Rail Users Ireland Forum - yippee they're gonna announce re-opening the Middleton line....

Rail Users Ireland Forum (http://www.railusers.ie/forum/index.php)

- Events, Happenings and Media (http://www.railusers.ie/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=25)

- - yippee they're gonna announce re-opening the Middleton line.... (http://www.railusers.ie/forum/showthread.php?t=1867)

yippee they're gonna announce re-opening the Middleton line....

From todays indo. See near the end.

RELIEF for up to 100,000 motorists stuck daily on the M50 will be the most tangible promise in the Government's €175bn National Development Plan (NDP) being unveiled today.

The project states the West Link toll barriers will be removed by next year.

They will, however, be replaced by 'invisible' barrier-free, electronic tolls where the vehicle registration is photographed and the driver billed if they do not have a pre-paid sticker.

For decades public transport has been the poor relation when it came to Government funding. Most of the cash is being spent on completing the major inter-urban motorways and dual carriageways.

But the NDP, being unveiled this afternoon by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, includes a €13bn provision for public transport.

Most of the transport initiatives have already been announced as part of Transport 21, a commitment to spend €34bn on two metro lines and seven new Luas routes.

The projects being given the green light today include a commuter rail service between Mallow and Midleton/Cobh by 2008.

More quality bus corridors for Dublin's hard-pressed commuters are also included in the plan over the next seven years.

The document also pledges enhanced capacity at Dublin Airport as well as major investment in the regional airports.

Is this announcement no 3 or 4 of this project? Maybe P11 should keep a log of all these multiple announcements. On the other hand maybe not: one can only count so far before it loses all meaning.

Its number 4 at least

It had EU funding prior to T21, so thats 1
T21 thats 2
Public inquiry process announcement thats 3
And today makes 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson (Post 16879)

Its number 4 at least

It had EU funding prior to T21, so thats 1
T21 thats 2
Public inquiry process announcement thats 3
And today makes 4

Its number 5. Seamus Brennan did an announcement on the platform in midleton in late 2003.

seriously though, 5 announcements is ridiculous

most i have asked about the transport element of NDP for Cork were disgusted yet again, the huge element of rail missing is the entire revamp of Kent station to face the quays, CIE have held up the docklands long enough but now decided to go in for a 24 storey building when a 17 storey right next door was held up in planning for 18 months and eventually reduced. Was in kent recently and its getting a €4m lick of paint, place looks even more of a kip than it was before and thats saying something

was quite amused to step off the train yesterday with an announcement in my ears directing me to bus services outside the "concourse" - kent station a "concourse" not in their wildest dreams

I know this is rail website but the transport in Cork is appalling in terms of buses as well and night services are non existent

And they get to anounce it again this week when this document is formally produced on January 30th...

http://www.transport.ie/upload/general/8748-0.pdf

We used to have a thread on the many announcments of the KRP. Alas, it is election year.

Re the last message: according to the Indo the completion date is now 2010 for Midleton. Is this not a huge slippage in just a matter of months if not weeks since the last "announcement"?

There are time when I think someone should go to jail for such incompetence.

Bear in mind the DoT have held onto the money for the last 3 years which has held things up

Note the new DoF investment guidelines will hold things up as well

We all knew from day one that the T21 timetable was political not engineering driven

The report of the Lawyer who makes recommendations for the Railway Order has just been published. (See DoT website). The original Midleton line report (I forget the consultants' names) had what seemed me to be a properly-specified cost-benefit analysis. It should not take long to update. The overall social return was quite promising.

Quite frankly if this project does not pass muster with the D of F then no rail project has a chance. Unless of course its is west of the Shannon in which case a special secret fromula will apply.

BTW, the report I referred to on the DoT website apparently recommends a revamped level crossing rather than the proposed bridge near Myrtle Hill (?). Shows what happens when you let a lawyer with no technical knowledge loose on a task like this. The Rail Safety people must be having kittens (if they are not asleep).

The report has been up for a while

The bridge to be fair was quite over the top

There is a protocol for a level crossing, effectively they must be 4 barrier CCTV, now the level of road usage at the location is very light and of a residential nature, if you can't build a bridge the level crossing option is permitted

Favourite one was the guy near Midleton who complained about a bridge replacing a level crossing citing waste of money, little did he know that the bridge was in fact cheaper than the level crossing anyway

what's the max line speed for an autoLC - or is there one? That close to Kent it's unlikely to make much difference anyway.

Eventually!!!

Cullen signed off on it today as he was walking out the door.

Yippee, so we can look forward to announcement No 6 (?) then?

Is that the final sign off or do we still need one from the Department of Finance and the Attorney General?

Well, dont panic, it just goes back to IE now!!!

Railway order is basically like a cpo for a road.
The cpo for the N11 Beehive to Arklow bypass passed some years ago. the govt won't release the money for construction though so no work gets done other than some fencing.

there's two more announcements there anyway.
money released and construction started.

There is now a 4 week period to allow for any legal challenges/objections etc. After that 4 week period, its green lights.

Are you sure Derek, is the funding released for construction?
does the railway order and funding go hand in hand or are they seperate?

Like the Motorway order for the M7M8 to Culahill is cleared all it's legal hoops, it's only money holding it up.

4 weeks is the legal hold

The works order is not a indication of funding

Reopening of Midleton line gets green light

Reopening of Midleton line gets green light

Quote:

Originally Posted by Irish Times/Tim O'Brien

Minister for Transport Martin Cullen has signed an order for the reopening of the railway between Glounthaune and Midleton in Co Cork.
The Minister has also approved the construction of a commuter rail network around Cork city which will involve building stations at Dunkettle on the Cork to Cobh line, and at Blarney and Blackpool/Kilbarry on the Mallow line.

The route of the Midleton line will start at Cobh junction and extend eastwards through Carrigtwohill to Midleton, a distance of 10km.
The project will include new stations at Carrigtwohill and Midleton.

The reopening of the Midleton line and the new stations on existing lines are expected to cost €130 million.
Work will get under way in July.

The railway order - essentially planning permission - allows Iarnród Éireann to proceed with the land acquisition and construction of the railway.
The disused Glounthaune to Midleton railway line is currently single track with sidings at Carrigtwohill and Midleton.
It has been closed for almost 20 years.

It is also part of the former Great Southern railway line between Cork and Youghal.

Regular passenger services to Youghal ceased in 1963 but summer excursions and goods traffic continued until the closure of the Cork to Midleton stretch in 1988.

The Cobh to Cork section is the only part which remains in operation.

CIÉ applied for a railway order for the rail project in May 2006.

This was followed with a public inquiry, and the report of the inspector was published earlier this year.
Detailed design work was completed in December 2006.

Construction work is due to commence this summer and the target date for completion is late next year.
The first commuter trains are expected to enter service in 2009.

Some €20 million of the budget is expected to go towards the provision of new diesel railcars for the services.

The reopening of the railway line was put forward by the Cork area strategic plan and then endorsed by the National Spatial Strategy.
Iarnród Éireann has also said it plans to reopen passenger services between Limerick and Galway, through Athenry.

This section of the former western rail corridor is the first part of the route to be reopened under Transport 21.

Preliminary work on clearance and refurbishment of the line is already under way and, following a resignalling project, passenger services will open late next year or early 2009.

When the line is restored Iarnród Éireann is planning to introduce daily commuter services from Athenry to Galway city centre, via Oranmore.
The developments are expected to relieve frequently severe traffic congestion on the approaches to both Cork and Galway.

No sign of the actual order on www.transport.ie yet.

Did I read that right? E20m for new railcars for Cork-Midleton? Or is this just IE feeding the IT an excuse for future cost overrun?

Over on IRN they are speculating that Cork-Midleton will just get the Tralee line's 2600/2700s when the 22k goes in service.

If it's going to cost 20m to find railcars for Cork suburban (and made part of the Midleton budget) what's that going to do to WRC budget since the cost of stock has never been allowed be mentioned there yet!

Well there ain't an order for more suburban diesel railcars... And it takes 2 years minimum to go from contract to service thats assuming we are talking about more 29k's

As we have said time and time again there ain't enough to go around

And I can't see there being enough until they electrify the Maynooth line... And there things get complicated because there aren't enough slots in Connolly for both Maynooth DARTs and northern DARTs.

I'm wondering if the stalling over the Middleton line is really over the lack of rolling stock.

I would of assumed that the re-signalling project between Connolly and Grand Canal due to start this year would go a lot way to sorting extra slots out for train? I know the plan is for these extra 4 trains a hour to be assigned to the Northern Line and hopefully Maynooth?

Mark

that's fair enough but if they're claiming a 20m spend they should back it up

I was out in Midleton yesterday. Good news to report. There is actually some work qoing on there around where the Mill Road level crossing is to be reinstated. Maybe an end to the announcements :)

Hopefully the real work will start now after all the announcements:cool: