Navan Rail Link - EU Shocked by Government's Attitude

Transport21 Fan

According to the Daily Mail today the EU have issued a damning report on the Navan rail link after a delegation came over and they were shocked by the Government's obsession with building the M3 at any cost while the Navan rail line was left and left and left...

The EU delegation said the entire line from Broadstone to Kingscourt should be opened for commuter services and could not get an answer from the Government as to why not.

What the hell is going on.

loyatemu

from Broadstone to Kingscourt?

were these guys from the EU Pan-national Trainspotting committee?

Red Alert

I'm sure the government's lackey (sorry I meant Barry Kenny) will be wheeled out to explain why the Navan Rail Line wouldn't be a success.

markpb

Don't be silly. He'll be wheeled out to explain how, as part of T21, they're making great strides in re-opening it after (all together now) years of under-investment.

Xyndrix

Just reading the start of this I was thinking: "Good on the EU, great stuff!". Then I came to the bit about Kingscourt and it all started to fall apart. FFS, the government will just love that, as it gives them the chance to claim the whole thing is uneconomic. Concentrate on getting it to Navan first. Other extensions might prove viable in the far future if development is properly planned to facilitate the opening of these lines.

lostexpectation

Transport21 Fan wrote: »

According to the Daily Mail today the EU have issued a damning report on the Navan rail link after a delegation came over and they were shocked by the Government's obsession with building the M3 at any cost while the Navan rail line was left and left and left...

The EU delegation said the entire line from Broadstone to Kingscourt should be opened for commuter services and could not get an answer from the Government as to why not.

What the hell is going on.

was that the eu petitions committee? its seems to fairly aspirational and to that extent theres nothing wrong with suggesting the line should go all the way to kingscourt

Transport21 Fan

Xyndrix wrote: »

Just reading the start of this I was thinking: "Good on the EU, great stuff!". Then I came to the bit about Kingscourt and it all started to fall apart. FFS, the government will just love that, as it gives them the chance to claim the whole thing is uneconomic. Concentrate on getting it to Navan first. Other extensions might prove viable in the far future if development is properly planned to facilitate the opening of these lines.

Sorry I was just back from the pub when I typed this up last night, the EU want the line from Broadstone to Navan opened up ASAP.

A group called North-South Rail or something want the Kingscourt branch opened up.

If I get a chance I'll scan the article in. Either way the EU are furious with the government;s behaviour in relation to Navan.

markpb wrote: »

Don't be silly. He'll be wheeled out to explain how, as part of T21, they're making great strides in re-opening it after (all together now) years of under-investment.

The "years of under investment" ended in 1997 when the big money started flowing again. That's a decade ago and the same old record is still being played. You would think that steam engines were still working the Cork services back in 2006 the way they carry on.

lostexpectation wrote: »

was that the eu petitions committee? its seems to fairly aspirational and to that extent theres nothing wrong with suggesting the line should go all the way to kingscourt

It was a reserach group which came over from a European Parliament Commitee who issued the report.

If the Kingscourt branch was laid with good track and all the level crossings automated with a Park and Ride at Kingscourt, and offered a decent commuter service to Dublin it would be a success just like similar style commuter rail systems all over the USA. But it would have to be a major rebuild and not a relay. No crossing gates carry on.

actually if you are going to go all the way to Kingscourt might as well finish the job and build a whole new semi-High Speed route to Belfast such as they are currently planning in Scotland between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Be cheaper and easier than quading the Northern Commuter Line and realigning old curves north of the border. Might get a decent Dublin-Belifast service out of it. The "low-population density" is no longer an issue anymore along the East coast of the island. It's right up there now with "years of under investment" at this stage.

Get with it, muppets in Kildare Street...

ucdperson

actually if you are going to go all the way to Kingscourt might as well finish the job and build a whole new semi-High Speed route to Belfast

Was this not more or less the route proposed by the Irish Railway commissioners in 1837? Good ideas come around again!

loyatemu

Transport21 Fan wrote: »

actually if you are going to go all the way to Kingscourt might as well finish the job and build a whole new semi-High Speed route to Belfast such as they are currently planning in Scotland between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Be cheaper and easier than quading the Northern Commuter Line and realigning old curves north of the border. Might get a decent Dublin-Belifast service out of it. The "low-population density" is no longer an issue anymore along the East coast of the island. It's right up there now with "years of under investment" at this stage.

Get with it, muppets in Kildare Street...

the kingscourt line is a badly built single line covered in level crossings that ends in the middle of nowhere - you could do an awful lot of upgrade work on the Belfast line for the amount of money it would cost to upgrade and extend the Kingscourt line.

as for rebuilding it as a commuter line - do we really want to further encourage commuting from that sort of distance? Its a non-runner - concentrate on Navan.

Transport21 Fan

ucdperson, yes that is correct and CIE have already looked at the idea again. I was told by a former employee that they looked at "moving the Enterprise away from the sea". The idea has never been shelved - or at least, not officially. I suspect the Government's junkie like obsession with the M3 killed it off back then. But it is not as far fetched as it seem.

CIE have a clear right of way almost to the border using the Navan and Kingscourt branches - a new line would be needed from there to get it to the NIR network - but this kind of thing happens year in year out all over Europe.

So what if the Kingscourt line is in bits now - it can be completely rebuilt. It's only the institutional paralysis of vision in relation to rail development in Ireland which stops this kind of thinking which would be just done in many other countries.

It's a completely separate issue from Navan in one sense, but in another sense it strenghtens the case for reopening to Navan. It offers EU and UK funding and it is the kind of stuff our politicians love to pat themselves on the back by delivering so they can look like statesmen.

I suspect the idea is still simmering away in the background, and I do wonder if this is what Dr John Lynch was alluding to a while back when he said the Kingscourt branch was under consideration for reopening?

*opens the Johnson's Atlas and Gazetter and withdraws the golden crayon of infinity from its holster* 'imagines a way though the hills to Newry...'

I love when dreams find a home. Sure, didn't some one proclaim that the "Metro was dead" and "the love affair with the Luas was over" on the eve of 2 new metros lines and 7 new Luas lines being announced? Never say never!

I love it when dreams from a home. Anyways, get to Navan first and then look at the dreams. I am sick of hearing about this line being under study. If it was in Mayo they would be already installing the overhead catenery.

dermo88

The trouble is that getting Northern Ireland to fork out a penny in rail based investment is akin to getting blood from a stone. Mind, they have made reasonable improvements up there compared to 1995, with the construction of the cross harbour rail link, and the rebuild of Great Victoria Street.

It looks like a nice idea on paper. A dedicated High Speed Rail link between Dublin-Navan-Armagh-Belfast that takes away from the coastal route looks nice, but thats all it is.

In my eyes, thats what Metro-North could have been, a mainline rail-line, but at massive expense. But reopening all the way to Kingscourt, thats a crazy idea.

Get the finger out and get to Navan. In any case, there will still be congestion in the suburban section, and when Maynooth becomes DART, it will still be slow for the last stretch into town. Mind, they've been discussing quad tracking for more than 70 years. The money was never there to do the job.

Calina

Transport21 Fan wrote: »

The "years of under investment" ended in 1997 when the big money started flowing again. That's a decade ago and the same old record is still being played. You would think that steam engines were still working the Cork services back in 2006 the way they carry on.

On this I have only the following comments:

when I came back to Ireland in 1997, there was a much vaunted programme of investment in Irish Rail. As I recall, it totalled 1billion punts.

This is chicken feed for a system that has been resolutedly underinvested for the guts of 60 to 70 years, for a system that even with this investment is still bursting at the seams. In terms of rail investment, I don't think you could call 1 billion punts over five years for the national rail system "big money" per se when the French are putting 3.7billion euros ito reduce journey times between Connere outside Le Mans and Brest/Quimper (line splits at Rennes). The cost is being split between the rail infrastructure company, the national coffers and the regional coffers. There will probably be some money from the towns benefitted by the upgrade too.

However I also have the following to say: there is a shocking lack of vision in terms of public transport in this country. A lot of planning is not based on how can we best do stuff, but how can we cheapest do stuff. And there is a lot of infighting about how things can be best done, and there is a lot of planning in isolation.

In some respects, we are a can do country. In many respects, we are a cannot do country. Public transport and planning figure greatly in the latter. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better to step back for 10 minutes and try and build a new rail system from scratch instead of putting sticking plasters on the current system. Unfortunately, we've probably built houses on any useful land as well.

Transport21 Fan

Calina wrote: »

In some respects, we are a can do country. In many respects, we are a cannot do country. Public transport and planning figure greatly in the latter. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better to step back for 10 minutes and try and build a new rail system from scratch instead of putting sticking plasters on the current system. Unfortunately, we've probably built houses on any useful land as well.

Very well put and I have been saying this for years. Our motorway system is not based on making old famine-era boreens wider. We need a whole new line from Belfast to Dublin to Cork for inter-city travel and let the current lines be for commuter services.

The only thing I would add to your post is the roads, airports and other infrastructure had decades of under investment as well, and to be fair we did get the DART during the lean years.

As for Navan, the whole thing stinks and it's not just a lack of vision or bad planning - it's being held up for reasons which are surreal to say the least.

Zoney

Developers, developers, developers...

The whole Navan thing isn't specifically about preferring road to rail, it's about the M3 being a pet project to suit developers. It's a pity the enviro crowd haven't been able to scupper it, cause it's a nonsense even aside from the issues they're worried about.* The M3 is about more of the same crazy planning that there's been in the likes of West Dublin (note, not a lack of planning, but worse - planning for making money from developments rather than planning for a coherent living and working environment).

Note: I'm not saying rail is all that Navan needs, but the likes of the Blundelstown Interchange is nothing to do with facilitating Navan-Dublin links.

*I'm not so wound up about heritage etc. myself, but it is a bit sickening to think of this monument to all that's wrong in modern Ireland going past such a historical place

Calina

It should not be a rail to Navan or M3 scenario. Both are justifiable.

I could say something about the adversarial way of getting things done in this country (viz buses in Dublin and the private/public battles that the PDs hampered Dublin Bus with) but it'd be a waste of my time. Ultimately, things need to be looked at top down rather than bottom up. What will work on a grandscale rather than piecemeal messing about.

Navan Junction

What can I say? Never mind how far it could be built or re-engineered in a northerly direction, it would be great if the government started to plan for the transport needs of future generations.

With even preliminary planning you could identify prospective high-speed rail routes from Dublin to all of the other cities, and in between them.

But then again, we'd probably end up with crayonism of the likes MCC created when they invented the Ashbourne deviation.

But I would wholeheartedly agree with protecting all former alignments and prospective new ones. Doesn't mean they'll be built anytime soon or even used at all, but surely transport paths between the cities could be identified and sterilised?

I'm thinking about how barns, housing estates etc etc can become impediments to doing many things.

Surely for example, if you identified a route from Dublin to Belfast for say, a maglev, you could use it for something else other than that in the future. Even a cycle-way if you had a couple of hundred million to spare. But a prospective alignment would have been identified and protected.

Anyway, what I really wanted to mention was that you have an excellent blog there calina - fair play.

And whilst on the topic of lines north of Navan, just to mention as well that I recently read that the highest gradient on the Navan-Kells line was 1:400 which was pretty good - and that's about to be severed.

Navan Junction

Transport21 Fan wrote: »

*opens the Johnson's Atlas and Gazetter and withdraws the golden crayon of infinity from its holster* 'imagines a way though the hills to Newry...'

I think you'd need to be on the local mushrooms as well to find a way through those particular hills - it's steep climb on the existing Belfast line north of Dundalk, but I'd hate to be looking for an easy path north from Carrickmacross