We currently live in a car obsessed culture that has been accelerated (note my use of motoring talk
). I believe it will take 30 years for our love affair with the car to bottom out. (I have the math on that, but I'm too chilled out to go into it, so go with me on this.)
Until the early 1990s, the train compared favourably with the road option for intercity trips. However, even in our mild state of bankruptcy pre "celtic Tiger", enough bypasses were being built on inter urban routes to slowly erode the driving time, helping it to eat away at the train option. Times have changed now and the inter urban road programme is in full swing. So this brings me back to a point I have made many times and is actually relevent to the way this thread has evolved.
Intercity rail times in Ireland are very poor by comparitive European standards. The reasons for this include the vast amount of single track lines, speed restrictions due to level crossings/curvature and underpowered machinery. We have failed in two areas since investment was made.
1. We have not adapted incoming intercity stock to suit our network.
2. We have not future proofed the On-Track 2000 programme to allow for faster speeds.
Both of the above points are actually contradictive. (Keep with me) If we had adapted intercity stock to run at speed on our network, we would have examined the "Pendolino" concept or any other tilting train technology, that would allow for faster speeds on lines with much curvature. This would contribute drastic time reductions and bring out the best from the network we have.
But, we actually, relaid track, took out some level crossings, strengthened embankments, fenced off the lines, replaced outdated signalling and then ran the same type of train more safely as opposed to faster. We have been aspiring to a Dublin-Cork-Dublin run of 2 hrs 30 mins since the early 1970s. Back then it would have been impressive. Nowadays its rather old fashioned, yet we are still aspiring to it, while the motorway gets even closer to a complete reality. Now, thats just Cork as an example. The same road building frenzy continues on other inter urban routes that duplicate rail routes.
200kph may seem to some as a waste on the Cork or indeed Belfast run, but unless its achieved pronto, the car will kill it stone dead. Likewise for other routes. In my opinion, both IE and the Government have been very complacent. IE wanted to get the network up to scratch from a safety point of view. The Government think that this is enough. IE have dropped the ball over the years and examples of this are the fact that they have been buying 200kph capable rolling stock since 1984 and the latest MK4 order is powered by a 12 year old loco, restricted to 160kph at best. The Enterprise service was a new train, with "freight loco" powering and that has proved disasterous, despite EU money for the project. In the meantime we just replaced our track to make it safer and not quicker. No forward thinking in the face of Government ignorance.
Its a bit like a mini-series.....part 1.....part 2....etc. with no real plan. Only problem is, its a comedy of epic proportions.
As for prefabs(thats what they were called in my day) They didn't effect me, but I must agree that when our Taoiseach is screaming about how well the country is doing, a "temporary" structure in a school or hospital, just sums up how well we aren't actually doing. As an example, the local national school in Kill, Co. Kildare, has more "prefabs" than actual concrete structures and a great big bloody sign outside that says the following;
"New residents of Kill. This school is full. Please contact the dept. of Education."
200kph to Cork? Maybe its 500kph to nowhere.