Why will Metro North be light rail?

Ham'nd'egger · 25-10-2007 3:56pm

paulm17781 wrote: »

Yes, but when it is a sub company of CIE, it affects the public, the people who depend on them. When CIE unions strike, I don't think "well now I'm on their side." I hope they get fired. This is how it affects the average person's mindset.

They are a PR stunt of sorts; effect on people and they will take notice of you and your cause etc, but they can and often do achieve some positive results to the strikers as well as being a strong tool for the worker.

paulm17781 · 25-10-2007 4:01pm

Hamndegger wrote: »

They are a PR stunt of sorts; effect on people and they will take notice of you and your cause etc, but they can and often do achieve some positive results to the strikers as well as being a strong tool for the worker.

True, I don't dispute this. I find with CIE that the public no longer have sympathy and just look at the unions as greedy now. It is unfortunate as they have over used striking and lost public support.

Metro North, the interconnector and Luas would all be better served under one transport body though. Quite frankly I wouldn't care what it was if we had integrated ticketing at a reasonable cost.

armada104 · 25-10-2007 5:03pm

Winters wrote: »

Do you regard 'Light Rail' as on-street running with 4 to 5 min frequencies? If you do then Metro North* will not be 'Light Rail'.

While heavier systems have wider carriages, higher platform heights and thus a higher person per square area capacity, in the RPAs efforts to maintain a high capacity, fully accessible and modern system while keeping the high costs associated with heavy metropolitan systems down and one that can integrate with the Luas I believe they have come up with the best answer.

Metro North will be:

Highly segretated (Fully segretated between Airport and SSG);
High frequency (2min to 90 sec headway enabled);
High capacity (20K to 26K pphpd);
Fully accessible; and
Shared track running with Luas.

What more do you want?

*The argument to call Metro West Luas is another thread altogether!

Please read my later posts. I was not criticising Metro North. I was asking what the cost savings were. This question was since answered by other posters.

BrianD · 26-10-2007 5:41pm

Transport21 Fan wrote: »

Dual gauge is technically possible but legally not in this country for loads of reason and all of them sound.

This kind of 'CIE or Bust' crusade still going on was sorted out years ago when the Luas was taken out of the hand of the CIE Light Rail Office (Blessing Upon They Who Decided This) and turned it over the RPA. From what I recall the Government at the time had to literally force the CIE heads to put tracks on the Harcourt Street line - they wanted a busway.

Still going on about Luas/Metro not standard gauge in 2007 is like some wishful thinking to go back to the CIE Monopoly of the past and try and fix something which has worked out to be fantastic. It's rooted in this notion that the Luas was a failure and should of been a CIE train driven by a bloke called Anto who got the job cos' his old man was a CIE train driver too.

The very idea of even remotely trying to put across the idea that Luas is a failure is really odd to me. The two Luas lines are carrying numbers of passengers which CIE took decades to achieved. The answer for this is simple. The Luas is excellent considering the limitations imposed upon it by Cowardly Bertie and Co. In fact, it's the greatest piece of public transport in the history of the state.

Best of all the Metro will be even superior to that. So what's the problem? If anything is the RPA which should reform Irish Rail and not the other way around.

I know there are a some soviet-wannabe headbangers, CIE union extremists and a fair few "gay for CIE" types on this board, but at some point they are all going to have to accept that the millions of people who use the Luas every year are there for modern service which CIE has never and still does not offer its passengers.

It's a different world now and CIE are no longer holding all the cards and the vast majority of Irish people are happy with this.

T21 we'll set up a special RPA v CIE board for you. Can you please stick with the topic that's being discussed and not go of Hardly a reasonable comparison.f on your 'I hate CIE' rant. Some of your comments border on ridiculous e.g. the one about CIE taking decades to reach the figures the Luas achieved. how stupid a remark is that?!? Of course they did, because the powers that be stagnated urban transit for decades through zero investment.

Nobody has said LUAS is a failure. It was going to be a success irrespective of who built it. I don't think anybody could have made a mess of it once it was built. Nobody is suggesting that the LUAS should have been a IR train driven by a IR driver as you seem to think.

It is unreasonable to compare LUAS to DART as the comparisons can't be made for a whole range of reasons.

You have completely misconstrued my point about standard guage. What IR have here is our standard as the majority of rail is to this standard. The likilhood of ripping it up and starting over again seems improbable to me (as probable as the Green line becoming a metro). There are no issues in obtaining rolling stock so no problem.

In relation to tilt trains, who cares? We have 1,872 km of rail. The Dublin- Cork line is 272km. Would tilt train units have a benefit here or on any line? Probably not. The money would be better spent on removing restrictions that are on the various lines at the moment.

Transport21 Fan · 27-10-2007 1:02am

BrianD wrote: »

In relation to tilt trains, who cares? We have 1,872 km of rail. The Dublin- Cork line is 272km. Would tilt train units have a benefit here or on any line? Probably not. The money would be better spent on removing restrictions that are on the various lines at the moment.

Ladies and Gentlemen, here is the 'Gay for CIE' mentality in a nutshell.

Ste.phen · 27-10-2007 12:15pm

BrianD wrote: »

I have used it and I wouldn't be a great fan. I got the impression that it was a project that may have run out of funding. Enough money to build some of the infrastructure but not enough to put trains into it. Would I be correct in saying that it is upgradable in the future?

Actually, that's the impression I got also, (lack of funding for the original idea) but it works fairly well. Based on the size of the tunnel for the airport line (haven't used the other) and comparing to the Green Line tunnels, i'd be very suprised if it couldn't later be upgraded to light rail.

BrianD · 28-10-2007 12:50am

Transport21 Fan wrote: »

Ladies and Gentlemen, here is the 'Gay for CIE' mentality in a nutshell.

Transport ... by all means make an idiot of yourself. However, make a stupid comment again like that again and you deserve a ban.

Prof_V · 28-10-2007 12:02pm

Hamndegger wrote: »

RPA were the body who undertook the work and dealt with tendering of same, including the overrunning of budget of same, the faulty trackwork in Tallaght, the 2 year late roll out and the lack of connection. I am privvy as to the reason why they didn't meet, lets just say there would have been, ahem, "budget issues" if it had have gone the way it was planned to

First, please note that I'm not trying to blame CIÉ for anything, and the RPA is far from perfect itself. I try to stay away from the RPA-CIÉ and public-private name-calling contests as much as I can. However...

The Government decided in 1998 that there wouldn't be a surface connection between the lines. This was well before there was an RPA (the RPA was only operational in December 2001 and took over the Luas project slightly later). The Metro (which originated from the DTO) superseded the Government's idea of an underground connection in 2000; there was still no RPA at this point. The connection never went through the planning process in any form - the original scheme was withdrawn at public-inquiry stage when the Government decided against surface operation. If it was just a question of the RPA running out of money, surely they would have got approval for the connection and then failed to build it. The surface link wasn't included in A Platform for Change, and the idea only seems to have been revived about 2004.

I agree the RPA has to take responsibility for a lot of things that happened to the Luas project on its watch, but I'm not so sure that this was one of them.

PS: In relation to gauge, the first tram was in Dublin and the first track laid at Red Cow before the RPA was set up (the Merrion Square display was in November 2001, and the first track was laid around the same time). The matter was debated at the Line A public inquiry, which happened in late 1998 (again, pre-RPA): http://www.transport.ie/upload/general/2632.pdf#page=7. Furthermore, the main construction contract was awarded in spring 2001, though I agree the RPA was poor at managing it once it took over.

Ham'nd'egger · 28-10-2007 12:33pm

Sorry, I ought to have noted that the RPA didn't make the call on the connection, it was central government, as was the gauge. On the reasons why it wasn't connected, it was part bad management by the State, part fiscals (Not shortage of money mind, that's all I will say)

Part of the reason for the RPA is to facilitate construction of new lines for private running of projects like the LUAS. This would make any rail systems in line for EU practice to ensure open markets in transport. Given that

Prof_V wrote: »

The Government decided in 1998 that there wouldn't be a surface connection between the lines. This was well before there was an RPA (the RPA was only operational in December 2001 and took over the Luas project slightly later). The Metro (which originated from the DTO) superseded the Government's idea of an underground connection in 2000; there was still no RPA at this point. The connection never went through the planning process in any form - the original scheme was withdrawn at public-inquiry stage when the Government decided against surface operation. If it was just a question of the RPA running out of money, surely they would have got approval for the connection and then failed to build it. The surface link wasn't included in A Platform for Change, and the idea only seems to have been revived about 2004...

...I agree the RPA has to take responsibility for a lot of things that happened to the Luas project on its watch, but I'm not so sure that this was one of them.

BrianD · 28-10-2007 4:03pm

I think it highlights that irrespective of who builds or runs what, ultimately we are going to have continuous problems with infrastructure until we have sound central planning that is not based on politics and have an overall authority that ensures that the services are delivered to a particular standard. At the moment the RPA are off empire building as are CIE and it's almost as if the commuter is secondary.

Why will Metro North be light rail?

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