High speed trains in Ireland?

Yixian

Saw this today:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/High_Speed_Rail_Map_Europe.gif

Depressing eh? Ireland has some of the slowest trains in Western Europe.

Rather than cutting everything in sight, how about an Irish TGV linking Dublin, Gallway, Cork, Limerick and Waterford? It'd boost the economies of each city and I'm sure increase public passenger numbers.

Anyone know of any plans for a real high speed train service in Ireland?

Alun

Look at the relative population sizes and densities of some of the places linked by high speed trains on mainland Europe. The whole population of Ireland is smaller than many if not most of those.

(And resize that image please!)

Aard

Look at Denmark, Norway, Austria and Switzerland. Not much difference in speed, yet their systems are much better overall than Ireland's. What we need is reliability and regularity, not high-speed.

zagmund

What's with the bit of red (300km/h) on the border between Spain and France ? Isn't there a big mountain there ? Maybe they do 300km/h downhill or something . . .

z

Cool Mo D

We don't need a true high speed service, but we could do with an upgrade to our existing tracks to enable Belfast-Dublin-Cork trains to travel at 200km/h for sustained periods. Currently, they can intermittently reach 160km/h, on track riddled with speed restrictions.

Carawaystick

zagmund wrote: »

What's with the bit of red (300km/h) on the border between Spain and France ? Isn't there a big mountain there ? Maybe they do 300km/h downhill or something . . .

z

Those sneaky forriners dug two holes under the mountain called it a tunnel or something....
Actually the Perpignan-Figueres line isn't running, even though the line is finished, the station in Figueres isn't built, I think RENFE pulled a fast one on the company building the line, but I haven't been able to figure it out exactly.

corktina

i think we'll be lucky to have any sort of long distance service left when the motorways are finished..if you can call ANY Irish journey long distance...

zagmund

Tunnels, is it ? Dem forriners think of everything, so they do.

z

Terrontress

To be honest, they are doing us a favour putting us in at <200km/h. It's significantly < 200km/h between Belfast and Dublin. 25% < 200km/h at the fastest point according to my satnav.

tenandtracer

That line from Sankt Peterburg to Moskva - damn straight !

karlog

Its ironic that the word 'luas' is Irish for speed

I also think 'Ryanair' is another word for a quality airline company

Run_to_da_hills

corktina wrote: »

i think we'll be lucky to have any sort of long distance service left when the motorways are finished..if you can call ANY Irish journey long distance...

"Long distance" in this country is a joke, "City Rail" which is Sydneys version of the Dart serves newcastle which is over 100 miles away. :rolleyes:

karlog

Iarnrod eireann is a tad pricey also

mysterious

The prices are absurd............ especially irritating when the train is bloody late.


Walks out..

Alun

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

"Long distance" in this country is a joke, "City Rail" which is Sydneys version of the Dart serves newcastle which is over 100 miles away. :rolleyes:

Perhaps you hadn't noticed but Australia is just a teeny weeny bit bigger than Ireland:rolleyes:

Run_to_da_hills

Alun wrote: »

Perhaps you hadn't noticed but Australia is just a teeny weeny bit bigger than Ireland:rolleyes:

Still, compaired to any european country including rhe Netherlands our "long distance" journeys are overated. Its like the old days when we had "trunk" phone calls,

karlog

Population density would have a lot to do with it but the track gauge is also an issue. Rail lines in mainland Europe and the UK are 4'8½" (1435mm) while Irish lines are 5'3" (1600mm). A lot of rolling stock is of an "off the shelf" design so in order to use such a design in Ireland would require expensive modifications to the standard spec. This is why the Luas was built to standard gauge rather than Irish gauge, so it could utilise the Citadis trams as is.

What we do need to do is eliminate the speed restrictions on the Cork and Belfast sections, and modify the Enterprise stock so it's not drawing power from the locomotive. These changes would vastly improve journey times, and in the case of the Enterprise, reliability. Oh, and get rid of the artificial timetable padding too.

karlog wrote: »

Iarnrod eireann is a tad pricey also

The privatised rail services in the UK can be much worse, believe me.

munchkin_utd

Ireland shouldnt be aiming for TGV style lines but simply do as the germans did on the Hamburg Berlin line for the Irish mainlines.
On the regular mainline they eliminated all level crossings with bridges, upgraded track and signal and on busy sections put in quad track to stop slow trains slowing down the intercities.

Actually......
Isnt that pretty much whats happening on the Kildare upgrade anyways?

and if you want to compare Ireland to abroad, on the main lines into Munich/ Augsburg/ Nürnberg amongst others, they are prioritising quad tracking over everything else as this is where a lot of the delays and inefficiencies happen.

So heck, if you ask me Ireland is doing it right as it is (if copying the germans is considered a good thing to be at).

kingshankly

In order to obtain higher speeds. Every rail would have to be replaced to a heavier rail. I'm sure there would be some raised eyebrows if IE were to announce rail replacements at a cost of many many millions in the current climate

Yixian

Karsini wrote: »

The privatised rail services in the UK can be much worse, believe me.

You can pretty much fly from London to Edinburgh for less than you can rail it.

Government here is actually thinking of renationalising it after privatising basically ruined hundreds of year of British tradition in decent rail travel. Let that be a lesson to FG; you privatise IE if you get into power, you'll be back in 20 years fixing all the problems that'll cause.

Run_to_da_hills

kingshankly wrote: »

In order to obtain higher speeds. Every rail would have to be replaced to a heavier rail. I'm sure there would be some raised eyebrows if IE were to announce rail replacements at a cost of many many millions in the current climate

Not necessarily, there are modern train technologies that can use conventional rail lines and contours and run successfully and safely at relatively high speeds, such as the Spanish Talgo and Pendolino Tilting Trains used by Virgin.

markpb

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Not necessarily, there are modern train technologies that can use conventional rail lines and contours and run successfully and safely at relatively high speeds, such as the Spanish Talgo and Pendolino Tilting Trains used by Virgin.

I think that's using UIC60 which is quite common in Europe and suitable for reasonably high speed lines. In Ireland we use the cheaper UIC54 which isn't suitable at all.

markpb

markpb wrote: »

I think that's using UIC60 which is quite common in Europe and suitable for reasonably high speed lines. In Ireland we use the cheaper UIC54 which isn't suitable at all.

It also can't handle the weight of the 201s as far as I know.

murphaph

I read on P11 that the Cork line is getting a full UIC60 relay.

kingshankly

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Not necessarily, there are modern train technologies that can use conventional rail lines and contours and run successfully and safely at relatively high speeds, such as the Spanish Talgo and Pendolino Tilting Trains used by Virgin.

54 kg is not suitable for high speeds max speed is 110 whereas 50 kg max speed is 70 you need a 60 kg for higher speeds

gjim

karlog wrote: »

Its ironic that the word 'luas' is Irish for speed

What's ironic about it? The Luas is one of the faster tram systems in my experience. There is a lot wrong with the Luas "network" but carriage speed isn't one of them.