High speed rail Cork - Dublin

xband wrote: »

The aim should be getting to existing MK4 stock up to 200km/h and running some serious express services.

The MK4 was designed to be operated at up to 200kmh with minor adjustments to the braking system as far as I'm aware.

There's no need for TGV/ICE style trains on that route as it's not long enough or populous enough.

The big hold up here is tracks and signalling. Getting the existing, modern fleet doing its maximum speed most of the time would cut journey times a lot.

Agreed, the short distance between stops would make it difficult for Irish non-express trains to reach a speed akin to the latest European records. However 200km/hr running should be the norm as it is in Denmark Sweden and Norway. There should be a 90 minute Dublin-Cork express service without TGV style expense. Normal services should be about 105 mins.

If we go for the electrification in the future 250km/h should be standard with an 80 min Dub-Cork express. There's not much point in running 350km/h trains in Ireland, especially if it costs a bomb to build, rail will still beat road by a long shot if we can get 250 km/h running.

cgcsb wrote: »

Of course those are all issues to be solved by incremental improvements of the mainline rail in Ireland. We should have a dedicated budget for incremental improvements every year.

That's pretty much what is happening.


There will be another set of improvement works this year on the Dublin-Cork line, continuing the work already carried out in 2015.

xband wrote: »

Issue a it's a very low density development pattern. The population is small but it's not that small! There are over 6 million of us on this island.

The major issue is trains serve stations. Roads serve scattered houses.

An issue for what?

Not really that much of an issue for anything. There's less density between the Swedish Cities and they still manage 200km/h between the main cities on electrified lines.

monument wrote: »

Do business people live in train stations in other countries? Does your experience extend to that?

And with Dublin, more than a million people are less than an hour away from Hueston. Most well within an hour. And with a Cork-Dublin-Belfast high speed rail line it would be madness not to also serve Dublin airport too, making a station and a second transport hub closer to more people.

Where would anybody be taking a 45 minute taxi trip in Cork? There's a lot of business and residential areas well under that time.

Railways were , in Ireland , primarily designed to carry freight , particularly live cattle. The pattern of lines was a function of 19th century population dispersals, where due to lack of local transport, business and people tended to be closer together in a given area. Dublin was well confined within the canals by the time the railway arrived.

Today , freight plays no part on Irish railways, populations and business are spread widely due to the motor car and good roads.

High speed trains , add nothing to the mix , very few routes even dublin cork, can withstand a daily multi train non stop service, hence dwell times at immediate stations are fixed and become a greater proportion of the total travel time .

Furthermore , unless you build a whole parallel rail network, you create enormous pathing issues mixing high speed with medium speed passanger and low speed commuter services . This is dramatically illustrated on the WCML in the uk, where the orgiinally high design speeds for virgin trains simply could not be delivered, primarily due to pathing issues associated with a 19th rail alignment

Anyone doing a door to door journey today where , each door is away from a station , will know rail is a joke. Someone living say in stillorgan will be half way to cork or Belfast by the time they get to hueston. They have a new , mostly congestion free motorway network and the comforts of modern cars to whisk them to their destination.

Irish rail needs to stop trying to compete on journey times , it should compete on the " pleasure of the experience " , proper coaching stock , with window aligned comfy seats , not buses on rails , catering , luxury etc. This would attract the " leisure " traveller( ie time flexible ) and certain business class types. ( as the very successful city gold demonstrated ) speed needs to be good, ( 80-100 mph) but no more.

Rather then build high speed electric rail , why not have giant electric car rentals" stations" on the outskirts of Dublin, you drive there , swop to a ready EV , whizz down near empty motorways , do your business and return. Green , environmentally concious and practical.

Now matter what you wish for, you can't roll back time or progress. Personal transport , it's road network and the dispersal patterns associated with both are here to stay , certainly for multiple generations. In reality rail had a very short " heyday " , roughly from about 1890 , to the 1920s in Ireland where they had an unchallenged marketplace , even then in Ireland they struggled financially. Today there are an economic basket case outside Dublin.

monument wrote: »

The experance today of rail or motorways and the design of the rail network 100 years or more ago has little relevance to a high-speed offering using a partly or totally new route.

I've already said we could be taking about an offering which is up to 50 years away. Although that might start counting down quicker when we start paying our EU fines for not meeting our carbon reduction targets.

There are weak arguments against high-speed rail in less car dominated areas, so we are going to get then here. But the business men living in train stations and the unrealistic travel times to/from stations shows how out of touch you are on potential high-speed rail or blinded by the issue.

It's nice to think the battery problem will be solved for electric cars etc but until it actually is we're still talking about a dirty production process and a limited supply. Even if those issues are solved, we're still taking about motorway capacity issues in the mid to long term (and, in some cases, already clearly in the short term).

With respect, its is you who are blind, because you are min/maxing the arguments to suit your perspective


lets break down your contentions

design of the rail network 100 years or more ago has little relevance to a high-speed offering using a partly or totally new route.

I would contend it has everything thing to do with it. Even in the UK, with a vastly more successful railway system, they are baulking at the costs of HS2.
Therefore its entirely unrealistic to suggest that Ireland will ever build dedicated high speed train routes. We can hardly build an airport connection , never mind a HS dedicated rail link to cork .

Hence any higher speeds have to be accommodated with the gauge structure of the existing victorian railway system. Equally such rails are unlikely to be dedicated to high speed traffic exclusively , so the pathing difficulties ( that exist today on IE) will be a huge issue. I presume you understand what I mean by pathing issues


Now lets examine the swedish high sped rail system ( which is mentioned here in glowing terms) , which currently is running at 200kmph

The X2 runs between Stockholm, Gothenberg and Malmo, These have metropolitan populations of approx 2.2million, 1million, and 500,000 respectively

Contrast that Ireland , Dublin ( 1.5 million in a radius of less then one hour of centre) , Cork 280,000 Belfast 673,000,

( in Dublin given the distance, the population available to rail is wildly overstated, as it is unreasonable to postulate that commuters, living in Kildare, or wicklow will travel east or north , away from cork to catch a train back south )

Also distances in Sweden are significantly greater , Stockholm Gothenberg is close to 500 km of rail distance, whereas Cork is under 200Km and Belfast even less.


Hence there is no real comparison between the two countries or their raill systems

At present Sweden has actually not been able to increase many trains above 200Km, due to signalling systems and a decision on whether to go to a dedicated high speed rail route.

But the business men living in train stations and the unrealistic travel times to/from stations shows how out of touch you are on potential high-speed rail or blinded by the issue.

You seem blinded, If you look at numbers being carried on Dublin Cork and Dublin Belfast, you will see that IE is simply irrelevant to the vast vast majority of travellers between those cities, this is especially true of Dublin Belfast. Most business have voted with their BMWs and no longer use any rail at all. ( as the fall off of IEs business class has shown)

It's nice to think the battery problem will be solved for electric cars etc but until it actually is we're still talking about a dirty production process and a limited supply.)

Today we have 450km battery only cars, that outperform any petrol in speed and acceleration and comfort, these are no milk floats ( Tesla Model X) , we have family sized EVs ;like the 2016 Leaf that can do Dublin cork in one charge ( 200km range) ( at a cost of 1 euro 80 cents ) . There is actually a massive glut of over supply of lithium batteries and factories at the moment

The production process, I would argue is a lot cleaner , then building ( and running ) trains

as for supply there are 5 major suppliers, today of BEVs ( true EVs not hybrids) , BMW, VW, Nissan, Tesla, and Renault. Within 5 years that number will triple, with all major manufacturers having announced plans for BEV releases

Even if those issues are solved, we're still taking about motorway capacity issues in the mid to long term (and, in some cases, already clearly in the short term)

There is no capacity issues on our motorways, with the exception of the M50, which is primarily down to bad engineering decisions.

The rest of the country is comparatively empty by european standards and is now serviced by new high standard motorways, and such motorway programmes continues apace, with M11 extensions, Gort etc

Anyone who drives outside dublin , knows the road system is a joy to behold, as the massive falloff in Dublin Galway rail traffic as shown

The future is private electric personal transport, Ireland is uniquely suited, as we are increasing our supply of renewal energy, our distances are short , which suit battery cars and our temperature climate and good empty motorways are ideal environments for such use. There si simply NO going back to 19th century patterns of transport usage

Im sorry , There is simply no justification for intercity ( as opposed to commuter ) services in ireland at all , in my view. Never mind an expensive limited use white elephant of electrified high( er) speed trains, running to comparatively small population centres, already served by underutilised motorways

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

A few corrections.
Cork: 480,000 metropolitan population

Don't you mean 280,000? The entire county is only 519,000.

The boreen

While inadequate, it is not a boreen.

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

I actually meant 400.
This number taken from wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cork_(city)
Having investigated further I'm not sure if this is correct: http://www.cso.ie/multiquicktables/quickTables.aspx?id=cna23. Either way, I'll admit 480,000 is incorrect, apologies.

On the N20, I think "inadequate" is not enough to describe the type of vehicle-damaging conditions on sections of that road. In the Buttevant area, in particular, where you have to navigate large holes in the road, I don't think "boreen" is too far off the mark.

The M20 will ultimately solve it

Would they not build a massive park and ride just outside the m50, for those of us, that would take the train

why should they., only tiny numbers travel by train

because people may switch to train or bus,

The history of post war rail travel in Ireland, has been a series of initiatives that "may" entice people to the train.

The fact is that the only enticement has actually been a negative one, i.e. congestion or poor roads, where travel times are seriously compromised, Once you fix that ( even temporally ) people abandon rail and bus in great numbers , like whats happening on Dublin Galway and Dublin Belfast. Rail and bus are " reluctant " alternatives. That is not a solution to rail travel numbers.

IN reality , rail travel in the face of " good " road alternatives simply isn't enticing travellers, this is especially true , where intercity rail is being turned into a bus on wheels experience.

The fact is rail travel in ireland will remain a poor relation to road use, because the vast majority of travellers, would opt for the car if they could.

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

Yes, agreed, but there's currently no plan for the M20, unfortunately. As it stands, the current infrastructure is what will be in place for the foreseeable future.

I think you will find an accelerated capital plan in the next few years. The M20 suffered in priorities due to cutbacks in spending under the Troika.

It wouldn't surprise me to hear an announcement next year

monument wrote: »

Is anybody suggesting a 400 km/h line for Ireland? I'm not.

Using a mix of current and new infrastructure -- they need HS2 to be 90% new build because the pathing issues are much greater and there's far less scope for four tracking or diversions where needed in the UK than there is here.

Since the introduction of hourly services and railcars. pathing for passenger trains in Ireland is very tight , coupled by very restrictive access to Dublin by Rail

I did not make the comparison between the two countries.

But a quick look at the stats and you're not comparing like for like -- it's Stockholm metro area (ie all of Stockholm County) which has 2.2 million people and it's spread across 6,519.3 km2 (ie just slightly smaller than the Greater Dublin area).

Please look again, the greater Dublin area may have a pop density , but nowhere else has, Sweden has several big cities, in contrast the GDA actually needs more rail. but we dont need intercity services . half the GDA is an hour from cork anyway !!

You're very focused on history and as things are rather than the future -- Irish Rail as it currently stands is next to irrelevant to what is suggested. Things change. Many people said that the Eurostar and Acela Express would never carry as large as a percentage of passengers as they do now.

Rail is a historical transport system tied to very inflexible routes, routes laid down close to 200 years ago and largely outdated .Thats why history is important

I was talking about supply of resources for batteries -- estimated at around 50 years last time I read about it and in a limited amount of countries.

new deposits of Li being discovered all the time, battery tech isn't limited to Li either, lets not debate this nonsense , theres more then enough battery materials on the planet for the foreseeable future. ( i remember you/others similar scare stories about oil in the 80s -90s )

And the tailbacks in and out of Dublin and Cork are growing.

yes , commuter rail needs expanding

As I said, you're very focused on as things are rather than the future. There's major capacity issues in and around Dublin and Cork.

"NO going back to 19th century patterns of transport usage" etc is just your ideology rather than focus discussing the most effective, sustainable, and cleanest way to transport people in the long term.

EVs represent the best way forward, including semi autonomous usage in cities. Rail is dead as a method in Ireland , outside commuter usage, ( Freight is completely finished almost, down to 2-3 trains a week! ) . EV powered from central relabel sources, ( 36% of ireland night time electricity is renewable) .

Big trains on rails, running between fixed 19th century destinations, is nor the future. personal , semi-full auto guided vehicles is the way , roads will be a key to this and need to be continuously developed.

lxflyer wrote: »

In the context of the Dublin/Cork line this is absolute nonsense. There is plenty of room for additional paths and better use of the four tracking out of Heuston. The line is not remotely near saturation level.

As I posted already in this thread, with a reasonably modest investment, which is what is taking place, the Dublin/Cork non-stop trains could be accelerated to 1 hour 50-55 minutes, and the standard journey time with four stops (Portlaoise, Thurles, Limerick Junction and Mallow) to 2 hours 10-15 minutes.

for the purposes of achieving what ??, small increments have no real affect on door to door transit times.

Better to concentrate on bringing the network up to a reasonable speed overall, Dublin Waterford and Dublin Rossalare has absolutely terrible transit times and massive speed restrictions in places. Consideration should be given to a proper set of ICRs on the Dublin Rosslaree etc

Even The return of proper MK3 sets on the Dublin cork, maybe in the form of and updated diesel HST type product to improve comfort and ride quality.

But simply chasing speed, does very little.


As to pathing issues, unless you have access to different experts to me, I was reliably informed that pathing is an issue for significantly higher speed trains ( which is what is being discussed here, i.e. electrification HST etc ). This was not a discussion about small speed increments within the current rolling stock or improvements as a result of the removal of speed restrictions

lxflyer wrote: »

These are incremental improvements that can be achieved at a very modest cost. We are talking about €10m per year here and I think that cutting 20-25 minutes off existing journey times as a result of this is a worthwhile investment. It will improve journey times to Waterford, Galway/Mayo, Limerick and Kerry.

There are sufficient paths available to deliver that level of speed.

Beyond that frankly is dealing with pie in the sky, and I don't see it happening - there is no need for it. But this is a very worthwhile investment.

Then we have no disagreement, however its not the topic of this thread

Dublin/Rosslare is constrained by the DART service and the paths available - improving speed between Dublin and Greystones isn't possible without an extra track. All of the services bar one return working are booked for ICRs nowadays on the route.

As someone who lives in Gorey, let me tell you its constrained by terrible line speeds outside the DART area It takes 2 hours to do 60 miles

Only the morning train 8:30 and the evening train out is an ICR all the rest are totally unsuitable commuter stock ( the same issue is also identified in the 2013 strategic rail review ) any google search will provide this document

Dublin/Waterford is constrained by the need to serve Kilkenny.

The strategic rail review 2013 , has identified very significant speed restrictions and poor track , particularly south of Kilkenny, Journey times are slower know then in the 19 century

Any of the single track lines will suffer due to the need to wait and pass trains at crossing loops - there's not much one can do about that.

Not the issue, in many cases, timetabling can easily solve that , often there isn't a competing train running in the opposite direction anyway

the 2013 is a typo yes I meant 2003, I also refer people to http://www.irishrail.ie/media/irishrail_28febfinal_part11.pdf ( parts 1 and 2)

I do not have any issue with incremental increases in speed within the current infrastructure and within the current capability of the rolling stock. I would not agree that the subject of this thread, some form of electrified high ( or higher) speed service is tenable or feasible. ( or required)

Markcheese wrote: »

If they were going to announce it they'd have done it before the upcoming upcoming election .. could easily have come up with a fudge to have " kept the project going" rather than the blanket no,that they came out with ...

NO , they explained the budget with in the fiscal rules as much as they could, If the " fiscal space " keeps expanding as a result of growth, we will see greater capital spending and I believe the M20 will be re-visited.

Unexpected things like a FF Tánaiste from Cork , could have a invigorating effect on the M20 project, much like having Bredan Howlin , kept the M11 on track !!

Stephen15 wrote: »

A few suggestions I would make on the wexford to improve services would be to not have services stopping at greystones as it is not necessary to have them stopping as there is aleady a 30 minute dart service there, allow a higher speed at the rathdrum section of track and fence off and put footbridges on the quay section in wexford town aswell as putting up proper level crossings.

There are several issues on this line

threading the train through the DART schedule is very difficult as it doesnt stop at the same stations the DART does, so it tends to run faster and hence tends to running under double yellows all the way in, i.e. the train in the section ahead is slowing it,

removing a stop at greystones would have the opposite effect. removing stops outside the dart area would lead to an increase

Historically the line through the wicklow hills, was always the subject of speed restrictions , its unlikely short of major re-alignmentrs to be capable of significant speed upgrades , I timed the runs via GPS recently the train approaches 60 mph in places but is restricted to 30-40 in section of the track through the mountains

so its not a question of " allowing" a higher speed

Wexford is not practical to fence and there are established access patterns throughout the decades that IE could not I suspect enforce closure on.

In the context of a three hour journey the quays do not represent a major delay

anyway the section was wexford to rosslare is under threat of closure , IE will remove that delay so, !!


IN my view pathing through the DART is a major issue , as it is all over the Dublin rail system . Id prefer if IE just gave us proper ICR 22K railcars on all trains , then do anything with speeds, at least we could get rid of the horrible commuter 29Ks

Sam Russell wrote: »

Would it not make sense if the Wexford train terminated at Bray with a Dart taking over onto Connolly, perhaps only stopping at Dun Loagharie in between. This would free the Wexford train to return to Wexford, perhaps allowing for an extra run in the day.

yes but Bray no longer has anything like the necessary room for stabling several railcar sets . changing and waiting annoys rail commuters and modern stations have poor waiting and refreshment facilities

( this leaves aside the fact that stranding railcar sets at the edge of the dublin areas renders them unavailable for other duties throughout the day and also there 48 hour visit to the maintenance depot in portlaosie

Stephen15 wrote: »

A few suggestions I would make on the wexford to improve services would be to not have services stopping at greystones as it is not necessary to have them stopping as there is aleady a 30 minute dart service there, allow a higher speed at the rathdrum section of track and fence off and put footbridges on the quay section in wexford town aswell as putting up proper level crossings.

How would you get from Wicklow to Greystones or vice versa then?