High Speed Rail

sligoliner

listen Sherlock, this is the reason why I started this thread, to find out why high speed isnt being pushed in this country !!

The same reason they have shut down a huge portion of the rail network outside Dublin since 1987. The Irish Goverment, The NRA and CIE are anti-railways other than DART.

http://www.platform11.org/myth.html


Despite The DOT and Bertie's mantra about the "viability" of rail, it is motorways that are the biggest rip off. We don't need them, Decent N roads with by-passes and good railways is enough and far cheaper. But sadly our transport planners grew up watching a lot of Smokie and the Bandit and the Dukes of Hazzard and believe that Alabama represents a good socio-economic role model for Ireland.

Capt'n Midnight

Our wider gague should make faster trains easier here.
Though it means the bridge to the Mull of Kintyre is less likely to happen.

Then again they could have invested the port tunnel money into a rail link like the Chunnel - less pollution - and you schedule the trains to meet the boats..

TGV @500Kmph Dublin - Cork in 24 Minutes
You could use one train to have an hourly service in both directions ! (Ok fantasy but..)

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Then again a lot of Dubs reckon that the planning depts are run by culchies who design roads for themselves to drive home at weekends rather than serve the city. (At this stage most of the long distance rail links/motorways go through Dublin)

Qadhafi

I think Spain is now going to build a second HSR line up to Galicia in the north west. I dont really understand why a similar program couldnt be started here.


hey, even if it was 250kpm (and thats really fast) it would mean Dublin-Cork in an hour or so, a similar line to Galway would be the business.

I got an article that ill post about all the money they spent on the motorways with an net improvement in journey times of only 24min (over the ENTIRE NETWORK!) from dundalk to dublin. This whole motorway idea is a bit stupid.

Victor

Originally posted by Qadhafi
hey, even if it was 250kpm (and thats really fast) it would mean Dublin-Cork in an hour or so, a similar line to Galway would be the business.

Improving frequency would probably be much more economic and beneficial - it mean extra trains and staff, but much less track reconstruction and interruption (part of Galway line is also only single track - not optimal for highspeed operations).

Qadhafi

thats a shame it has only one lane. The optimal design seems to be 4 lines but 2 will do(1 ??that cant be safe). Having the HSR in the middle two tracks and ordinary services on the outer two.

I have been reading best pracitices in HSRand there is no big deal about upgrading the services.

However as you say Victor improving the existing services are more important.

But IE/Government should really be think of 10 years into the future and putting forward a strategy.

Transport21 Fan

Oh yes, NOW this is more like it...


If the 1.6m population increase expected by 2030 were concentrated strictly within a 'penta-zone' linking Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Belfast, it could support high-speed trains, similar to those currently in Denmark, that would 'shrink' Ireland - travel time from Dublin to Sligo would go from 3h20m to 48 minutes!

The Republic of Ireland is projected to grow by 1.6 million people in the period 2005-2030. This is an increase of almost 25% on the current population. While this may represent a significant change, Ireland is not densely populated by European standards. In fact the lack of substantial population density may be the biggest challenge to development and growth, as the critical mass required to support an integrated, efficient infrastructure as an alternative to the motorcar is still not available. Our project investigates strategies for the distribution of the new population that could support alternative high-speed infrastructure systems.

http://www.irish-architecture.com/news/2006/000204.html

Ham'nd'egger

Transport21 Fan wrote:

Oh yes, NOW this is more like it...


If the 1.6m population increase expected by 2030 were concentrated strictly within a 'penta-zone' linking Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Belfast, it could support high-speed trains, similar to those currently in Denmark, that would 'shrink' Ireland - travel time from Dublin to Sligo would go from 3h20m to 48 minutes!

The Republic of Ireland is projected to grow by 1.6 million people in the period 2005-2030. This is an increase of almost 25% on the current population. While this may represent a significant change, Ireland is not densely populated by European standards. In fact the lack of substantial population density may be the biggest challenge to development and growth, as the critical mass required to support an integrated, efficient infrastructure as an alternative to the motorcar is still not available. Our project investigates strategies for the distribution of the new population that could support alternative high-speed infrastructure systems.

http://www.irish-architecture.com/news/2006/000204.html

According to this map, even the WRC would be high speed!

Now whoever would have thought that?????

Slice

The following link is an article in the Guardian about the possibility of high-speed trains in Britain;

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1865956,00.html

In Ireland the unjustifiable expenditure on PSO domestic air routes and an unnecessarily extensive motorway network could improve the railways so much so that it wouldn't be necessary to build motorways everywhere, or to subsidise air travel domestically.

...Of course this seems to be a mute point amongst many advocates of conventional public transport in the media.

westtip

Sleipnir wrote:

"Campaigners who are trying to get the Government to re-open the Sligo-Limerick western corridor rail line will take comfort from the Australian experience.

although the rail link is expected to make most of its money by carrying freight from the container port in Darwin.

And please tell me what will be the huge demand for container freight from Sligo to Limerick on an on-going basis? The West doesn't have a huge container port - for fairly good reason - most of the people live in the east so landing goods in Ireland makes sense to land them in the east, opening the WRC to Sligo will make jack sh*t difference to the economy of Mayo/Sligo. I can't see any of the Western ports on this line - namely sligo, Galway, Limerick becoming a major container port in the next decade or beyond, and if they did the railhead from them would need to point to Dublin where most of the economic activity of this country takes place - for reasons of critical mass - the railhead from these ports already goes to Dublin A light railway claremorris/Tuam/Athenry (Galway)/Ennis Limerick may (and I only say may) have some justification based on commuting traffic, and with a line from Claremorris to Ballina already in existence there will be in effect a WRC in place, albeit Ballina-Limerick as opposed to Sligo-Limerick. I live in the North West and can so no earthly reason for investing near 200 million in rennovating a rail line from Sligo to Claremorris which will carry one man and his dog twice a day, and in fifteen years time will be closed down (again) due to lakc of usage and losing money. Use the rail line yes - use it for a public resource yes - make it a public resource which will attract visitors and improve the quality of life for people in the North West - yes. A Long distance footpath/cyclepath Collooney to Claremorris would better serve the people of this area and the country as a whole. Walking tourism is on he decline in this country, I don't see a whole pile of rail tourists coming to Ireland to take a train from Sligo to Galway, but they may just fly into Knock for a long weekend to walk or cycle the route....see thread on which this is discussed for any comment.

westtip

Transport21 Fan wrote:

The Republic of Ireland is projected to grow by 1.6 million people in the period 2005-2030. This is an increase of almost 25% on the current population.
http://www.irish-architecture.com/news/2006/000204.html

whilst the country is changing - I think we are getting carried away with these population increase forecasts. Ok in the last census the popl grew by 8.1% - the fastest growth rate in a census period (this one was four years but they are generally five years) for over a century. The current popl is 4.23 million, a hike of 1.6 million between 2005 and 2030 is a rise of 37% in my book, for this to be achieved the population would have to grow at about 7% every five years in the next five five year census periods. The growth of 8.1% in the last census period was due to a one off historical influx when the EU expanded - there is nothing to suggest this level will be repeated every five years between now and 2030. In the last census natural increase in the popl was 131,000 - the natural increase is births (245K less deaths 114k), the remaining increase was immigration - at 186K - giving a total increase of 186+131K = 317k additional people in the state in the last four years. the immigration levels are probably not sustainable - as other EU countries (inevitably) open their borders to the new EU citizens there are other places for all these economic immigrants to go to, Ireland may become less attractive for economic migrants (just too bloody expensive and not worth it), there may be a global economic downturn- and low and behold our economy will either slow down, slip back or sink into recession.

What will happen to the growth rates in popl then? Well lets assume a generous natural increase of 140,000 persons every five years for the next 5 census periods of 5 years each, which represents 3.5% natural growth (on the current base) - which is high by European standards - that's 700,000 extra people by 2030 are we really saying we are going to get another 800,000 people coming to live here on a permanent basis as immigrants. Thats about 160,000 people every five year period extra?? Our birth rate may well decelerate - again for economic reasons, the price of property makes having a family very expensive, so one assumes families will shrink further in size, women are already deferring having children to later in life - there is nothing to suggest this trend will change, so the forecast of natural increase of 140,000 persons per five years is a top estimate IMO. It could be down to 110,000 persons - making the natural increase over 25 years only 550,000 or even less if the natural increase decelerates further. You may have heard about the pressure on points for leaving cert students decreasing this year? Why was that? and what has it got to do with population growth - it is quite simple there is a dip in the population of the age group ten to eighteen at the moment - caused by the low birth rate (due to emmigration) we had in the 1980s. Work this dip through the population and there is going to be a dip in the number of child bearing women in about ten years time and no guarentee they are all going to be off pro-creating. The children of the 1980s emmigrants will in the main be giving birth to children in America and Britain, not here in Ireland.

And what about emmigration - I heard a suggestion recently that young people in their twenties are leaving Ireland again - why - because they cannot afford to live here, it may not be the huge drain of the 1980s - but who is to say it won't be the reason for a significant number of people saying sod it - I am out of here.

I am not being pessimistic - just realistic. The last five years in terms of popl growth were exceptional - but they do not represent (IMO) a sudden shift change, yes the popl may well continue to grow naturally (births minus deaths) and 3.5% every five years would be high by European standards but don't expect the same level of immigration and don't be so foolhardy as to depend on it. There just needs to be sense of realism about it all, but using the growth rate of the last five years and exponentially forecasting is full of folly and very naive.

Transport21 Fan

Hamndegger wrote:

According to this map, even the WRC would be high speed!

Now whoever would have thought that?????

The proposal is for all brand new electrifed alingments and/or straighented out current Inter-City rubbish lines we have for high speed - nothing to do with rebuilding Victorian tramways as they were so for hauling a few molasses wagons from Foynes to Swinford for protographic purposes.

This is different - this is real rail transport for a real Ireland to sort out our planning and housing mistakes. This is the beauty of it.

and proper order I say too.

westtip

kildareproject@irishrail.ie
Subject: What will this project mean for Athlone commuters
When the four tracks are complete will there be an express service in the morning from Athlone which will be non stop from Tullamore? Leaving Athlone at a later time than the current dawn run of 0627?

Reply received today:

Following the introduction of the 4 tracking and the introduction of Intercity Railcars on the Westport and Galway Routes, which will come into service over 2007 & 2008 there will be an increase in service level for Athlone/Tullamore Commuters.
Timetabling for this is still in the planning stage and we would not be in a positon to commit times at this early stage but the service level will increase significantly for these stations.

Kind Regards,