DART+ (DART Expansion)

You called :)

No one in Cork cares about getting the train to Belfast! The numbers who make that trip are tiny and it wouldn't justify the cost of a tunnel.

If there was any demand for it, then one of the airlines would operate a Cork Airport to Belfast route. But there doesn't even seem to be enough demand for Aer Lingus to operate ATR's between the two airports despite their presence in both!

Now you could possibly improve the connection between the Belfast train and Cork train by routing say every second Cork train (at future 30 minutes frequency) through PPT to the Connolly/Docklands area. You can then have an easy change between the two. Though the real benefit of this would be a stop at Glasnevin to change to Metrolink for the airport, plus the docklands area as a suggestion. Both of those would generate much more traffic then going onto Belfast.

Also are we really mixing intercity trains into the DART Underground! Haven't we already made that mistake, mixing different types of services like that!

So make it far more expensive and make the cost benefit analysis of DART Underground even worse!

As I said, if the demand was there Aer Lingus would put a ATR on it or Ryanair, but they haven't. Nor has any of the intercity coach companies despite the ease which they could due to licensing and the international border. That all says to me that there is little or no demand.

Also, we aren't getting HSR, the AIRR says higher speed rail. 200km/h, but I've heard talk of even 185km/h, which aren't HSR.

Well if you build DART Underground, you could move the DART's out of the PPT and into the tunnel, thus freeing up space for the intercity trains through the PPT to Connolly area.

The issue with making Heuston the only intercity station, is that the Connolly/Docklands area is likely a more attractive destination for most intercity passengers then Heuston. Certainly I wouldn't see folks on the Enterprise being happy with a longer route over to Heuston rather straight into Connolly.

Of course work would be needed on the Connolly/Docklands area to make it possible, but this are the advantageous I'd see:

• Cork, etc. passengers would have just one stop change at Glasnevin to Metrolink (to Airport/Stephens Green), rather then two changes (Inetrcity → DART → Metrolink).
• Connolly/Docklands is closer to the city, a more attractive destination then Heuston (more people live and work in this area) and is better connected to North/South DART lines for onward journeys.
• No change for Belfast Eneterprise passengers, doesn't add to their journey time.
• Could make an easy interchange between Cork and Belfast train, hell if you wanted you could even merge them into one service and have the Cork train carry onto Belfast!

Of course this would all be on the assumption that you are building DART Underground anyway, if not, then maybe you'd look at your option. Though even with DART via PPT, I do wonder if you could still route one intercity train per hour through the PPT?

It is mentioned in the Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy 2042, but in a fairly wishy washy manner. You are correct that they call it the DART+ Tunnel now, but I don't think it is actually part of the DART+ project.

For me, the whole concept of DU was thrown into disarray by the AIRR, that instead talks about a railway tunnel under Dublin and including Intercity services using it!

I felt the vision for DU was clear, a tunnel for DARTs under the city that would help resolve the issues of the loop line bridge.

Now I really don't know what they are planning or what the vision/goal really is.

There appear to be studying the possibility, but not confirmed/signed off yet.

The idea would be for the DART's to run on battery power from Greystones to Wicklow Town, there would be no overhead cables.

Yes, the AIRR mentions this. The idea is that DART trains would slow the Sligo train down and limit frequency. So by routing to Heuston, it can keep the speed up and not interfere with DART West trains and also possibly increase the frequency of the Sligo service. Part of this seems to be planning for a Navan service.

Having said that, I don't see anything about connecting the Western lines with the Northern line are taking the Enterprise out of Connolly. I don't think they have any plans for that and they certainly wouldn't be looking to quad track Connolly if there were.

On the other hand, there was some value to focussing on a single transport issue at a time. It's more efficient in terms of resources. By setting up a continuous pipeline of work, a relatively stable team of specialist engineers, managers, etc. can be assembled just once and then kept busy through a series of projects over years. With experience, the efficiency of such a team grows considerably. Contractors and suppliers stick around and themselves improve with experience. PIt certainly felt like the rate of delivery in terms of km of new motorway grew to a phenomenal rate after what felt like a slow start in that 1990s road program

But that is the exact same point I’m making about DART. We should have never stopped working on it and extending it. We should have kept the experienced team working on it.

DART opened in 1984, the extensions to Malahide and Greystones didn’t happen until 2000 and then nothing since then!

Very stop/start, at the least the extension to Drogheda should have continued in the early 2000’s and planning for the Western lines. Though ideally even better if that work had happened back in 1984.

I agree with you and keeping the motorways rolling, but it was a very aggressive timeline, doing the same work over say 15 years, likely wouldn’t have had any impact on keeping the teams and experience around, while freeing up more money to work on DART instead.

I have the same worry about LUAS, not much happening there now. I know those folks are most likely focused on Metrolink, but I do worry we will lose some skills and momentum related to Luas.

At least Irish Rail seems to have learned this lesson and now have a pipeline of projects around the country.