A real Transport 21

[sean]

Oisin, sign me up for most of that except:

Originally Posted by Oisin88

3. Reallign the Wexford Inter-City Line so that:
...
(c) it swings around the southside through tallaght into Heuston
4. Let Sligo trains swing across from Maynooth to Hazelhatch and into Heuston.

Ok first of all Heuston as a long-distance service terminus is way overrated IMO. too far from the city centre and the developing docklands.
Second, many of the planned T21 lines will interchange with the Connolly based network, for example the Metro at Drumcondra.
Thirdly, the cost of these new alignments and infrastructure that would be necessary for a small number of trains would be quite large - you could do a heck of a lot more for the Sligo and Rosslare lines with a lot less.

Although new intercity alignments bypassing the DART to go to Heuston would have the benefit of segregating the Maynooth-Bray local services from long distance services, the service frequency of both does not require such drastic measures nor will it for some time. A middle-road passing loop system with short stretches of 3 or 4 tracks here and there would allow local services to be run frequently while express services overtake them as needed at the passing loops.

The Sligo/Longford and Rosslare/Gorey/Arklow lines should IMO be merged into a single set of Intercity and Commuter services.
This has the benefit of providing more 0-change and 1-change possibilities to the main destinations in Dublin city from both sides of the merged line.
Sligo/Longford gets direct trains to Tara St. (the busiest station in Ireland and closest to O'Connell Bridge) and Pearse station with interchange to the future Interconnector.
Arklow/Rosslare would get direct service to Drumcondra where passengers can change to the future Metro for the city centre, Northside, Airport and Swords.
None of that would be accomplished by sending said trains to Heuston.
Through running, eliminating the need for a train to turn around in Dublin city would also give IE more flexibility as to what classes of train to use.
It may even allow IE to sneak a few more DARTs through the Connolly bottleneck because Sligo/Longford trains bring practically everything to a halt when they approach/leave the terminal platfoms.