North Tipperary Line

[niallf]

First time poster here with a hypothetical question.

In an Ireland where there was a few hundred million euro to play around with for railway infrastructure investment could an argument be made for a direct line from south of Portlaoise to connect to the North Tipperary line? If the track on the line from that point to Limerick was of good enough quality would it be feasible for this to then be the main intercity line between Dublin and Limerick?

I understand of course the reasons for bundling Limerick intercity onto the Cork services with changes at Limerick Junction but I'm under the impression that the distance would be shorter Dublin to Limerick via the North Tipperary line in my hypothetical situation and so with the right level of investment there could be competitive journey times and the opportunity to service the intermediate stations.

Thanks

[Destructix]

A big number of those passengers on the Dublin-Limerick/Dublin-Limerick Junction services board at Templemore and Thurles and passengers from South Tipp/Cork meet these connections at the junction. The poor condition of that Ballybrophy-Limerick line, Dublin-Limerick via the junction is much faster.

[Mark Gleeson]

Folk this is a customer forum, playing trains is not welcome. Lets keep things real, there is no money.

On a practical level Limerick Junction will always be faster due to the line being much straighter

[Inniskeen]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Folk this is a customer forum, playing trains is not welcome. Lets keep things real, there is no money.

On a practical level Limerick Junction will always be faster due to the line being much straighter

Lets hope things don't get too real or there mightn't too much left to discuss!

[Thomas J Stamp]

look, 1968 is even older than I am. its not going to happen. the end.

[Inniskeen]

Originally Posted by niallf

First time poster here with a hypothetical question.

In an Ireland where there was a few hundred million euro to play around with for railway infrastructure investment could an argument be made for a direct line from south of Portlaoise to connect to the North Tipperary line? If the track on the line from that point to Limerick was of good enough quality would it be feasible for this to then be the main intercity line between Dublin and Limerick?

I understand of course the reasons for bundling Limerick intercity onto the Cork services with changes at Limerick Junction but I'm under the impression that the distance would be shorter Dublin to Limerick via the North Tipperary line in my hypothetical situation and so with the right level of investment there could be competitive journey times and the opportunity to service the intermediate stations.

Thanks

You are right, the shortest route from Dublin to Limerick is indeed via Nenagh and this was the main line to Limerick prior to 1968. The line currently suffers from a number of major handicaps

• Idiotic track layout at Ballybrophy which makes the operation of through services to and from Dublin costly, tortuous, tedious and time consuming.
  
• Large number of level crossings (public road, field and accommodation) adding to operating costs and creating safety risks especially in respect of user operated crossings.
  
• An uncongested parallel motorway.
  
• Degraded track condition due to years of neglect.
  
• Low speeds on sections of line already upgraded.
  
• Slow and infrequent services.
  
• Lack of interest by the operator.
  

All of these issues would need to be addressed to give the line a worthwhile future. With decent track, upgraded level crossings and a direct curve by-passing Ballybrophy, it would be possible to offer useful and competitive services to/from Limerick and intermediate points. The scale of investment needed is comparable to that which was required to re-habilitate the Galway or Westport lines.