Ireland 2040 - Rail Elements.

[James Shields]

Ah, I hadn't though of Conyngham Road as a bridge rather than part of the tunnel.

Any idea what the clearance under the bridge is, and what is needed for electrification?

[niallm]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Grapevine has been looking at Metro tie in somewhere near Beachwood, timing issue due development of the Irish Nationwide block on Grand Parade, they need to lock this down ASAP if going ahead as a deep basement could cause issues

The big mystery to me is what DART station it connects to. It's supposed to cross the Liffey West of Rosie Hackett bridge, according to what I've seen, and join up a Beechwood... which either means it veers strongly east after the Mater (and back again), or strongly east after SSG? But neither of those look practical to me.

[Jamie2k9]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Conyngham Rd is the problem

I would be confident the Chapelizod bypass bridges would be high enough, but there is plenty of space either side to drop the track if needed

So where did 2 billion go in Dublin rail

Electrify 250
New fleet 600-800
New depot 50
New train control centre 50
KRP2 (4 tracks Inchicore onwards) 150?
Level cross elimination?

The real problem here is short term planning means long term cost. The new plans require electrification of Heuston station (which will be painful and the Phoenix park route and possibly 4 tracks down the gullet section which has been advised against. The original plan required no works inwards from Inchicore

Is the R839 the big issue over the gullet, reducing the embankment along the N4 is doable but no way to replace that over bridge with getting very creative and speeding a massive amount of money.

[ACustomer]

The rail elements of this plan appear to be very badly thought out.

Electrifying to Hazlehatch was always supposed to be part of Dart Underground. Electrifying it as part of a Phoenix Park Tunnel route would seem to be a very high expense for a relatively low frequency route (making it a high frequency route involves huge problems between Connolly and GC Dock, as well as at Islandbridge Junction).

I know that the Green line South of Beechwood was engineered to make it convertible to heaver Metro-type trains. However I suspect that the announcement of Sandyford as a Metro destination might have something to do with votes for Shane Ross. I suspect that having failed to get Stepaside Garda station opened he is trying for a Metro.

There is a terrible vagueness about the exact sequencing of suburban electrification, and nothing at all about Intercity electrification, which is going to be an issue if the transport sector is to really contribute to CO2 emission reduction.

Also why focus on Cork-Limerick motorway and other schemes while nothing really big or strategic about enhancing access to the ports which will be hugely more important post-Brexit, with much greater need for direct links to mainland Europe, bypassing the likely chaos at Dover and other UK ports.

Overall one's worst fears about the quality of the Department of Transport are confirmed. As for the current minister, I had better restrain myself!

[Mark Gleeson]

Its classic politicians and crayons.

So how does the metro surface at Charlemont? Don't think anyone actually went out and took a look did they?

Maynooth line electrification is obvious quick project, would cut journey times and release a pile of 29k's for other routes i.e. Hazelhatch PPT. Won't deliver a huge amount in capacity really probably only get 2500 extra peak hour capacity.

Without DART underground you aren't going anywhere fast

[ACustomer]

Colm McCarthy has a good Indo piece on the extravagant costs of the new Metro proposals and also on the likely relatively poor benefits. Costs are in the same ballpark as Dart Underground and benefits do not seem commensurate. See: https://www.independent.ie/opinion/c...-36615041.html

[Thomas J Stamp]

DART Underground is the ideal solution. Everyone accepted that it was, right up to the moment the first cheque had to be written. Then the money vanished into the fiscal space on the most spurious of pretexts and there it has remained.

DART Underground suffers from not exactly being identified with any given Dail Constituancy insofar as it benifits so many areas as a whole. Metro North is easily identified with the North Dublin area (and indeed the proposed southern terminus just happens to be in the minsters area - go figure).

[James Shields]

I've got to agree that a Metro route that shadows the green line through the city centre seems a wasted opportunity to widen the net of the city's transport infrastructure. This seems especially true for an underground line that doesn't need to be tied to surface street routing. For example, a Metro route cutting through Smithfield would open a whole area of the city to rail transport.

If we're adding a new north-south line, it would make sense for it to serve an area of the city centre that doesn't currently have a north-south rail connection. The important thing is for it to connect to all of the other rail routes, so that people can go anywhere with one change.

Of course the problem is that without Dart Underground, it's very hard to make Metro connect with the current DART line. Without the Interconnector, nothing works properly.

[Jamie2k9]

Originally Posted by niallm

The big mystery to me is what DART station it connects to. It's supposed to cross the Liffey West of Rosie Hackett bridge, according to what I've seen, and join up a Beechwood... which either means it veers strongly east after the Mater (and back again), or strongly east after SSG? But neither of those look practical to me.

Tara St is the proposal now with Mater stop dropped despite spending 16 million building a station box for the stop.

The way things are going there will be a totally new route by 2021 if it even starts construction then!

[James Shields]

Is there any detail on the new route? To fit in a Tara St stop, it presumably needs to be approaching from the north-west, which may have made the angles through the Mater problematic.

I'm also skeptical that any of this plan will actually get built.

[James Howard]

Skipping the Mater seems like madness. It is one of the biggest city centre employers - nearly 3,000 employees and at least as many visitors every day - man of whom would have mobility difficulties so need a station close to the hospital to make it work.

[Jamie2k9]

-Mater Stays
-Tara Street
-SSG East and West stop
-13 of 17km underground (more than 2015 cost cut) to GL interchange.
-Green Line 500m upgrade for Metro ops

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/irel...00567?mode=amp

[James Shields]

I think Phibsborough (Whitworth) is a much more sensible place for an interchange with the Maynooth line (though the article doesn't explicitly mention there will be one). It would be feasible for an interchange station between Metro and both Irish Rail lines, which is not possible at Drumcondra. Hopefully it will be an integrated station, and not two separate stations, as I believe would have been the case at Drumcondra.

It sounds like the entire Dublin Airport to Charlemont part will be underground, which solves a few problems. But surfacing at Charlemont? The only way I can see to do that is to CPO the entirity of Peter Place and knock it.

Detail seems lacking on what will happen to the Green Line. Cutting the middle out of it seems unworkable, as it would make current non-stop journeys require two changes. But does it have the capacity to run Metro an Luas? Will most of the Metro trains turn back at Stephen's Green, and only a few continue to Sandyford?

Is there a good reason for only making the Charlemont-Sandyford section Metro, and not Charlemont-Brides Glen? As far as I recall, the section south of Sandyford is fully segregated from road crossings, so probably a better candidate for Metro than Charlemont-Sandyford.

[ACustomer]

James Shields:

As far as I recall, the section south of Sandyford is fully segregated from road crossings, so probably a better candidate for Metro than Charlemont-Sandyford.

No it's not. Quite the opposite: there are several road crossings between Sandyford and Bride's Glen. Its also quite limited in terms of curvature and line speed.

The whole thing is a resurrection of an old, discarded plan to upgrade the Green line to Metro standard South of Beechwood. The construction of the Cross-city Luas line makes that plan a bit of a nonsense, yet it gets resurrected. That's what happens when politicians are let loose on investment decisions.

Ross is a disaster.

[Mark Gleeson]

I have it on record from the RPA

Sandyford - Brides Glen will never be upgraded to metro

[Ronald Binge]

Originally Posted by ACustomer

Colm McCarthy has a good Indo piece on the extravagant costs of the new Metro proposals and also on the likely relatively poor benefits. Costs are in the same ballpark as Dart Underground and benefits do not seem commensurate. See: https://www.independent.ie/opinion/c...-36615041.html

If the Indo or Sindo had their way in the 80s we wouldn’t even have DART now. It’s like the first cuckoo of spring, to hear McCarthy et al dumping on any rail proposal. Imagine a plethora of infrequent variants of core bus routes, with packed buses dripping with sweaty condensation as the alternate reality we’d be dealing with now in Dublin instead.

[James Shields]

I think there's no doubt the Indo has a long running anti-rail/anti-public transport stance, which certainly colours their view of projects like this.

I do also think we've had a bit of an anti-Metro stance on this board. Some of that is justified, as if you have to make a choice between Metro and DART Underground, DART Underground clearly delivers more for the city, and enables so many other things.

However, if you compare them purely in terms of providing an Airport link, Metro will deliver a better, faster and more frequent service. It would, however, be vastly improved if it interconnected with DART Underground.

The Ireland 2040 delivers less in a far grater timeframe than the previous abandoned plan, which would have given us both Metro and DART Underground.

[comcor]

While I have no belief that the Light Rail in Cork will actually happen, I've seen some suggestions that the Cobh and Midleton lines could be converted to a Light Rail solution, which would then run through Cork City Centre and out to destinations on the western side of the city.

What are people's thoughts on this?

How much slower would the journey be from Cobh/Midleton? And would a link in to the the City Centre, UCC etc. help make up for it? I understand the top speed of a tram (70km/h) is a lot less than a 2600 (110km/h), but how much time do they spend at top speed and to what extent does the improved acceleration of a tram mean that it wouldn't matter?

Presumably if those lines were converted over it would mean Cork would end up with a 1,600mm gauge. Would that make rolling stock more expensive? And would there be any disadvantages to being on a different gauge from Dublin?

[ACustomer]

The more one looks at the rail element of the Plan, the worse it gets.

First, Metro North-South. The original Green line (Sandyford-Stephen’s Green) was engineered for heavier Metro trains between Beechwood and Sandyford. The idea was that the line would go underground near Beechwood and on to Stephen’s Green, the airport and Swords. However the Green line has since acquired extensions South to Bride’s Glen and North to Broombridge so any new Metro between Sandyford and Beechwood (or worse, Charlemont) would isolate the two new extensions to the Green line, unless Luas and Metro vehicles were to share the line between Sandyford and Beechwood/Charlemont. One can imagine the timetabling and engineering problems. The newest Metro plans, being proposed a matter of weeks after the luas extension to Broombridge, are shambolic.

Second: electrification. There is some general aspiration to electrify to Maynooth, Balbriggan and possibly Hazlehatch. There is mention that extra tracks may be required over part (?) Of the line to Balbriggan. There is also a mention of hybrid electro-diesel multiple units. However there appears to be no detail, and not even the outline of a coherent plan of implementation, which integrates the progress of electrification with the purchase of new rolling stock. Hybrid trains are coming to the UK, in part because they have cut back on their electrification plans. On the continent they electrify most lines and reap huge benefits in terms of lower operating costs and better service levels. I fear that hybrid rolling stock may lead to endless procrastination when it comes to projects to extend or complete electrification of routes.

Third: Colm McCarthy and other critics. I really wish people would read his recent Indo piece. He made the simple point that the Metro proposals costing €3m have not been subjected to any cost benefit analysis, as apparently required by law. This is not being anti-rail, it’s just arguing for proper project evaluation. McCarthy and the Indo may have written other pieces which are anti-rail, but judge this one on its merits and don’t resort to ad hominem arguments.

I don’t know who should be blamed for this mess, the NTA, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, the Department of Transport, or the Minister in whose constituency Sandyford is situated. I wouldn’t put them in charge of a funfair ride. And Comcor, please don’t even think about mixing Cork suburban rail with some new tram line!

[Ronald Binge]

Originally Posted by ACustomer

The more one looks at the rail element of the Plan, the worse it gets.

First, Metro North-South. The original Green line (Sandyford-Stephen’s Green) was engineered for heavier Metro trains between Beechwood and Sandyford. The idea was that the line would go underground near Beechwood and on to Stephen’s Green, the airport and Swords. However the Green line has since acquired extensions South to Bride’s Glen and North to Broombridge so any new Metro between Sandyford and Beechwood (or worse, Charlemont) would isolate the two new extensions to the Green line, unless Luas and Metro vehicles were to share the line between Sandyford and Beechwood/Charlemont. One can imagine the timetabling and engineering problems. The newest Metro plans, being proposed a matter of weeks after the luas extension to Broombridge, are shambolic.

Second: electrification. There is some general aspiration to electrify to Maynooth, Balbriggan and possibly Hazlehatch. There is mention that extra tracks may be required over part (?) Of the line to Balbriggan. There is also a mention of hybrid electro-diesel multiple units. However there appears to be no detail, and not even the outline of a coherent plan of implementation, which integrates the progress of electrification with the purchase of new rolling stock. Hybrid trains are coming to the UK, in part because they have cut back on their electrification plans. On the continent they electrify most lines and reap huge benefits in terms of lower operating costs and better service levels. I fear that hybrid rolling stock may lead to endless procrastination when it comes to projects to extend or complete electrification of routes.

Third: Colm McCarthy and other critics. I really wish people would read his recent Indo piece. He made the simple point that the Metro proposals costing €3m have not been subjected to any cost benefit analysis, as apparently required by law. This is not being anti-rail, it’s just arguing for proper project evaluation. McCarthy and the Indo may have written other pieces which are anti-rail, but judge this one on its merits and don’t resort to ad hominem arguments.

I don’t know who should be blamed for this mess, the NTA, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, the Department of Transport, or the Minister in whose constituency Sandyford is situated. I wouldn’t put them in charge of a funfair ride. And Comcor, please don’t even think about mixing Cork suburban rail with some new tram line!

Endless procrastination by Official Ireland is at fault. Official Ireland’s attitude that any transport infrastructure above non-prioritised buses is a treat and not the backbone of sustainable development is at fault. Good infrastructure makes the Republic an economy that can sustain itself. Not the miserable, boom-to-bust excuse of a place that keeps the likes of McCarthy comfortable but fecks everyone else.