Oddities of Irish Infrastructure

L1011 · 13-12-2009 11:00pm

murphaph wrote: »

Abandoned motorways are almost unheard of in Ireland.

Irish and Proud · 13-12-2009 11:03pm

murphaph wrote: »

Abandoned motorways are almost unheard of in Ireland.

...abandoned by the both M1 and the very road it originally left abandoned - the current R132 on the right was abandoned from 1998 (Balbriggan Bypass) to 2003 (M1 Airport to Five Roads Scheme), when the now abandoned tie-in transferred all motor traffic from the old N1 to what is now Junction 5!

Ironic isn't it!!!

Irish and Proud · 13-12-2009 11:11pm

MYOB wrote: »

But not entirely unique

Interesting, an interchange specially made for 4x4s!

:D:D

rainbowdash · 13-12-2009 11:51pm

At Durty Nellies the original bridge is bypassed not once but twice.

L1011 · 13-12-2009 11:54pm

rainbowdash wrote: »

At Durty Nellies the original bridge is bypassed not once but twice.

On a similar note, at Kilcock there are three alignments of the N/M4 adjacent to each other:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=kilcock&sll=53.40041,-6.668071&sspn=0.02528,0.077162&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Kilcock,+County+Kildare,+Ireland&ll=53.406769,-6.693034&spn=0.012638,0.038581&z=15

From north to south - the pre-1993 alignment, the 1993-2005 alignment and the current alignment

Rumblefish · 14-12-2009 10:57am

Any cycle lane in Ireland would qualify i think as an Oddities - especially where they start and finish, or meet other junctions.

Irish road designers think painting a white bike symbol on a wide footpath constitutes a bike lane

fricatus · 14-12-2009 12:34pm

At both its junctions with the N9, the N10 has priority over the "mainline".

murphaph · 14-12-2009 2:35pm

MYOB wrote: »

But not entirely unique

I'd be interested to hear how that one developed. Was the overbridge constructed at the same time as the Portlaoise bypass? Are both southfacing slips stopped up or just the offslip, hard to tell if it's just shadow with the onslip.

alpha2zulu · 14-12-2009 3:06pm

The destruction of an integrated rail line at Rosslare Harbour must surely be near the top of the oddities list. For decades the Rosslare-Dublin/Waterford/Limerick trains stopped right outside the passenger terminal but a couple of years ago the station was relocated about 300m away at the far side of freight lanes and a car park.

Cant remember what the offcial reason was for the move at the time?

road_high · 14-12-2009 4:11pm

fricatus wrote: »

At both its junctions with the N9, the N10 has priority over the "mainline".

Much busier road though to be fair. The equal solution here should have been a roundabout. However with the M9 bypassing this junction there is no huge need, be history soon enough.

bigar · 14-12-2009 7:10pm

This is surely a strange one in Clonsilla

The top right is a winding road coming from Clonsilla Station. To join the main road, you need to go sharp left for 100 meters and then sharp right to reach the roundabout.
Strangely enough you need Stop (sign) at both ends of the short connecting road even though there is no one going straight ahead on the connecting roads.

I can only imagine this was supposed to be part of greater plan

L1011 · 14-12-2009 7:14pm

murphaph wrote: »

I'd be interested to hear how that one developed. Was the overbridge constructed at the same time as the Portlaoise bypass? Are both southfacing slips stopped up or just the offslip, hard to tell if it's just shadow with the onslip.

Both are stopped. I think it was the original start of the Portlaoise BP, but I can't actually remember. I was only just driving when the Heath-Mayfield scheme opened.

edit: it wasn't actually... http://ims0.osiemaps.ie/website/publicviewer/main.aspx#V1,652104,701658,7 and go for Ortho 2000 to get a pre-Heath Mayfield aerial shot.

Heathen · 14-12-2009 7:25pm

on the way out of waterford where the n24 breaks off for the n9 to dublin there is a sign for Grannagh... but on the sign its spelt "granny" hehe i get a nice chuckle when i pass it.. must have been a friday afternoon rush job

murphaph · 14-12-2009 7:43pm

MYOB wrote: »

Both are stopped. I think it was the original start of the Portlaoise BP, but I can't actually remember. I was only just driving when the Heath-Mayfield scheme opened.

edit: it wasn't actually... http://ims0.osiemaps.ie/website/publicviewer/main.aspx#V1,652104,701658,7 and go for Ortho 2000 to get a pre-Heath Mayfield aerial shot.

They obviously replaced the south facing slips with a new set on the junction to the south which originally opened with only north facing slips. Does anyone know how/why this all happened? It's very curious.

wellbutty · 14-12-2009 8:26pm

Heathen wrote: »

on the way out of waterford where the n24 breaks off for the n9 to dublin there is a sign for Grannagh... but on the sign its spelt "granny" hehe i get a nice chuckle when i pass it.. must have been a friday afternoon rush job

Ordnance Survey says "Granny":

http://ims0.osiemaps.ie/website/publicviewer/main.aspx#V1,657267,614730,5

Trick of the Tail · 14-12-2009 8:46pm

wellbutty wrote: »

Ordnance Survey says "Granny":

http://ims0.osiemaps.ie/website/publicviewer/main.aspx#V1,657267,614730,5

Both names apply, one English, one Irish.

Kilmeaden is another spelling oddity. Some signs say 'Kilmeaden', others 'Kilmeadan'.

On Waterford's Cork Road, there is a sign pointing towards the 'Municapal Dump'.

You'd think SOMEONE would check the spelling of all road signs!

A.

Heathen · 14-12-2009 11:19pm

oops my bad.. but this thread reminds me of this little gem....

GeneHunt · 15-12-2009 2:01am

Quote:
Originally Posted by MYOB
Both are stopped. I think it was the original start of the Portlaoise BP, but I can't actually remember. I was only just driving when the Heath-Mayfield scheme opened.

edit: it wasn't actually... http://ims0.osiemaps.ie/website/publ...52104,701658,7 and go for Ortho 2000 to get a pre-Heath Mayfield aerial shot.

murphaph wrote: »

They obviously replaced the south facing slips with a new set on the junction to the south which originally opened with only north facing slips. Does anyone know how/why this all happened? It's very curious.

I think this old junction may have been to serve a pub (here) on the old N7 just north of this junction on the old N7 (R445), I can't remember the pub's name but it was a "truck stop" restaurant. Not sure if it is still open, however it looks to me the end/ start of Portlaoise BP was Okayed back in the early 90's so long as this business was served.

mysterious · 15-12-2009 3:12am

Surprised the First mooted inter urban motorway outside Leinster is now one of the last to finish.

Limerick to Nenagh motorway.Which was mooted before the inter urban projects began. Awaited CPO in 1999 and then got transferred into the new NDP. The first CPO was done and then again in 2003 and its been waiting to finish ever since.

mysterious · 15-12-2009 3:14am

murphaph wrote: »

They obviously replaced the south facing slips with a new set on the junction to the south which originally opened with only north facing slips. Does anyone know how/why this all happened? It's very curious.

Because the tie in of the other facing slips were pointless as the Heath Mayfield continued on away from the R445. As the motorway was completed then, it made sense to put all the off-on slip traffic onto the one interchange.

The idea was to stop the weaving movemnts of the on facing slips to the off facing slips to the next bridge into the one full interchange.

The R445 and Portarlington road link was then constructed to this motorway interchange.

mysterious · 15-12-2009 3:17am

Newlands cross at at grade. (should of been done years ago) and when the Rathcoole DC was upgraded to 3 lanes each way. But the idea was to improve the entire N7 and leave Newlands at grade.

kind of odd.

But appropriate for this thread though.

rubensni · 15-12-2009 11:19am

Ireland has a unique railway gauge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_gauge

Zoney · 15-12-2009 6:00pm

rubensni:

Now there is one that should have popped up earlier! One or two oddities elsewhere in the world where it is present, but you'd be safe enough describing it as "Irish gauge"!

Roryhy · 15-12-2009 6:12pm

It is an Irish gauge, it's irish engineers that spread it to other areas.

ardmacha · 15-12-2009 7:03pm

In the North, they like the idea of an A37 so much that they have two, both running more or less East-West and 140km apart.

Carawaystick · 16-12-2009 1:08am

rubensni wrote: »

Ireland has a unique railway gauge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_gauge

It's not unique
as the wikipedia clearly ses.

In light of the threads on the inaccesibility of the Beckett Bridge in Dublin, building bridges to take traffic from other bridges and then forcing traffic to bypass the new bridge and use the old bridge seems apt.

The N82

No digital terrestrial TV / VHF tv

Building motorway-motorway junctions with traffic light controlled junctions instead of making it freeflow M1/M50 and M1NS-M1E

Building a motorway network and no rest areas
Spending taxpayers money to build a motorway rest area 3km from a privately built service station. (M1 applegreen and the new Msa's at Ballough)

Trick of the Tail · 16-12-2009 9:28am

> No digital terrestrial TV / VHF tv

What do you mean by that?

And the service station nr Balbriggan is crazy.

A.

Zoney · 16-12-2009 11:02am

alinton:

We still broadcast VHF TV (from three sites I believe) and do not yet have an operational digital terrestrial service (while other countries are already switching off analogue).

L1011 · 16-12-2009 1:58pm

Zoney wrote: »

alinton:

We still broadcast VHF TV (from three sites I believe) and do not yet have an operational digital terrestrial service (while other countries are already switching off analogue).

I wouldn't call a system running off all core transmitters and a number of relays anything but "operational", even if its not publicised! I've been using DTT for years at this stage.

Trick of the Tail · 16-12-2009 9:32pm

Exactly. There's nothing unusual about using VHF Band III for TV, and DTT is on the air with 5 public service channels covering a good proportion of the country already.

OK, its true its official launch and the transition to it is a cock-up, but thats because there is no commercial partner to help fund it and RTE are disinclined to fund it all themselves.

Unfortunately, the longer they take to launch it officially, the less market there is going to be for a pay-TV bouquet. I think most households that want multi-channel, pay-TV already have it courtesy of Sky or NTL/Chorus - they're not going to pay another subscription.

However, I feel this particular vein of discussion probably belongs on a different forum!

A.

Oddities of Irish Infrastructure

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