Cork-Dublin-Belfast - High speed rail

joeysoap

Salzburg to Vienna (about 30 kms longer than Belfast to Cork) 295kms

2hrs 32 mins. Frequent trains 1or 2 an hour.

Different prices but from €19 for ‘second class’ which is superb on double decker trains. Not penalized either for late booking, I purchased a ticket ( internet ticket, no need to printout) for travel later that day. Westbahn.

bk

And Irish Rail charge almost €90 for Cork to Dublin Return (€40 if booked way in advance online) for a slow train and you think a 10 billion HSR would be less that that! :rolleyes:

Even at €40 most people couldn't afford to commute daily on a service like this.

ncounties

bk wrote: »

And Irish Rail charge almost €90 for Cork to Dublin Return (€40 if booked way in advance online) for a slow train and you think a 10 billion HSR would be less that that! :rolleyes:

Even at €40 most people couldn't afford to commute daily on a service like this.

Why would you want to commute from Cork!

bk

ncounties wrote: »

Why would you want to commute from Cork!

See a few posts back...

defrule wrote: »

If magically we suddenly had a HSR from Cork to Dublin making the journey less than an hour. Suddenly, living in Cork and commuting to Dublin is on the table and you have opened up a entirely new market of users who are non-existent today.

This is what I was replying too.

Every time I see the discussion of HSR comes up, people pop up with the unrealistic idea that you can commute regularly * via HSR.

* If we had HSR I'm certain business people would pop up to Dublin for the day for meetings and back down the same day from time to time, as people use to do when their were flights between Cork and Dublin. But someone actually living in Cork and working in Dublin every day is simply unrealistic.

Stephen15

To be fair anyone doing a Dublin to Cork commute would proabably have an annual Taxsaver ticket so wouldn't be paying full price. I agree with bk I wouldn't be encouring people to do Dublin to Cork commutes. Cork should be developing at it's own city not as a commuter town for Dublin.

I'm all in for investing in railways not just in Dublin but high speed rail in a small country like Ireland is completely unesscary. I know the distance is suitable but to link two cities with hsr both cities but the two cities neither of which are big enough for it to justify the cost. Building a metro for Dublin and DU which I believe could be done for less as a Metro and serve more places mind you would be better. As well as improving the bus service in Cork and Dublin and building light rail in Cork would be better way of spending money.

Anyway I'm rambling on now so I'll stop but I do believe significant improvements can be made to the Dublin to Cork line by improving line speeds and ultimately electrification of the line however electrication would suit the Belfast line better due to the amount of commuter movements at both ends of the line but it's definetely something that should considered in the long run but not as an immediate priority.

D.L.R.

One major problem with the Cork line is the significant dogleg via Charleville. A more direct route (via Mitchelstown say) would make a big difference.

pigtown

Or run the line via Limerick so that the two smaller cities begin to act as a counterweight to Dublin

bk

Stephen15 wrote: »

To be fair anyone doing a Dublin to Cork commute would proabably have an annual Taxsaver ticket so wouldn't be paying full price. I agree with bk I wouldn't be encouring people to do Dublin to Cork commutes. Cork should be developing at it's own city not as a commuter town for Dublin.

True, though you'd still be talking €2,600 a year if you were earning the top rate of tax! And that is at current ticket prices for the slow train and assuming no price increase for HSR, which would be unrealistic IMO.

Nor would that include the cost of a booked seat (€10 per day, so would actually double the above price per year!!), cost of getting to and from the station and the time to get too and from the station. Even with HSR, you'd be looking realistically at commuting 3 hours a day. A non starter IMO.

Agree completely that we need to be focusing on improving the public transport into and around our cities. People living in Cork should be working in Cork, not half way across the country.

I'm not saying that HSR will never happen, never is a long time. But that it certainly is not a priority in the short or medium term.

Say in maybe 50 years or so, if we have a united Ireland, Belfast is our second city. Dublin, Belfast and Cork metro populations have all doubled (3m, 1m+, 800k), Dublin has 4 or 5 Metros including DU, Cork and Belfast decent tram networks and the M1 jammed, then yes I can see us turning our attention to doing a Cork to Belfast HSR.

But we have a lot of other more important improvements to work on first.

Bray Head

joeysoap wrote: »

Salzburg to Vienna (about 30 kms longer than Belfast to Cork) 295kms

2hrs 32 mins. Frequent trains 1or 2 an hour.

I'm sure this is very nice but 115km/h is not high-speed rail, which is what the thread is about.

joeysoap

Bray Head wrote: »

I'm sure this is very nice but 115km/h is not high-speed rail, which is what the thread is about.

There are six stops on that route. But I take your point. Highlighting that fast reliable trains are not necassarily expensive. Well, in Austria anyway.

There are expensive ICE trains which are faster, choice is yours.

bk

joeysoap wrote: »

There are six stops on that route. But I take your point. Highlighting that fast reliable trains are not necassarily expensive. Well, in Austria anyway.

There are expensive ICE trains which are faster, choice is yours.

Ah, but we were talking about HSR, by which we meant ICE type trains. As you say ICE/HSR are usually more expensive, exactly my point.

What you are talking about so are just slightly faster versions of what we have. I think we all agree that more should be done to get more speed out of our existing rail network and I'd also like to see it being cheaper.

Even our relatively slow trains get nowhere near their max speed for most of the journeys due to speed restrictions, poor track bed, bad curves, stations, etc. Making reasonable improvements to those, along with electrification, should allow for much faster journey times without going for the full expense of HSR/ICE.

Bray Head

It's interesting to note that faster rail connections between Cork/Dublin/Belfast are never really on the wish lists of chambers of commerce in any of these places. I'm sure an hour and a half would be nice, but for now the two hours twenty or so is fine, and there isn't massive latent demand at a faster speed.

I would guess that there are bigger priorities, not least the poor state of rail-based public transport in each of those cities. 

Connectivity to the UK and beyond is also much more important for exporting firms. Witness the hullabaloo in 2007 when Shannon was due to lose its Heathrow connection.

cgcsb

Upgrading existing lines to 200-250 km/h is definitely the way to go. Belfast and Cork should not be more than 2 hours from Dublin. Ideally 1 hour and 1.5 hours respectively with trains operating every half hour should be standard, even now.
Dublin-Galway also needs to be within 1.5 hours of Dublin and at least an hourly service is needed. The rest of the network is mostly ok for what it serves. Sligo should have more passing loops and 160km/h running as standard as should Waterford, that shouldn't be too difficult to achieve with a modest budget by European standards.

cgcsb

Bray Head wrote: »

It's interesting to note that faster rail connections between Cork/Dublin/Belfast are never really on the wish lists of chambers of commerce in any of these places. I'm sure an hour and a half would be nice, but for now the two hours twenty or so is fine, and there isn't massive latent demand at a faster speed.

I would guess that there are bigger priorities, not least the poor state of rail-based public transport in each of those cities. 

Connectivity to the UK and beyond is also much more important for exporting firms. Witness the hullabaloo in 2007 when Shannon was due to lose its Heathrow connection.

Transport within the Cities is obviously a priority. By the middle of the 20s, hopefully, DART, Metro and BusConnects will be well on their way so a scheme to improve intercity lines will probably go ahead.

bk

cgcsb wrote: »

Upgrading existing lines to 200-250 km/h is definitely the way to go. Belfast and Cork should not be more than 2 hours from Dublin. Ideally 1 hour and 1.5 hours respectively with trains operating every half hour should be standard, even now.
Dublin-Galway also needs to be within 1.5 hours of Dublin and at least an hourly service is needed. The rest of the network is mostly ok for what it serves. Sligo should have more passing loops and 160km/h running as standard as should Waterford, that shouldn't be too difficult to achieve with a modest budget by European standards.

cgcsb wrote: »

Transport within the Cities is obviously a priority. By the middle of the 20s, hopefully, DART, Metro and BusConnects will be well on their way so a scheme to improve intercity lines will probably go ahead.

I agree, but we should be clear that this isn't HSR, which is the title of this thread.

HSR, is usually considered to be 250km/h+ (usually starting 300km/h) and usually on completely separate new track alignment and no mixing with other train services. Cork to Belfast with that would cost 10bn.

200km/h Intercity 125 type service or 250km/h Pendolino type services on normal existing track isn't really HSR, more like medium speed rail and thus would be a completely different topic and thread.

I agree that 200km/h would be a much more realistic goal for us. But it would still be very challenging and not cheap.

The problem with Dublin to Belfast is that a 200km/h train would simply run into the back of the DARTs and all the congestion around the northern line. You'd really need to build a tunnel from Heuston to beyond Clontarf at least and quad track the rest. And no I don't mean DART Underground, it would need to be longer then that and again you don't want to be mixing DART's and intercities, that is just repeating the mistakes of the past.

Cork to Dublin is longer, but less issues with tunneling. But a lot of the Cork track is unsuited to higher speeds and would require a lot of work to remove some of the curves and improving trackbed, etc.

I'd agree more doable then HSR, but still not exactly cheap and easy.

Bray Head

cgcsb wrote: »

Upgrading existing lines to 200-250 km/h is definitely the way to go. Belfast and Cork should not be more than 2 hours from Dublin. Ideally 1 hour and 1.5 hours respectively with trains operating every half hour should be standard, even now.
.

Where on earth is demand for 20 trains to and from Belfast going to come from???

cgcsb

250km/hr can be considered 'high speed' but that's all semantics really. Let's call it 'medium speed' for arguments sake. There wouldn't be a need to go much faster than that, especially not if it costs in the billions to get from 250-300km/h, when the 300km/h speed only gets reached for a matter of minutes between major stops. Long term Irish rail should aim to be 'medium speed'.

To solve the issues around commuter and intercity rail mixing I'd have all Belfast trains go on a new track from Drogheda south through the airport and a new tunnel to Heuston, and on to Cork. That way the current Drogheda-Dublin line can be DART only, send all Galway, Waterford, Westport and Kerry trains to terminate at a new Dublin Airport terminus via the same tunnel. Get four tracks into Heuston and then you have Rosslare trains (stop them at Bray as far as I'm concerned, and Sligo trains, stop them at Whitworth Road). You then have a system with almost no track sharing between DART and InterCity. You also have Dublin Airport and Dublin City Centre within 1.5 hours of almost everyone in Ireland.

cgcsb

Bray Head wrote: »

Where on earth is demand for 20 trains to and from Belfast going to come from???

Brexit may end the train entirely, but we're talking from the point of view of an optimistic future. Note the amount of companies offering express services between Dublin and Belfast. There's demand there for a service that can get you there in time approaching what a car can do.

bk

cgcsb wrote: »

To solve the issues around commuter and intercity rail mixing I'd have all Belfast trains go on a new track from Drogheda south through the airport and a new tunnel to Heuston, and on to Cork.

Thing is, if you do all that, it won't be much cheaper then true HSR. With a new fully segregated track for a lot of the way and a very long tunnel. You'd probably talking about the region of 6bn right there.

I mean their is little cost difference in terms of the train between a 200km/h train that runs on existing tracks and a 300km/h ICE train that runs on a dedicated track. It is the need for a completely new alignment and track for ICE/HSR that makes it more expensive, not really the train itself. But with the above your almost doing that half way to Belfast anyway.

It is more realistic then true HSR and I do think it will happen some time in the distant future. But lots of other priorities first and Brexit is a big blocker to all this.

cgcsb

bk wrote: »

Thing is, if you do all that, it won't be much cheaper then true HSR. With a new fully segregated track for a lot of the way and a very long tunnel. You'd probably talking about the region of 6bn right there.

I mean their is little cost difference in terms of the train between a 200km/h train that runs on existing tracks and a 300km/h ICE train that runs on a dedicated track. It is the need for a completely new alignment and track for ICE/HSR that makes it more expensive, not really the train itself. But with the above your almost doing that half way to Belfast anyway.

It is more realistic then true HSR and I do think it will happen some time in the distant future. But lots of other priorities first and Brexit is a big blocker to all this.

The new section could be super fast, super high spec, as it'd be the 'Spine' of almost all intercity rail in Ireland. I doubt a train would reach 350km/hr between Drogheda and Dublin Airport or between Dublin Airport and Heuston. The new route would serve the purpose of relieving the commuter rail network of intercity and giving intercity trains a good bit of speed and top class connectivity. The rest of the Cork and Belfast lines could be retrofit with top speeds of 250km/h or 200km/h in parts.

D.L.R.

Heuston wouldn't be my first choice.

bk

D.L.R. wrote: »

Heuston wouldn't be my first choice.

Where so, a new city center station?

So tunnel starting West of Hueston, city center, then up towards the airport?

I'm starting to think doing this would end up costing north of 10bn anyway. Huston to the Airport is 10km as the bird flies, then another 5km to get under Swords and above ground, so 15km or so.

Look at Crossrail, 21km of tunnel and costing £16bn and it isn't even HSR!

D.L.R.

bk wrote: »

Where so, a new city center station?

So tunnel starting West of Hueston, city center, then up towards the airport?

I'm starting to think doing this would end up costing north of 10bn anyway. Huston to the Airport is 10km as the bird flies, then another 5km to get under Swords and above ground, so 15km or so.

Look at Crossrail, 21km of tunnel and costing £16bn and it isn't even HSR!

The only way to do HS rail in Ireland is to upgrade each mainline in sections. Bypass the Dublin northern line section with some kind of tunnel, serving the airport, and on the NI side, bypassing the Portadown section would be useful, but the terrain is highly challenging through Armagh and Down. Separately, upgrade the Cork line by bypassing the Charleville-Cork section. That would fix a hell of a lot.

A mainline tunnel under Dublin is not realistic imo, and its not really necessary.

bk

D.L.R. wrote: »

The only way to do HS rail in Ireland is to upgrade each mainline in sections. Bypass the Dublin northern line section with some kind of tunnel, serving the airport, and on the NI side, bypassing the Portadown section would be useful, but the terrain is highly challenging through Armagh and Down. Separately, upgrade the Cork line by bypassing the Charleville-Cork section. That would fix a hell of a lot.

A mainline tunnel under Dublin is not realistic imo, and its not really necessary.

Ah, ok.

So a completely new line from Drogheda to Connolly? 55km or so
And a new line Limerick Junction to Cork 70km or Limerick Junction to Mallow 50km.

Plus a bunch of other works and upgrades. Might not be so bad, 200km/h trains, sounds like a 2bn to 4bn project so, might not be so bad and could be done in phases. Perhaps do Drogheda to Connolly like this rather then trying to quad track the northern line.

Interesting idea and seems more reasonable then trying to tunnel under Dublin again. Could Crossrail it then in the very distant future.

EDIT: I see we have a cross edit there. I think tunneling under the airport would only ramp up the cost again and you might as well tunnel over towards Hueston then rather then back to Connolly.

D.L.R.

bk wrote: »

Ah, ok.

So a completely new line from Drogheda to Connolly? 55km or so

Broadly speaking yes. Connolly, or possibly Docklands.

And a new line Limerick Junction to Cork 70km or Limerick Junction to Mallow 50km.

- Limerick Jn to Cork, via Mitchelstown and Fermoy, and plugging into the existing mainline just north of the city.

- Mallow to Cork is definitely worth bypassing if we're talking speed.

Plus a bunch of other works and upgrades. Might not be so bad, 200km/h trains, sounds like a 2bn to 4bn project so, might not be so bad and could be done in phases. Perhaps do Drogheda to Connolly like this rather then trying to quad track the northern line.

Interesting idea and seems more reasonable then trying to tunnel under Dublin again. Could Crossrail it then in the very distant future.

There's a lot we could do with the mainlines to increase speeds as rural Ireland is sparsely populated and there's no major engineering constraints. The main constraint is land and govt ability to acquire the route. And of course political will.

EDIT: I see we have a cross edit there. I think tunneling under the airport would only ramp up the cost again and you might as well tunnel over towards Hueston then rather then back to Connolly.

I think the business case for Connolly is higher. You have the added benefit of "solving" the northern line too, as that would become a purely commuter line.

bk

D.L.R. wrote: »

- Limerick Jn to Cork, via Mitchelstown and Fermoy, and plugging into the existing mainline just north of the city.

- Mallow to Cork is definitely worth bypassing if we're talking speed.

I'd assume you'd run a Cork - Mallow - Limerick Junction commuter for folks in Mallow to get to Dublin. I'd suspect you would face lots of opposition from Mallow.

D.L.R. wrote: »

I think the business case for Connolly is higher. You have the added benefit of "solving" the northern line too, as that would become a purely commuter line.

Going to be very expensive though. Almost an Irish Crossrail. Might be cheaper to bite the bullet and CPO homes for quad tracking the northern line.

marno21

bk wrote: »

I'd assume you'd run a Cork - Mallow - Limerick Junction commuter for folks in Mallow to get to Dublin. I'd suspect you would face lots of opposition from Mallow.

You'd also need connectivity to Mallow for the Kerry line

Bray Head

The economics of this are pure fantasy.

I don't see any Cork-Belfast scheduled flights anymore (correct me if I'm wrong).

The flight from Belfast to Cork that crashed (tragically) in 2011 had a capacity for 16 passengers.

This would suggest demand from this city pair is microscopic.

Even Dublin-Belfast gets only 2,300 passengers (both ways) daily. This despite the fact that it beats the bus on journey duration and comfort.

cgcsb

Bray Head wrote: »

The economics of this are pure fantasy.

I don't see any Cork-Belfast scheduled flights anymore (correct me if I'm wrong).

The flight from Belfast to Cork that crashed (tragically) in 2011 had a capacity for 16 passengers.

This would suggest demand from this city pair is microscopic.

Even Dublin-Belfast gets only 2,300 passengers (both ways) daily. This despite the fact that it beats the bus on journey duration and comfort.

There'd be very few End to End Cork-Belfast trips in the same way that there'll be very few end to end Swords to Sandyford trips on Metrolink, the point is connectivity and facilitating seamless interchange.

Cork-Dublin-Belfast high speed rail wouldn't need to be a profitable venture.

The current Dublin-Belfast service would have much more customers if it was faster, more frequent, and you could get to either end before 9am.

D.L.R.

bk wrote: »

I'd assume you'd run a Cork - Mallow - Limerick Junction commuter for folks in Mallow to get to Dublin. I'd suspect you would face lots of opposition from Mallow.

Mallow would retain links to Cork and LJ along the old line, perhaps some Dublin services too. Plenty of small towns don't even have a railway. You can't make an omlette, etc etc.

Going to be very expensive though. Almost an Irish Crossrail. Might be cheaper to bite the bullet and CPO homes for quad tracking the northern line.

No more expensive than a tunnel to Heuston and beyond. I'd settle for quad tracking for sure, but doubt we'll get even that.