Railway Order granted for DART Underground

mydiscworld

http://www.pleanala.ie/news/NA0005/NA0005.htm

As above

mydiscworld

37 Conditions but I can't see how long the railway order is valid for.

Metro North is valid for 10 years, so I'd presume the same.

foggy_lad

mydiscworld wrote: »

http://www.pleanala.ie/news/NA0005/NA0005.htm

As above

Not much use without the massive amounts of money required to build this white elephant, light rail/Luas is a far better option with Dublin's population and the cost of running trains and keeping the railway infrastructure intact!

schemingbohemia

mydiscworld wrote: »

37 Conditions but I can't see how long the railway order is valid for.

Metro North is valid for 10 years, so I'd presume the same.

Ten years to be "substantially completed" though with an option to extend. However, interestingly CPO must be done within 7 years, don't think I've seen that one before.

foggy_lad wrote: »

Not much use without the massive amounts of money required to build this white elephant, light rail/Luas is a far better option with Dublin's population and the cost of running trains and keeping the railway infrastructure intact!

As always Foggy a detailed and dynamic rebuttal.:rolleyes: Any chance of some, you know, reasoned logical explanations why you feel Luas is a far better option than DART Underground?

DU massively increases train capacity in the GDA, it's not just a tunnel it brings DART service levels (much higher than todays levels) to the Maynooth and Kildare lines and brings people right to the heart of the city.

L1011

Conditions don't seem onerous or as major as the MN ones.

Vibration sensitive buildings to be specially treated include the TodayFM studios.

Losty Dublin

There isn't excessive surface work required except at both tunnel mouths which are both fairly open sites that irish Rail own so that would explain the less stringent conditions imposed. The main ones to cause any hassle would be the air vents around the town. All in all, the few conditions here seems to suggest that the planning was well thought out and researched. If only the cash was forthcoming anytime soon.

shamwari

foggy_lad wrote: »

Not much use without the massive amounts of money required to build this white elephant, light rail/Luas is a far better option with Dublin's population and the cost of running trains and keeping the railway infrastructure intact!

Wrong. The Railway order now means the biggest planning hurdle has now been dealt with. Even if the project is grounded for the moment, it still makes its reactivation much easier later on.

SeanW

foggy_lad wrote: »

Not much use without the massive amounts of money required to build this white elephant, light rail/Luas is a far better option with Dublin's population and the cost of running trains and keeping the railway infrastructure intact!

There already is light rail/Luas running from Heuston to the Docklands. It's totally inadequate, not to mention WAAAAAAAAY slower than a DART would be. And it also does not offer many of the through-running railway advantages of the D.U.

SeanW

SeanW wrote: »

There already is light rail/Luas running from Heuston to the Docklands. It's totally inadequate, not to mention WAAAAAAAAY slower than a DART would be. And it also does not offer many of the through-running railway advantages of the D.U.

In fact I think the Green line should have been rebuilt as heavy rail.

Losty Dublin

Karsini wrote: »

In fact I think the Green line should have been rebuilt as heavy rail.

It was built to be heavy rail capable between Beechwood and Sandyford in terms of trackbed and clearances at bridges etc. The street sections can't cope given the tight curves though so it won't ever come to pass though it allows faster traveling on the Green line in places.

markpb

SeanW wrote: »

It's totally inadequate, not to mention WAAAAAAAAY slower than a DART would be.

People keep claiming that but the truth is that the R in DART is a lie:

Dart from Pearse to Salthill - 15-17 minutes
Luas from St. Stephens Green - Sandyford - 20 minutes

So Dart isn't appreciably faster than the Green Line in the suburbs. If you want to look at the city centre:

Dart from Fairview to Pearse (a distance of 3km) takes 10-11 minutes.
Luas from Connolly (a distance of 2.8km) takes 10-11 minutes.

Lightspeed Dart anyone?

SeanW

That's not entirely accurate. The Green line Luas was, for the most part, built on the old Harcourt Street Line right of way, ergo it has many of the benefits, speed-wise of heavy rail. That isn't repeatable across wherever else the Luas might be extended, i.e. would normally be on street or down alleyways at the back of existing buildings, hence considerably slower.

The only valid comparison is for THIS alignment. Could the DART Underground beat the existing Luas times (and capacity) for Red line Heuston - Docklands journies? I believe the answer is yes on both counts!

CIE

markpb wrote: »

People keep claiming that but the truth is that the R in DART is a lie:

DART from Pearse to Salthill - 15-17 minutes
Luas from St. Stephens Green - Sandyford - 20 minutes

So DART isn't appreciably faster than the Green Line in the suburbs. If you want to look at the city centre:

DART from Fairview to Pearse (a distance of 3km) takes 10-11 minutes.
Luas from Connolly (a distance of 2.8km) takes 10-11 minutes.

Lightspeed DART anyone?

If you're going to complain about misnomers, then don't forget that "Luas" translates as "speed".

"Rapid" transit does not mean high-speed transit (average speeds of above 45 mph). It does, however, indicate a far faster average speed than driving in traffic, since it can bypass traffic. Not usually the case with a tramway.

BTW, the Luas "from Connolly" to where? The DART is still significantly faster between Pearse and Fairview even at 1 km/h faster average speed, what with having to deal with the non-upgraded points and signals and the non-upgraded loop line, and with the two major intermediate stops with heavy boarding/alighting that slows down things due to the necessary dwell times. It wouldn't be any faster if they built the so-called "DART Underground" via Docklands, from Pearse to Fariview.

And of course, a 36-km/h (22.4 mph) average speed versus a 27-km/h (16.8 mph) average speed over a distance of about nine kilometres is actually significant.

SeanW wrote: »

The Green line Luas was, for the most part, built on the old Harcourt Street Line right of way, ergo it has many of the benefits, speed-wise of heavy rail. That isn't repeatable across wherever else the Luas might be extended, i.e. would normally be on street or down alleyways at the back of existing buildings, hence considerably slower

The Luas still has a slower average speed on the former heavy-railway alignment. Also, there were stations added on the Luas that were not there during the days when the Harcourt Street Line was part of the general railway network; instead of four stations between the former Harcourt Street station location and Stillorgan (not the original Stillorgan station of course), there are now ten; average distance between stations is 0.75 kilometres (0.47 miles).

SeanW wrote: »

The only valid comparison is for THIS alignment. Could the DART Underground beat the existing Luas times (and capacity) for Red line Heuston-Docklands journeys? I believe the answer is yes on both counts

I'd still like to see Docklands-Heuston via the Phoenix Park Tunnel. Problem is, there are no points that would allow you to run directly to that loop line, either at North Strand or at Phibsborough. Funny how things were set up like that, yes? even in the case of the possible demand to run DMUs from Kildare to Docklands, they make the public wait for the "DART Underground" that's only supposed to terminate at Hazelhatch all of a sudden...?

markpb

SeanW wrote: »

The only valid comparison is for THIS alignment. Could the DART Underground beat the existing Luas times (and capacity) for Red line Heuston - Docklands journies? I believe the answer is yes on both counts!

I accidentally left out part of my original post, sorry. My time for the Luas city section was Connolly to Heuston. If the current Dart through the city centre (Fairview to Pearse) is no faster than the current Luas (Connolly to Heuston) through the city centre, it's hard to see why you believe that DU will be faster. DART already has significant advantages (no road sharing, fewer stops, etc) but it's no faster than Luas (lots of road junctions, pedestrians, cyclists and stops)

I'm absolutely in favour of DU but this simplistic notition that heavy rail good, light rail bad is rubbish and is consistently disproved by the realities of rail in Dublin.

CIE wrote: »

And of course, a 36-km/h (22.4 mph) average speed versus a 27-km/h (16.8 mph) average speed over a distance of about nine kilometres is actually significant.

Is it? It amounts to a 3-5 minute difference in total journey time. And you've already explained part of that by mentioning the additional stations.

Losty Dublin

A lot of the problem with both train speeds and track capacity between Clontarf Road, Lansdowne Road and Drumcondra relate to signaling improvements that have been long fingered for a long time now, certainly since 1998. This is being tackled over the coming weeks and months so it should improve things somewhat. Even a modest 10 MPH speed bump should knock 5 minutes around the city journey times while it will do away with some of the regular stops that happens mid track.

When it comes to stations, Luas has straight platforms, more doors and a lot less passengers to shift on and off at stations so it can move off quicker and with less delay.

murphaph

Losty Dublin wrote: »

When it comes to stations, Luas has straight platforms, more doors and a lot less passengers to shift on and off at stations so it can move off quicker and with less delay.

There are many many curved heavy rail (both S- and U-Bahn) platforms in Berlin. Dwell times are similar to (or quite possibly faster than) trams with straight platforms.

I also strongly suspect that passengers can embark and disembark a DART train carriage faster than a Luas tram, given the wider doors and gangways. Again, even U-Bahn units with just 2 double doors in Berlin would allow faster embarking/disembarking than any tram here (including the newest ones). I just don't buy this as an excuse for the slower journey times on the DART.

I put a large measure of it down to trying to funnel as many services across the river as possible, instead of terminating Maynooth line trains at Connolly P7, running the Howth Branch as a shuttle, terminating South East outer suburban and "inter city" at Pearse and running a and running more DARTs at proper (almost) metro frequency along the spine of the network (Malahide-Bray via P5/P6 in Connolly) and the Maynooth line, eliminating conflicts between DART and the Maynooth line trains completely. I would send outer suburban Maynooth line and IC to Docklands with a change at Ashtown for those wanting/needing to go via Connolly.

I would review this situation after (if) Maynooth is electrified as it may be more sensible to terminate ex-Malahide DARTs in Connolly P4/P5 and let Maynooth DARTs run through to Bray.

It's this "trying to offer a no-change service to all" that has the network buckling, not the actual real capacity IMO. A lot of this is due to political interference I should imagine.

robd

foggy_lad wrote: »

Not much use without the massive amounts of money required to build this white elephant, light rail/Luas is a far better option with Dublin's population and the cost of running trains and keeping the railway infrastructure intact!

It's a better option for new alignments alright. However DU is about maximizing the potential of all 4 current heavy rail alignments. That can't be done with a Luas due to track gauges and inter-running of intercity trains.

So really your point is a white elephant.