Bad news for some rail plans

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by finnyus

Can anyone shed any light on the status of Athenry - Tuam? Will this section go ahead?

I'm sorry, but some people in the department don't know the difference between the two

[Mark Gleeson]

Originally Posted by Colm Moore

I'm sorry, but some people in the department don't know the difference between the two

The confusion is deliberate WoT think they are home free, the rest of us say its dead. Confusion is the key to political success.

[dowlingm]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...reaking48.html

Navan railway line to proceed - Dempsey

CHARLIE TAYLOR

Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey insisted today that a planned railway link between Dublin and Navan is to proceed, despite not being included in yesterday's revised capital spending programme.

Speaking on RTÉ radio this lunchtime, Mr Dempsey said the railway, which was initially expected to open by 2015, will still go ahead.

"It is in the capital programme, it is for delivery for the period 2016. Finances are available for it and the planning is going ahead," said Mr Dempsey.

"CIÉ are currently working on the preparation of the railway order which will be submitted in the first half of 2011. Construction will start immediately after planning permission is granted," he added. (article continues...)

[ccos]

From the examiner http://www.irishexaminer.ie/breaking...lt-467026.html

Dempsey: Rail links will be built
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 - 05:14 PM



Transport Minister Noel Dempsay has said that the Navan to Dublin rail link and the Western Rail Corridor will go ahead as planned.

Minister Dempsey said Phase 2 of the Navan line will take three years to build and construction will get underway once planning permission is granted.

Work will begin on the Claremorris to Tuam line over the next two years, he added.

Minister Dempsey said suggestions otherwise are just mischievous.

"They are not on hold," he insisted. "I don't know where this story came out of and why it was given such prominence.

"The Navan rail line Phase 2 goes for planning permission in the first half of next year. As soon as that process is finished it will go to construction."

He also said Phase 2 of the Western Rail Corridor was also included in the capital programme.



Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.ie/breaking...#ixzz0uv726ekI

He says definitely to Tuam and the phrase "Western Rail Corridor will go ahead as planned." my be suggesting that north of that is still on the cards.
I wonder what he'll say when hes shown the qoute in 10 years and we still have no Dunboyne Navan railway?

[ccos]

Also in the Examiner http://www.irishexaminer.ie/breaking...ad-466980.html

Transport Minister Noel Dempsey has today insisted that the Dublin to Navan rail line will still go ahead.

However, Minister Dempsey has admitted it will take a number of years before planning permission is granted.

The Government announced yesterday that plans for both the Navan line and the Western Rail Corridor are being shelved.

Minister Dempsey is hopeful that the line will be completed by 2015, however

Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.ie/breaking...#ixzz0uv8piGwO

Aha, "However, Minister Dempsey has admitted it will take a number of years before planning permission is granted." That answers my earlier question.

[James Howard]

If Irish Rail proceed with electrification of the Maynooth Line and the Northern line, what would they end up doing the railcars that project would release.

Presently, the Sligo line is effectively maxed out - there is no way they can use rolling stock on it and keep to a timetable - they barely manage as it is if anything goes even slighly wrong. I assume the same goes for the other single track lines. And in any case from spending 6 years commuting from Edgeworthstown on 29Ks, they are not fit for that purpose anyway.

This whole investment plan is the typical big shiny project mentality. THe interconnector and electrification parts are necessary but Metro North is complete stupidity in the present climate. If they want to invest 4 billion euro in transport in Dublin, the returns on putting in three or four light rail lines would vastly exceed the returns on Metro North.

And they could also put a footbridge in Enfield which would provide a usable passing loop between Killucan and Maynooth for whenever anything goes wrong on the Sligo line :-). Even Irish Rail would struggle to make that cost more than half a million quid. It would probably cost less to do that than the stragically important milepost replacement project they have recently completed on the Sligo line.

A lot of this is focused on the perceived benefit of having a rail link to the airport, but this is overblown. The Aircoach does an airport run in 20 minutes off-peak and the vast majority of business travellers will always use taxis anyway.

[comcor]

Originally Posted by James Howard

If Irish Rail proceed with electrification of the Maynooth Line and the Northern line, what would they end up doing the railcars that project would release.

How easy would these be to convert?

Presumably, these use a diesel engine to generate electrical power to drive the train, so what's the practicalities of putting a pantograph on top and replacing the Diesel engine with a transformer.

Other than that, there must be a limit to the lifespan of the 2600s now. Especially considering they are horrible noisy, slow things with no acceleration.

Finally, should funding become available for Blarney and Kilbarry (and later Monard), there would probably be a need for a few more sets for Cork Commuter services.

[Mark Gleeson]

Technical issues are a no no.

The project is still funded and will continue as planned

[Colm Moore]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0728/1224275615184.html

Navan-Dublin rail project to proceed - Dempsey
KATHRYN HAYES and MARY MINIHAN

MINISTER FOR Transport Noel Dempsey has insisted a train service will run between Dublin and Navan by 2016, despite the project not being mentioned in the revised capital spending programme.

Asked if major projects outside Dublin had been put on hold following the Government’s announcement on Monday of a €39 billion investment plan, Mr Dempsey insisted construction on the railway link would go ahead once planning permission was granted.

“Western Rail Corridor phase two is not put on the long finger. Navan rail line [is] not put on the long finger despite reports to the contrary . . . They are not on hold.

“The next stage for the Navan rail line is that they submit their planning permission, their railway order. I’m assured by CIÉ that that will be lodged in the first half of next year. I’m not sure how long it will take to get through the planning stage bit once it gets through the planning process construction will start immediately,” he said.

Mr Dempsey was speaking in Limerick at the opening of the new €660 million tunnel under the river Shannon, which is designed to take up to 40,000 vehicles a day from Limerick city centre while improving access to Shannon airport, Galway, Cork, Kerry and Dublin.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen was asked if the Limerick tunnel would be the last big spending project to be carried out in the west of Ireland for some time. He said this was not a “proper analysis of the full spend”.

Mr Cowen said: “We have to find the balance between the need to make strategic investments which bring a return for the country but also seek to deal with the regional issues. But it’s not a question of dividing about money in a mathematical way, it’s about seeing what are the priorities.”

Mr Cowen said the Government was still investing almost €6 billion in continuing road improvements, not only on major works like the Atlantic Road Corridor but also on the regional and county road system.

“In addition to that we will see significant investment in our public transport system beginning with the major investments in Dublin, our capital city,” he said.

“While we have very serious budgetary issues to address, and not that I would minimise them in any way, we have to continue to invest in our people, invest in our infrastructure, provide the ways and means by which we can have an economy that operates more efficiently.”

Fine Gael’s deputy transport spokesman Shane McEntee insisted no funding had been allocated to the Dublin to Navan railway link and the project had been dropped. “I would love to sit down with the Minister and get a full explanation of the funding proposals. But I just can’t see he’s going to pay for it. There’s no money set aside in the Government coffers,” Mr McEntee said.

“Is he planning to pay for it with Monopoly money?” Mr McEntee said “scores of projects” had been dropped in the Infrastructure Investment Priorities plan.

Meanwhile, Fine Gael’s communications spokesman Leo Varadkar described the claim that 270,000 jobs could be created by the capital investment plan as “complete codology”.

The Labour Party’s spokesman on housing Ciarán Lynch accused Ministers of being “hell-bent on outsourcing the provision of social housing to their developer pals”.

He said “current and future housing provision is to be met almost entirely by leasing existing housing stock from builders and developers”.

[comcor]

So the Cork-Mallow plans have been thrown into disarray by some recent decisions

First we get An Bord Pleanala rejecting the development of the new town in Monard because the rail and road plans for the area were not definite

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news...-29560077.html

Then the rejection of planning permission means that the station gets put on ice (along with other commuter stations around Cork)

http://www.irishexaminer.com/archive...ns-247617.html

Based on An Bord Pleanala's decision, there are only two real ways to solve this
- Irish Rail to build a potentially useless station
- A single entity to take over the development of the town, road network and station

I don't know what it says about the country that An Bord Pleanala is effectively saying that 3 branches of the state can't be trusted to work together...

[Colm Moore]

Without having read it, refusal would suggest joined-up thinking was absent. There are ways to do these things.

[comcor]

An Bord Pleanala has now approved the new town at Monard, but development can't proceed until the station there has been built.

Given the housing shortages in Cork, and how much this could help to alleviate it, I would hope this would mean funding could be prioritized.

[Jamie2k9]

An Bord Pleanala has now approved the new town at Monard, but development can't proceed until the station there has been built.

Given the housing shortages in Cork, and how much this could help to alleviate it, I would hope this would mean funding could be prioritized.

Not going to happen for years....it must be now nearly 15 years since Adamstwon in Dublin was first muted and not a lot has happened.

Developers will need to fund the station and they are not exactly in the mood for building right now!

[James Howard]

In a country with joined-up thinking, Irish Rail would be getting involved in a consortium to build stuff like this and sharing in the profits. They could be buying up huge tracts of land 40 to 60km from Dublin on the main lines and building entire new towns to house 40 to 50 thousand people. I've said it before, but it is quite mad to be starting out the window of a train less than 15 km from Dublin at green fields either side and listen to the news complaining about homelessness and chronic housing shortages.

We get to hear rural politicians moaning and wringing their hands about the lack of ability to attract technology companies outside of Dublin. The solution elsewhere is to build transport infrastructure to enable people in rural communities get to work in the cities. The stated aim of Crossrail in London is to bring 2 million extra people within commuting distance of Dublin. Meanwhile, we'll have spent the guts of 15 years building a 6km tram extension - a good chunk of which is on a disused rail alignment.

But because some land speculator ends up having to make 1,000% profit on the proceeds of a zoning change, the profits get privatised and everyone gets to live in badly-designed poorly serviced estates and the state has to come back 20 years later to build proper transport infrastructure, schools and various other services.

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by James Howard

In a country with joined-up thinking, Irish Rail would be getting involved in a consortium to build stuff like this and sharing in the profits.

Sure, the state has a role in property development / housing, but I'm not sure if Irish Rail or CIÉ are the correct vehicles for this.

That said, Docklands and Hansfield stations were paid for solely by developers and developers also contributed to the Dunboyne branch. However, I'm not sure that the contribution scheme was balanced - while new properties with 1km of the line have to contribute towards funding it, existing properties and those outside 1km get a 'free ride'. Being within 1km of the line does not mean within 1km of a station.

Details of the Fingal County Council scheme here: http://www.fingal.ie/planning-and-bu...-contribution/

[Colm Moore]

The Monard contribution scheme is here: http://www.corkcoco.ie/co/web/Cork%2...heme%20%202015