Idea of a rail spur from West to Airport

veryangryman

If we ever get rial to airport, maybe this could be considered, save the poor souls who don't want to go into city.

Maybe something that cuts through Lucan, Clonsilla and heads up to airport that way

Would cover every Irish city in the Republic so i imagine there's an economic case for it.

Thoughts?

L1011

Presuming you mean from the Heuston side with that routing. Would have to leave after Hazelhatch at the latest and even then threading a twin track line over from there would be tricky without demolition or severe CPOs (Weston Airport)

GerardKeating

L1011 wrote: »

Presuming you mean from the Heuston side with that routing. Would have to leave after Hazelhatch at the latest and even then threading a twin track line over from there would be tricky without demolition or severe CPOs (Weston Airport)

That's what Metro-West could have given perhaps ?

Grandeeod

veryangryman wrote: »

If we ever get rial to airport, maybe this could be considered, save the poor souls who don't want to go into city.

Maybe something that cuts through Lucan, Clonsilla and heads up to airport that way

Would cover every Irish city in the Republic so i imagine there's an economic case for it.

Thoughts?

A branch from the Maynooth line was proposed nearly 20 years ago with an extension to Swords and the Belfast line. It included reopening Broadstone to trains and connected to luas.

I also remember an unofficial proposal to connect the Cork and Sligo lines.

L1011

GerardKeating wrote: »

That's what Metro-West could have given perhaps ?

With two changes, yes. Heavy Rail is possible but impractical for the return it'd give - wouldn't serve population like Metro West would have

Stephen15

Grandeeod wrote: »

I also remember an unofficial proposal to connect the Cork and Sligo lines.

That would serve the same purpose as the PPT surely?

Isambard

Stephen15 wrote: »

That would serve the same purpose as the PPT surely?

exactly my thoughts. Should an airport spur be built, access through the PPT would be possible, but I don't know how a worthwhile frequency could be accommodated, any airport link would need a frequent service in order to reasonably meet every arrival and departure, probably every 10 or 15 minutes. I can't see that being viable for anything other than a city centre to airport link

Grandeeod

Stephen15 wrote: »

That would serve the same purpose as the PPT surely?

It was a circle line idea including the PPT.

Stephen15

Grandeeod wrote: »

It was a circle line idea including the PPT.

Sounds like a bit of a bizarre idea

zetalambda

veryangryman wrote: »

If we ever get rial to airport,

A spur off the dart line to Dublin airport/Fingal a.k.a The FART?

Grandeeod

Stephen15 wrote: »

Sounds like a bit of a bizarre idea

It wasn't the worst idea compared to many that followed. I must have a look at my own archive so I can post how it was meant to work.

Sam Russell

Surely Metrolink would achieve everything that could be achieved by such a spur. I suppose it could follow the M50, but why? It would need frequencies beyond those of mainline services just to feed the airport.

Metrolink is your only man.

IE 222

Grandeeod wrote: »

It was a circle line idea including the PPT.

Yeah I think this was the platform for change plan around 2000s.

There was also the older plan to tunnel from Sandymount to Broadstone and back then it also was planned for a Connolly- Hueston Tunnel with Templebar to have an interconnector station. A Dart spur to Blanc and Tallaght was also apart of the plan.

Grandeeod

IE 222 wrote: »

Yeah I think this was the platform for change plan around 2000s.

There was also the older plan to tunnel from Sandymount to Broadstone and back then it also was planned for a Connolly- Hueston Tunnel with Templebar to have an interconnector station. A Dart spur to Blanc and Tallaght was also apart of the plan.

Nothing to do with platform for change or the original DART plan you describe. The circle line idea, I mentioned, was nothing to do with officialdom. It was an idea that I heard about many years ago when officialdom was planning rail routes to Dublin Airport. Here's the link to the person and website behind it. The site is old and a bit all over the place so you'll have to take your time navigating it.

http://dublinbus.biz/id71.html

Lord Glentoran

Sam Russell wrote: »

Surely Metrolink would achieve everything that could be achieved by such a spur. I suppose it could follow the M50, but why? It would need frequencies beyond those of mainline services just to feed the airport.

Metrolink is your only man.

In ten years time... zzzz

Lord Glentoran

Grandeeod wrote: »

The site is old and a bit all over the place so you'll have to take your time navigating it.

Bit like the plan itself. It was only ever a spoiler for Luas and was comprehensively dismissed at the Tallaght-Abbey Street Luas public enquiry as, if I recall, something that someone thinks is a good idea, but with nothing that could be described as comprehensive planning behind it.

That hadn’t stopped lazy journalists and lazier politicians championing it as something workable for months beforehand.

TheBoyConor

Isn't there already a station space underneath terminal one in the airport?
Could that still be used.

There are several stories here on boards about it and a few accounts from people who worked on jobs in the airport about massive station sized spaces in the basesment and tunnel portals that go nowhere.
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=218655

L1011

There's a big basement in the T1 head house. It might have been suitable for a very small metro station in the 70s. It was most recently a checkin area.

http://www.pjhegarty.ie/our-projects/public-sector/dublin-airport,-check-in-area-14.html

That thread is full of rubbish, the M50 Finglas tunnels are to allow high tension power cables not overheat, they are too small for a car let alone a metro.

TheBoyConor

There is a lot of good information in that thread, especially from people who managed to gain access in that secret area and saw what the set up was.

I'd agree though that that particular post about the tunnels under the M50 was jibberish. Yeah they are for utilities to pass through.

L1011

People massively overestimate the size of empty spaces - take a walk around an empty house compared to the same one with furniture in it. The area was nowhere near as big as being claimed as is pretty obvious from the photos of Area 14 when it was operational - that IS the space in question.

The escalators down are still there, sometimes even on for no good reason but barriered off. Over near the toilets in arrivals in T1.

TheBoyConor

http://www.travelextra.ie/area-14-back-action-dublin-airport-starts-plan-bring-natural-light-t1/

That link suggests that Area 14 was indeed secretly built as an area to provide space for a railway terminal.
Is it possible that Area 14 is actually far bigger and the check in area was just occupying a part of it?

Is it possible to access this area.?

has anyone got photos of it before it was brought into use as a check in area?

Is it true that there are massive tunnel portals down there that lead into nowhere?
I heard once that it was for in internal airport shuttle railway and that there are rolling stock that was never used hidden down there.

And why is it that there's so much secrecy around that part of the airport where the railway station doesn't exist?

L1011

Area 14 IS the check in area. Its not like Area 51; it was the 14th set of checkin desks.

Members of the public cannot access it currently, however as the airport grows busier it could come back in to use. There are no tunnel portals - that was fantasy.

There was never any prep work done other than building the basement. Remember the DART hadn't even been started by the time T1 opened.

There's no secrecy - the area was open daily to passengers for years. People love to make stuff up. Why would a single terminal airport need an internal shuttle? Pub talk gubbins.

TheBoyConor

They say it was to transfer people to and from the car parks.

Like if it was initially meant to be a future train station does that mean that the basement had the basic civil works for platforms and a track bed put in?
These would have to have been infilled and slabbed over in order to make it into a flat check in area. Or as I was saying perhaps area 14 only occupies part of the basement??

There's a suggestions in the article I linked to above that the area was tiled out previously. So the station work must have been at a fairly advanced level if they had tiled it.

L1011

The carpark was *in the terminal building* until the IRA bombing campaign scared them and they closed it. See the spiral structures on the outside? Very few people drove to the airport in the 1960s when it was being designed. Rich people got driven there (taxi or chauffeur, car didn't stay), less rich people took the 16.

There were no preliminary works. It was a basement. It is now an unused checkin area. There is no secrecy here; just an awful lot of fantasists

There's a thread on AH about underground spaces in Dublin that is 95% fantasy. If every building that "had a secret tunnel to Dublin Castle/The Monto/The Phoenix Park/etc" actually did, the city would have fallen in a century ago. For some reason underground spaces seem to attract fantasists.

TheBoyConor

Ah right. So the parking areas were on the upper floors. And what is in those old car parking areas nowadays?
Are they derelict out of bounds areas? I'd love to be able to go in and wander around these abandoned car parks.

This link shows the access ramp into the lower level also. It's mad to think that these massive spiral structures were once part of a car park. They are very strange looking structures.
https://www.google.ie/maps/@53.4264255,-6.2413252,3a,75y,253.05h,83.47t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sDR_AKB-YajJaJWRvEa4Qxw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Back to the basement. Is there/was there vehicular access to the basement/station area too?
Were Iarnrod Eireann ever involved in the plans for the railway station or is it something Aer Rianta did all by themselves.

L1011

I believe some of the carpark is now staff parking. You'll never be allowed wander around an active airport terminal and T1 isn't really seen as interesting enough for Open House (which does tours of the 1936 terminal) but you could suggest it to them - as it is approaching 50 years old and has layers of mods etc.

The plans would predate Irish Rail by 20 years. CIE would have been consulted as they had singular control over all the buses going there but there were no solid plans for any rail link. It was vague forward planning and proved useful when A14 was needed prior to T2.

TheBoyConor

Oh wow, so some of those ramps are still in use? That's amazing!

What this open house business? I'd really love to be part of one of these tours, even if it is just the old 1936 building. I don't think there's any public access into that part any more is there? Is the old North Terminal part of the tour?
If it could be suggested to them that T1 could be taken in it would be amazing. There's so many layers of architecture here it's actually hard to figure out what part of the building is from what era.

How come you know so much about this place? Do or did you work there?

L1011

https://openhousedublin.com/ It'll be on again in October. You have to apply for higher demand things like the Airprt and my experience is that first time applicants get nothing or the less interesting stuff. Its worth applying and going to whatever you get on any given year - I was on the very last tour of the old Central Bank before it closed for instance. I believe the tour is just the 1936 terminal, and North Terminal has some sensitive stuff in it (Garda station).

Aviation & Aircraft moderator, have to know some aviation stuff!

There are bus gates in the ground floor of the 1936 terminal which are used from time to time. I think that T1 bus boardings - KLM and some others - sometimes come back in through them and they may be used for charters. There is full but slightly out of date Streetview of the inside of the terminals and that's included.

TheBoyConor

That's actually amazing that the streetview goes around the inside of the 1936 building. It reminds me of the inside of a hospital moreseo than an airport. I suppose a lot of irish hospitals were build in this era too so they are architecturally similar in style.