DART+ (DART Expansion)

BluntGuy

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0804/1224276150020.html

SOME OF Europe’s largest construction companies and international banks are involved in the consortiums shortlisted to build Dart Underground.
Iarnród Éireann yesterday announced names of four consortiums which have been shortlisted for the €2.5 billion project. The four include:

The BBI consortium which comprises:

– Balfour Beatty Capital, one of the largest UK private sector investors in healthcare, education, roads and infrastructure;

– BAM PPP, part of the Royal BAM Group, a Netherlands-based €9 billion construction services company;

– Iridium Concesiones de Infraestructuras, a Spanish engineering group which was part of the Celtic Roads Group (Portlaoise) consortium – alongside BAM PPP and NTR plc – which built the recently opened M7/M8 motorway.

The City Connect Consortium comprises:

– Macquarie, a global manager of transport, roads, airports and utilities funds. Founded in 1969, it employs more than 14,600 people in about 70 locations in 28 countries;

– Cintra Infraestructuras, owner of toll roads and car parks to a value of about €16 billion in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Chile, Canada and the United States;

– Global Via Infraestructuras, which has developed seven rail projects, 15 toll roads, two airports and seven ports.

Of these, the N6 Galway to Ballinasloe project and the M50 upgrade project are major Irish PPP road project and the company is also involved with Macquarie in the Metro Express consortium bidding for Metro North.

The third consortium, NascRail Consortium, comprises:

– OHL Concessions, which operates 22 toll roads covering a total of 4,400km;

– Soares da Costa Concessoes SGPS, a Portuguese-based group active in the construction of roads, residential and commercial buildings, stadiums and tunnels;

– Bombardier, which manufactures aircraft and trains and employs almost 63,000 people around the world;

– AIB, the well-known Irish bank;

– Pierse Contracting, the leading building and civil engineering contractor operating in Ireland.

The fourth consortium is the Toto Consortium which comprises:

– Toto Costruzioni Generali, Societa Italiana per Condotte d’Acqua, Ansaldo STS, Condotte Immobiliare, Torrena Scavi and Rocksoil.

The membership of this Italian consortium is involved in the building of railways, roads and tunnels and includes specialists in underground projects and operations in mass transit and real estate.

Dart Underground is to be a 7.6km tunnel under Dublin city centre linking Docklands station with Heuston via Pearse Station and new stations at St Stephen’s Green and Inchicore.

Some discussion of the project in general:

http://www.businessandfinance.ie/bf/2010/5/interviewfeaturemay2010/undergrounddartareweontrackfor

Official Irish Rail Release:

http://www.irishrail.ie/news_centre/news.asp?action=view&news_id=865

BrianD

Aard wrote: »

TBH, I think I'm confusing myself. On reflection, I have come to agree with you. A 30 minute interval DART service to Drogheda makes sense.

Just run the 30 min service with existing rail cars (paint them green and stick DART on the side of them). Why extend the DART infrastructure to Drogheda? Basketcase economics. A 30 min DART service to too expensive and the money and rolling stock would be better used within Dublin city.

Cool Mo D

BrianD wrote: »

Just run the 30 min service with existing rail cars (paint them green and stick DART on the side of them). Why extend the DART infrastructure to Drogheda? Basketcase economics. A 30 min DART service to too expensive and the money and rolling stock would be better used within Dublin city.

DART services are much cheaper to run than diesel. That's the point of electrification. If you have enough services on a line to justify the capital cost of the wires and new trains, then you should electrify.

The general guideline is that 4 trains per hour is where electrification makes sense. Since the line will have 4 trains either direction off peak, it makes sense!

murphaph

A further six months was added to this because it was decided to use two tunnelling machines, both starting in the Docklands rather than four, negating the need for two to start in Inchicore

That quote from Business & Finance explains in part why there will be no immediate need to connect the tunnel to the mainline at Inchicore to facilitate removal of spoil...there won't be any at that end! It will all (presumably) be trained out from the Docklands to somewhere.

DWCommuter

murphaph wrote: »

That quote from Business & Finance explains in part why there will be no immediate need to connect the tunnel to the mainline at Inchicore to facilitate removal of spoil...there won't be any at that end! It will all (presumably) be trained out from the Docklands to somewhere.

And if you want to be really paranoid about it, its a ready made reason why IE can't connect the PPT to Docklands due to the amount of land use needed down there.

murphaph

DWCommuter wrote: »

And if you want to be really paranoid about it, its a ready made reason why IE can't connect the PPT to Docklands due to the amount of land use needed down there.

yeah, of course if they hadn't sold all the land and retained just a tiny bit for railway stations there might be more room to play with!

trellheim

Did I see in the paper that the pearse st underground box will be at corner of Boyne St and Sandwidth St ? At this stage of the game does it not look like the less moronic option to actually leave passengers not have a 300m+ walk for their connection ?

Perhaps it may be worth a skew to the west slightly. Well what do I know.

Arrgh I was right see http://www.dartundergroundrailwayorder.ie/assets/files/downloads/Railway_Works_Drawings/Area_105-MERRION_SQUARE_TO_RIVER_LIFFEY/RO_Structure_Details/DU-ST_105_A-B_02.pdf

unbelievable. wasn't one of the selling points that afterwards getting the traditional dart coastal route would be an easy interchange ... now we're talking deep tunnel to elevated railway, and a 300m plus walk [ more if you count far platform ends to far platform ends ]

Carawaystick

trellheim wrote: »

unbelievable. wasn't one of the selling points that afterwards getting the traditional dart coastal route would be an easy interchange ... now we're talking deep tunnel to elevated railway, and a 300m plus walk [ more if you count far platform ends to far platform ends ]

This shows the existing platforms in Pearse end at the west side of Sandwith street,

Going by the linked pdf, it looks like about 130m from the upper platforms to the lower platforms.

If you're going to pick about the distance from the west end of the platforms in the existing Pearse station to the furthest point away in the new station, you're just being overly picky. Look how far the rpa built their tram line from the furthest point of platform 7 in Connolly to the nearest tram stop serving places east of Connolly station.


What is a worry is that, in the linked pdf, there doesn't seem to be entrances to the south and north end of the new station, which there should be. and from both sides of whatever street they happen to be on.

trellheim

Look how far the rpa built their tram line from the furthest point of platform 7 in Connolly to the nearest tram stop serving places east of Connolly station

I don't think it's being that picky,someone is going to walk it.

Is there some rationale for not going under pearse proper ? i.e. so that the stations are in vertical line ?

dubhthach

trellheim wrote: »

I don't think it's being that picky,someone is going to walk it.

Walking at a leisuraly normal strolling pace of 4mph (6.4kph) you would cover 300metres in about three minutes. Tbh I've never seen anyone walking like that when connecting between trains on the London underground.

markpb

dubhthach wrote: »

Walking at a leisuraly normal strolling pace of 4mph (6.4kph) you would cover 300metres in about three minutes. Tbh I've never seen anyone walking like that when connecting between trains on the London underground.

The difference in London is that a lot of the connections are between two existing and very old train lines. Stations were combined underground in many cases which is why the walk is reasonably long. It's not a huge problem but trellheim has a point - if we're building a new line near an existing line, why are the station boxes not directly underneath?

In the case of Connolly, I don't know where else the tram line could have gone to bring it closer to the Dart platforms. A similar question might be why Irish Rail don't open the station entrance right beside the Dart platforms instead of making everyone walk through the main station building?

trellheim

which is what they are going to do here as well. At Connolly the easiest thing to do would be to exit at the DART platforms and walk along Amiens St to the LUAS, but oh no we have to walk along the mainline platforms because they can't be arsed to staff the commuter station.

A similar thing would be in place here; instead of the stations being directly in line with each other the user will be forced to change two stories and 300m and probably a ticket barrier or two as well.

This will not be like changing at Ealing Broadway from the Central to the District line, more like Victoria line to Central Line at Oxford Circus at rush hour and that's a horrible crush.

Instead of that all it might need is 3 large escalators.


It seems to me that for no apparent reason they are giving this station a proper entrance at the old buildings behind Archers Garage, when it doesn't need one and could quite happily use the existing at Pearse St

340M is what gmaps-pedometer says, farthest end to farthest end although the subsurface may be a little longer, up to 400m. :

eia340600

Anybody here ever hear of making a mountain out of a molehill?? Yes it's a problem, but not a very big one at all...

BrianD

trellheim wrote: »

I don't think it's being that picky,someone is going to walk it.

Is there some rationale for not going under pearse proper ? i.e. so that the stations are in vertical line ?

In both London and Barcelona, a long walk is required for transfers from one line to another.

bg07

The between the escalators up from the DU platform to the escalators below the the existing pearse station is more like between 50 and 100m.

Drawing

Its 300m between 2 stations entrances at either end of the overall station. That is nothing to do with distance travelled while changing trains.

markpb

BrianD wrote: »

In both London and Barcelona, a long walk is required for transfers from one line to another.

Like I said above, in Lonon there are good, historical reasons why that happens. I've no huge problem with it happening here but I am curious to know why.

trellheim

No, it isn't the distance between the entrances, although it does look like it. If you get off the back end of a southbound DART at pearse you will be nearly at Westland Row rather than the Cumberland St end.

If, by the looks of things you get off the back end of a northbound Underground train you will have that distance to walk, which is what I drew out, and according to the measurements is 340m. Note including up two escalators, according to your supplied diagram

The EIS mentions that a Phase 3 review moved it from directly under but I can't yet find the detailed reasoning.

Now you may wonder why I'm being finicky but most everybody who continues to want to travel an existing coastal commuter route across the Liffey after this is all built will need to use this interchange - or am I wrong ?

FOR EXAMPLE : HOWTH -> SYDNEY PARADE will need to use this interchange

DUN LAOGHAIRE -> CLONTARF ROAD will need to use this interchange

this was sold as a fast and easy interchange but it looks like a pup.

or do I have this all wrong ?

dowlingm

trellheim wrote: »

It seems to me that for no apparent reason they are giving this station a proper entrance at the old buildings behind Archers Garage, when it doesn't need one and could quite happily use the existing at Pearse St

Given likely passenger volumes since Pearse will serve interconnector and DART to Maynooth/Bray perhaps it was felt that two entrances made more sense from a safety perspective as well as passenger comfort.

paulm17781

trellheim wrote: »

No, it isn't the distance between the entrances, although it does look like it. If you get off the back end of a southbound DART at pearse you will be nearly at Westland Row rather than the Cumberland St end.

You sure about that? I haven't looked at the PDFs but I would like to think that is going to be a new entrance and the interchange will be closer than it seems.

strassenwo!f

At the time we reached around page 5 of this thread, the cost of the project was at 3 billion euro.

Apparently that was for the tunnel and for other necessary work on the Maynooth line.

The figure now seems to be down to 2.5 billion euro. However, it's not yet clear what is included.

We had the seemingly eternal P11 mantra of 1.3 billion euro.

Then it was 3 billion.

Now apparently it's back down to 2.5 billion - but what does that figure cover?

Sponge Bob

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Now apparently it's back down to 2.5 billion - but what does that figure cover?

The tunnel and underground stations mainly. The cost of the entire project is around €4bn ,maybe a tad less.

The entire project would electrify from Drogheda to Hazelhatch and from Maynooth to Greystones and include a lot of new rolling stock. The government is deliberately being very fuzzy about everything save the central tunnel section.

trellheim

very fuzzy about everything save the central tunnel section

the "Kevin Costner/Field of Dreams" infrastructure engineering school perhaps
"If you build it they will come "

Empire o de Sun

When are the going to start the bloomin thing. This is going on for years now.

Should ABP be involved at the start maybe on hughe infrastructure projects? Instead of them taking 18 months to look at it.

loyatemu

trellheim wrote: »

Note including up two escalators, according to your supplied diagram

the plan shows 3 sets of escalators at least, from the underground platforms you have to go:

• up to the "mezzanine" level
• then up to the ticket hall level
• then along an underground passage
• then up to the existing station.

But I'm assuming that as the ticket hall is underground, and the existing station platforms are elevated that you will have to also go up another escalator in the existing station - so thats 4 sets of escalators, plus whatever horizontal distance you have to walk.

trellheim

Good spot. If it was a direct up-down it could be done with lifts like some of the deep Tube interconnects.

Ren2k7

Probably a stupid question but I presume there will be wheelchair accessible facilities like lifts at the station entrances and platforms?

monument

I have yet to find the official reasoning, but... The area closer to Westland Row is more compact, and there's more notable and there's also some larger buildings. While the two station boxes planned now are at sites with some open space and disused looking buildings (some may be in use).

The distance from new Dart to the current platform seems like it would be around 200m, with Dart to Luas at Connolly is 300m.

Ren2k7 wrote: »

Probably a stupid question but I presume there will be wheelchair accessible facilities like lifts at the station entrances and platforms?

Yes, there will be.

dowlingm

Have just been reading about the Bombardier Spacium 3.06 sets SNCF has ordered for Paris regional commuter. 1500VDC, articulated, 87mph top speed, 915mm door height above rail, 94m or 112m length with short cars and with carriage widths just inside Irish loading gauge widths. Looks better than the side of a fridge too. SNCF entry to service in 2013. Just the thing for a long route like Drogheda-Kildare.

I like, but it will probably be some boxy piece of low bid crap instead...

oppenheimer1

trellheim wrote: »

Did I see in the paper that the pearse st underground box will be at corner of Boyne St and Sandwidth St ? At this stage of the game does it not look like the less moronic option to actually leave passengers not have a 300m+ walk for their connection ?

Perhaps it may be worth a skew to the west slightly. Well what do I know.

Arrgh I was right see http://www.dartundergroundrailwayorder.ie/assets/files/downloads/Railway_Works_Drawings/Area_105-MERRION_SQUARE_TO_RIVER_LIFFEY/RO_Structure_Details/DU-ST_105_A-B_02.pdf

unbelievable. wasn't one of the selling points that afterwards getting the traditional dart coastal route would be an easy interchange ... now we're talking deep tunnel to elevated railway, and a 300m plus walk [ more if you count far platform ends to far platform ends ]

I'm going to guess one of the major factors determining station location is that they do not want the platforms on a curve or tight turns in the tunnel. This leads to problems for access for less mobile people as well as a safety hazard. There shouldn't be any need for "mind the gap" notices in Dublins new infrastructure.

There could be other technical difficulties as well. I know the ground type suddenly changes from stiff clay to soft permeable muds and sands in that part of the city.

gerdee

If I recall correctly, one of my lecturers mentioned that there was a gravel aquifer that started at the Pearse St/Westland Row corner of Trinity, beneath where the current sport centre is located. I can't remember if it was shallow or deep.

I don't know much about tunnel boring/station box construction, but I guess they would want to avoid that.