underground (more than 2015 cost cut) to GL interchange.
-Green Line 500m upgrade for Metro ops

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/irel...00567?mode=amp

I think Phibsborough (Whitworth) is a much more sensible place for an interchange with the Maynooth line (though the article doesn't explicitly mention there will be one). It would be feasible for an interchange station between Metro and both Irish Rail lines, which is not possible at Drumcondra. Hopefully it will be an integrated station, and not two separate stations, as I believe would have been the case at Drumcondra.

It sounds like the entire Dublin Airport to Charlemont part will be underground, which solves a few problems. But surfacing at Charlemont? The only way I can see to do that is to CPO the entirity of Peter Place and knock it.

Detail seems lacking on what will happen to the Green Line. Cutting the middle out of it seems unworkable, as it would make current non-stop journeys require two changes. But does it have the capacity to run Metro an Luas? Will most of the Metro trains turn back at Stephen's Green, and only a few continue to Sandyford?

Is there a good reason for only making the Charlemont-Sandyford section Metro, and not Charlemont-Brides Glen? As far as I recall, the section south of Sandyford is fully segregated from road crossings, so probably a better candidate for Metro than Charlemont-Sandyford.

James Shields: No it's not. Quite the opposite: there are several road crossings between Sandyford and Bride's Glen. Its also quite limited in terms of curvature and line speed.

The whole thing is a resurrection of an old, discarded plan to upgrade the Green line to Metro standard South of Beechwood. The construction of the Cross-city Luas line makes that plan a bit of a nonsense, yet it gets resurrected. That's what happens when politicians are let loose on investment decisions.

Ross is a disaster.

I have it on record from the RPA

Sandyford - Brides Glen will never be upgraded to metro

If the Indo or Sindo had their way in the 80s we wouldn’t even have DART now. It’s like the first cuckoo of spring, to hear McCarthy et al dumping on any rail proposal. Imagine a plethora of infrequent variants of core bus routes, with packed buses dripping with sweaty condensation as the alternate reality we’d be dealing with now in Dublin instead.

I think there's no doubt the Indo has a long running anti-rail/anti-public transport stance, which certainly colours their view of projects like this.

I do also think we've had a bit of an anti-Metro stance on this board. Some of that is justified, as if you have to make a choice between Metro and DART Underground, DART Underground clearly delivers more for the city, and enables so many other things.

However, if you compare them purely in terms of providing an Airport link, Metro will deliver a better, faster and more frequent service. It would, however, be vastly improved if it interconnected with DART Underground.

The Ireland 2040 delivers less in a far grater timeframe than the previous abandoned plan, which would have given us both Metro and DART Underground.

While I have no belief that the Light Rail in Cork will actually happen, I've seen some suggestions that the Cobh and Midleton lines could be converted to a Light Rail solution, which would then run through Cork City Centre and out to destinations on the western side of the city.

What are people's thoughts on this?

How much slower would the journey be from Cobh/Midleton? And would a link in to the the City Centre, UCC etc. help make up for it? I understand the top speed of a tram (70km/h) is a lot less than a 2600 (110km/h), but how much time do they spend at top speed and to what extent does the improved acceleration of a tram mean that it wouldn't matter?

Presumably if those lines were converted over it would mean Cork would end up with a 1,600mm gauge. Would that make rolling stock more expensive? And would there be any disadvantages to being on a different gauge from Dublin?

The more one looks at the rail element of the Plan, the worse it gets.

First, Metro North-South. The original Green line (Sandyford-Stephen’s Green) was engineered for heavier Metro trains between Beechwood and Sandyford. The idea was that the line would go underground near Beechwood and on to Stephen’s Green, the airport and Swords. However the Green line has since acquired extensions South to Bride’s Glen and North to Broombridge so any new Metro between Sandyford and Beechwood (or worse, Charlemont) would isolate the two new extensions to the Green line, unless Luas and Metro vehicles were to share the line between Sandyford and Beechwood/Charlemont. One can imagine the timetabling and engineering problems. The newest Metro plans, being proposed a matter of weeks after the luas extension to Broombridge, are shambolic.

Second: electrification. There is some general aspiration to electrify to Maynooth, Balbriggan and possibly Hazlehatch. There is mention that extra tracks may be required over part (?) Of the line to Balbriggan. There is also a mention of hybrid electro-diesel multiple units. However there appears to be no detail, and not even the outline of a coherent plan of implementation, which integrates the progress of electrification with the purchase of new rolling stock. Hybrid trains are coming to the UK, in part because they have cut back on their electrification plans. On the continent they electrify most lines and reap huge benefits in terms of lower operating costs and better service levels. I fear that hybrid rolling stock may lead to endless procrastination when it comes to projects to extend or complete electrification of routes.

Third: Colm McCarthy and other critics. I really wish people would read his recent Indo piece. He made the simple point that the Metro proposals costing €3m have not been subjected to any cost benefit analysis, as apparently required by law. This is not being anti-rail, it’s just arguing for proper project evaluation. McCarthy and the Indo may have written other pieces which are anti-rail, but judge this one on its merits and don’t resort to ad hominem arguments.

I don’t know who should be blamed for this mess, the NTA, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, the Department of Transport, or the Minister in whose constituency Sandyford is situated. I wouldn’t put them in charge of a funfair ride. And Comcor, please don’t even think about mixing Cork suburban rail with some new tram line!

Endless procrastination by Official Ireland is at fault. Official Ireland’s attitude that any transport infrastructure above non-prioritised buses is a treat and not the backbone of sustainable development is at fault. Good infrastructure makes the Republic an economy that can sustain itself. Not the miserable, boom-to-bust excuse of a place that keeps the likes of McCarthy comfortable but fecks everyone else.