European Mega Train Network (Dublin to Cork)

bk

riddlinrussell wrote: »

If the "Closer ties" aspect is the key focus I don't think you could ask for more that a Big sign saying "PAID FOR WITH EU FUNDS" and a big EU Flag on all our Public Transport Schemes to make the people of Ireland feel the warm fuzzies for the European project

Yep, I would think the same. Big blue signs like that at the entrance to every Metro station in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, etc. would get seen WAY more often daily, by hundreds of thousands of people, compared to just the entrance to two HSR stations and a slow ferry to France.

liamog

Reminds me of the Hawaiian interstat funding, it's a Federal Programme so they couldn't be seen to be denied funding.

Kellyconor1982

The only way that it would be really feasible would be a tunnel from Dublin to Holyhead. This would open up the UK and with the Channel Tunnel it is feasible to get to the continent in decent times to make it attractive. Gigantic costs but with British funding and EU funding, this may go a long way towards making it slightly more reasonable.

I quite like the sound of it, but in reality with the amount wrong with our transport system, it seems like something from another planet.

The mad thing is that a tunnel like this would get more support around the country than big transport projects like DU and multiple Metro lines in Dublin.

Brian CivilEng

I wish that a serious study would be carried out out on the feasibility of a high speed rail connection to the UK and continental Europe. Because while unfeasible, it is not ridiculous, is possible with today's technology and while expensive may come down in price as technology advances. It's something I give a lot of thought to when I need a break from work without letting the analytical part of my brain shut down.

Some of my thoughts, based entirely on operations, not costs. Assuming 160km/h max speed in a tunnel and 260km/h otherwise. Calcs may not be exact, some rounding etc. Thought exercise only.

Cork to Brest Ferry:
in order to compete with flights to Edinburgh/London/Paris/Brussels you need a sub 4hr city centre to city centre travel time. That rules IMHO out the Cork ferry connection for anything other than those who can't or don't want to fly. Not a large enough user base. Maybe if overnight, but you are still talking 600km Brest to Paris even afterwards. Landbridge across the UK is the only option, once British President Leo Blair takes them back into the EU of course.


Tunnel from Northern Ireland to Scotland:
The actual tunnel is feasible and would not break any world records for length or depth. I'm assuming a curved tunnel from Bangor to Portpatrick, approx 40km long (shorter than the Channel Tunnel), with a max depth of 300m below sea level (shallower than Rogfast in Norway).

Bare minimum infrastructure required to get it open (call it Phase 1) would be an above ground standard gauge (1435mm) line from Belfast to the tunnel (around 25km), and a connection from the Scottish side to the existing railway line near Stranraer, about 15km, plus some line upgrade works between Stranraer and Ayr. So with that, you'd could probably do Belfast to Glasgow in three hours, Edinburgh in four.
Phase 2 works are needed in reality. On the Scottish side you'd need a high speed railway from Portpatrick to Carlise (to link in with future HS2 services). Maybe 150km with some tunneling. On the Irish side you'd need a high speed standard guage railway from Belfast to Dublin (around 160km). At this point travel times are getting reasonable assuming average speed of 200km/h and forecasted HS2 journey times. Add another hour assuming a High Speed Railway is constructed from Cork to Dublin.
Belfast (Dublin) to:

• Carlisle: 1 hour 10mins (2hours)
• Glasgow: 2 hour 50mins (3 hour 40mins)
• Edinburgh: 2 hour 40mins (3 hour 30mins)
• Manchester: 2 hour 50mins (3 hour 40mins)
• London: 4 hour 15mins (5 hour 5mins)
  (assuming 60min stopover in London)
• Paris : 7hour 30mins (8hour 20mins)
• Brussels: 7hour 15mins (8hour 5mins)
• Amsterdam: 9hours (9hour 50mins).

Dublin to London by slow ferry and boat takes around 8 hours right now so a good 3 hours would be knocked off this. However I can't help but think that HS2 should knock 30mins off the journey time anyway, and a high speed North Wales line Holyhead to Crewe could easily knock another hour off of this (6hours 30mins total), plus would future proof for a Dublin to Holyhead tunnel.

In summary, Scotland to Northern Ireland is technologically feasible, but would require 150km of new railway in Scotland and 200km in Ireland, would only compete with air for routes to Glasgow/Edinburgh/Manchester, and at a pinch London. Although there would be a lot to be said for a Cork - Dublin - Belfast - Glasgow - Dublin axis economy connected by rail.

Tunnel from Dublin to Holyhead:

I'm assuming a tunnel portal around Baldoyle. On the Welsh side the tunnel would emerge near Holyhead. You are looking at 100km minimum. This is twice as long as the current longest rail tunnels in the world, the Channel Tunnel, Seikan tunnel in Japan and Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland. Depth would be around 120m, so similar to Seikan, but much deeper than the Channel tunnel. Probably not feasible using current technology, or if it is it would be quite expensive. But for this thought experiment lets assume that it is.

Bare minimum infrastructure that you'd need would be a transfer station to the Northern Line near Portmarnock. A more useful do minimum would be a railway line from the portal to Dublin Airport for connections via Metrolink. Then you are looking at 120km from the airport to Holyhead. Travel times 30mins city centre to the airport, 50mins to Holyhead, then the current 3 hours 45mins to London, so lets say 5 hours Dublin to London. Knock 35mins off that for when HS2 opens. Almost competitive with flying. Almost.

Now imagine a high speed railway line from Dublin to Belfast via Dublin Airport, with a delta junction allowing direct Dublin to London or Belfast to London trains. Add on 1 hour for a Cork to Dublin high speed line. Then on the Welsh side assume there is a high speed line from Holyhead to Crewe.

Dublin (Belfast) to:

• Crewe: 1 hour 50mins (2hour30min)
• Glasgow: 4hour 35mins (5hour 15mins)
• Edinburgh: 4hour 35mins (5hour 15mins)
• Manchester: 2 hour 10mins (2 hour 50mins)
• London: 2 hour 45mins (3hour 15mins)
  (assuming 60min stopover in London)
• Paris : 6 hours (6 hour 40mins)
• Brussels: 5 hour 45mins (6 hour 25mins)
• Amsterdam: 7hours 30mins (8 hour 10mins)

Definitely competitive to London. Would struggle against flying for further journeys in my opinion. Travel times to continental Europe are hampered by the Euston to St. Pancras walk.


I haven't really looked at the Rosslare Fishguard tunnel option, so let me come back to you on that one.


Conclusions:
Would these tunnels be used? For freight, definitely. For passengers, last year around 15million pax travelled from Dublin to the UK by air, pretty much all of those would be up for grabs with either tunnel. Assuming around 7.5million using the tunnel per year, or about 20,000 passengers per day. Channel Tunnel gets three times that.

I don't know. Would love to have this studied in detail. For now, back to work.

bk

One thing to keep in mind in these comparisons, is that the flight time from Dublin to London is just 1 hour and 15 minutes, Dublin to Paris 1 hour 40 minutes. When you might say 4 hours, people are adding time to get to the airport, security, etc.

But for this comparison, you have to remember that boarding these sort of HSR trains will require the same sort of security checks, passport, emigration, etc. at the train station, as you'd get at the airport, as you are travelling internationally.

For example for Eurotunnel, you have to check in at least 45 minutes in advance and up to 2 hours before. It is much more like an airport experience then normal train experience. So I'd say add at least an hour to all those above times to make it a fair comparison.

So even in your best case scenarios, it would be in no way be competitive with getting to mainland Europe.

For the UK, I'd also say it wouldn't be competitive going from Dublin via Belfast.

Going to London via Holyhead would make it roughly the same as flying. So maybe sort of ok, though I'd say it would struggle to compete with Dublin to London City Airport that many business travellers do.

So what we are saying, the only way this would work is by going for the insanely expensive option, that requires engineering that we doesn't even exist and not sure is possible. And even then, it might just barely be match flying to London today and pretty useless for getting to mainland Europe.

I'm guessing doing this via Holyhead and with HSR2 on both sides, would be approaching 100 billion

I won't say never, but I can't see it happening in my lifetime. Specially now with Brexit. I don't think the UK cares about Ireland at all, so why would they pay for it? And why would the EU pay for it, as it really just a link for us to the UK, not really mainland Europe.

It would certainly be criminal to spend that sort of money, before we have sorted the urban transit networks in our cities first.

Definitely an interesting thought experiment.

ncounties

Studies have already led EU policymakers to believe that high-speed rail in Europe is generally only competitive over travel distances of between 200 and 500 km, with journeys lasting up to four hours.

Considering this, if a tunnel was built, the longest HSR route that would be seen as viable would be Dublin to London, or Belfast to Birmingham (perhaps London too, ignoring these findings).

Destinations farther afield, to the likes of Paris or Amsterdam, could only be viable as overnight services.

Brian CivilEng

bk wrote: »

One thing to keep in mind in these comparisons, is that the flight time from Dublin to London is just 1 hour and 15 minutes, Dublin to Paris 1 hour 40 minutes. When you might say 4 hours, people are adding time to get to the airport, security, etc.

But for this comparison, you have to remember that boarding these sort of HSR trains will require the same sort of security checks, passport, emigration, etc. at the train station, as you'd get at the airport, as you are travelling internationally.

For example for Eurotunnel, you have to check in at least 45 minutes in advance and up to 2 hours before. It is much more like an airport experience then normal train experience. So I'd say add at least an hour to all those above times to make it a fair comparison.

Well maybe President Leo Blair will let the UK join Schengen. Trains to UK would be no different to domestic ones though surely, with the current CTA in place?

We did Ferry+Train+Eurostar to Disneyland last year. Needed to show a passport and go through security but was way less stressful than flying. Boat to Holyhead was fine, train to London was a bit crowded and 3hrs 45mins was slightly too long for a 3 year old. The Eurostar itself was relaxing after a night's sleep in London. Would definitely recommend it as a reduced stress holiday, but not if time is any way restricted.

bk

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

Well maybe President Leo Blair will let the UK join Schengen. Trains to UK would be no different to domestic ones though surely, with the current CTA in place?

Even if we were all part of Schengen (LOL not happening), given the dangers of an explosive device on a train in an underwater tunnel, you would be certain that security would be similar to an airport, if not higher. That is why it is like that with Eurotunnel. The passport isn't the major issue, checking bags, vehicles, etc. for explosives is.

Specially when you would consider the delicate political nature with Northern Ireland and certain groups history of targeting explosives at trains over decades and even Ferries in the past year.

Brian CivilEng

I love that you didn't bat an eyelid at President Leo Blair of Britain but Schengen, now that's pushing it!

While none of this is likely to happen in our lifetime, I still believe it would be a worthwhile study. Particularly as I would expect other efficiencies to be identified.

gjim

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

I wish that a serious study would be carried out out on the feasibility of a high speed rail connection to the UK and continental Europe. Because while unfeasible, it is not ridiculous

I beg to differ. It's ridiculous because of the cost versus the benefit is so out of whack that it would make getting a national children's hospital for 10B look like a bargain.

I'm not going to pick through everything you've written but to give some idea of the sums of money we're talking about here - the 200km of HSR you're proposing for the Irish side to use a North Channel tunnel could cost over 30B if estimates for HS2 in the UK are accurate and I don't see much reason to think that such infrastructure is going to be any cheaper to build in Ireland than the UK.

That's before you even get to the point of tunnelling under the sea.

The whole thing could easily cost north of 100B and at the end of the day what benefit does it actually provide? At least 10 times as many people will want Dublin-London over all the other pairs of end-points put together (Cork-Edinburgh, Belfast-Carlisle). But for these people, the journey will take longer than flying.

I mean we're talking about spending more than 10 years our capital spending on motorways, schools, hospitals, public transport, etc. to "benefit" at best 10 thousand passengers a day. For comparison the Channel Tunnel carries about 50k passengers a day.

Brian CivilEng

gjim wrote: »

I beg to differ. It's ridiculous because of the cost versus the benefit is so out of whack that it would make getting a national children's hospital for 10B look like a bargain.

Just to point out one thing I mentioned in my post above was that I wasn't going to talk about costs, it was a thought experiment about what could be achieved if it was there. What I called for was a proper feasibility study, not for it to be built!

There is value in working through these things, as in doing this you will encounter and solve problems that are relevant to today.

bk

I do think it is an interesting thought experiment, so lets look at the numbers you gave. First some assumptions.

- Lets exclude travel time to Dublin Airport, since you are suggesting putting the HSR train stations for this near there. A very good idea BTW, tie in with Metrolink, Northern Line and all the intercity bus services at the airport. Makes a lot of sense from that perspective, though I don't know about suitability of that area for the start of a tunnel, etc.

- Lets say you need to be at both 1 hour before departure for security. DAA says 90 minutes, but that is only because they want you to shop at Duty Free. Any frequent flyer knows that 1 hour before is plenty of time (pre-Covid19 obviously). Hell an hour before and in my experience you'll have a good 20 minutes sitting at the gate.

- Lets only look at the best case scenario in terms of journey speed. Dublin via Holyhead using HSR2 all the way.

Dublin to Paris:
HSR: Security 1h + Journey 6 hours = 7 hours
Flying: Security 1h + Flight 1 hour 50 minutes + train to Paris 50 minutes = 3h 40 mins

Yeah, not a starter at all. And I'd take the above just a proxy for mainland Europe, going anywhere else in Europe is going to be much worse then that.

Dublin to London Train:
HSR: Security 1h + Journey 2h 45mins = 3h 45min

Dublin to London City Airport:
Flight: Security 1h + Journey 1h 30min = 2h 30 mins

No business traveller is going to take the train. Specially when you consider that LCY drops you within almost walking distance of where most business travellers are going.

Dublin to Heathrow:
Flight: Security 1h + Journey 1h 30min + Heathrow Express 15 minutes = 2h 45 mins

So I'd say not competitive at all for mainland Europe and barely for London.

Certainly not worth at probably 100 billion price tag. I suppose you could make an environmental argument. But I think that would be poor, think what you could do with that money. You could literally replace every single car in Ireland with a brand new Electric car and have enough left over for 12 Metro lines!!!

ncounties

It would be worth looking at a comparable distance project. The Dublin - Holyhead tunnel is to us, what a Helsinki - Tallinn tunnel is to Finland and Estonia. The Finn's expected such a project to cost €20b back in 2018, and China's Touchstone Capital has offered to fund up to €15b of this.

Whilst I would be uncomfortable of our nation to be heavily [further] indebted to the Chinese, this is still a point worthy of note, as it shows there are plenty of funding options out there for a project of this scale.

Edit - I personally always thought the current docks would be the ideal terminus for our international HSR services.

Brian CivilEng

ncounties wrote: »

It would be worth looking at a comparable distance project. The Dublin - Holyhead tunnel is to us, what a Helsinki - Tallinn tunnel is to Finland and Estonia. The Finn's expected such a project to cost €20b back in 2018, and China's Touchstone Capital has offered to fund up to €15b of this.

Unfortunately Dublin to Holyhead would need to be at least 100km in tunnel. Helsinki to Talinn is about 50km, which is about where the industry is at the moment.

Brian CivilEng

My sums are all over the gaff here, just deleted them to save face. Here's the gist of my argument, it's too late.

bk wrote: »

Certainly not worth at probably 100 billion price tag. I suppose you could make an environmental argument. But I think that would be poor, think what you could do with that money. You could literally replace every single car in Ireland with a brand new Electric car and have enough left over for 12 Metro lines!!!

Again, can we please keep price out of this! And opportunity costs. I don't mean to sound rude, it's just that what I'd like to discuss based on the valid points you made above would be what problems would we need to solve to make it viable rather than why it's impossible, that's kind of the thought experiment I'm going for.

Working backwards, what travel time would be required to make the rail viable to different destinations?

Dublin to London is 500km via my route to Crewe and then HS2 to London (I define arriving in London as having my first pint at the Euston Tap). I'd say there are more time costs to flying, like walking from pier to terminal, waiting for baggage, waiting for train to city etc, but personally I've never made it door to door in less than 4 hours by plane. It takes me 20mins to get to the airport by taxi, so lets call it 3 hours 40mins Dublin airport to Euston Tap. Which is pretty darn close to what I had worked out.

London to Paris is around 450km by Eurostar, so call Dublin to Paris 950km. I'd question your 3 hours 40, can we call it 4hours, Dublin airport to Gare du Nord? So now we need a 3 hour travel time Dublin to Paris (180mins). Which would require an average speed of 320km/h (feasibile), plus a connection between HS2 and HS1 (unlikely, but if the UK joined Schengen it would be desirable).

Eurostar has a top speed of 320km/h outside of the Channel tunnel, and HS2 is being designed to a 400km/h design speed (not running speed). I tried to work out what speed we'd need and got too bogged down, but suffices to say, it would be faster than what technology exits.

So to get a competitive Dublin to Paris train journey you'd need:

• Tunnel Dublin to Holyhead
• North Wales High Speed Railway
• HS2 to HS1 through running connection
• An express train, only stopping in London.
• Trains that could run faster than the design speed of the track.
• Accepting a slightly longer journey as a trade off for the comfort of a train

bk

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

My sums are all over the gaff here, just deleted them to save face. Here's the gist of my argument, it's too late.

That is a pity, there was no need to do that. Your numbers were pretty spot on, though maybe a bit over optimistic (see below), mostly you just needed to be realistic about security and passport control and add 1 hour to each.

In the end, the numbers are what they are, I think they very clearly showed that Belfast is completely mad and that even via Holyhead it would be a hard sell.

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

Again, can we please keep price out of this! And opportunity costs. I don't mean to sound rude, it's just that what I'd like to discuss based on the valid points you made above would be what problems would we need to solve to make it viable rather than why it's impossible, that's kind of the thought experiment I'm going for.

I appreciate that, but I don't think that is a realistic to ask. In the end most major capital projects are decided on the cost. Afterall if this project cost just 1 billion, then I'd say go for it, even if slower then flying, just based on the environmental benefits and more options. But at 100 billion....

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

Working backwards, what travel time would be required to make the rail viable to different destinations?

Realistically it would need to beat a business person flying from Dublin to London City Airport. That just isn't happening. At best it would be competitive with Heathrow.

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

Dublin to London is 500km via my route to Crewe and then HS2 to London (I define arriving in London as having my first pint at the Euston Tap). I'd say there are more time costs to flying, like walking from pier to terminal, waiting for baggage, waiting for train to city etc, but personally I've never made it door to door in less than 4 hours by plane. It takes me 20mins to get to the airport by taxi, so lets call it 3 hours 40mins Dublin airport to Euston Tap. Which is pretty darn close to what I had worked out.

Well hold on there now, lets use real numbers!

Why are you adding 20 minutes for taxi ride to Dublin airport. I thought you were putting the HSR station out by the airport. Won't you need to make the same taxi ride to there?!

And Dublin to London via Holyhead is 582km best case scenario.

London to Paris is 450km and takes 2 hours and 23 minutes.

That means at the same average speed it would take 3 hours for Dublin to London.

I actually think it would take longer, as the train can only go 160km/h in the tunnel, and with an Irish tunnel twice as long, it would probably be another 20 minutes. But lets be overly optimistic and say 3 hours.

And of course that is non stop to London, no stops along the way, perhaps unrealistic.

Now add 1 hour for security/emigration control and you are at 4 hours.

By comparison, Dublin to London City Airport is 1hour security + 1h 30 minutes flight and puts you in the heart of Londons business district.

That is 2h 30 minutes at the moment, versus 4 hours by train! Even if you want to round the flying up to 3 hours, it still isn't really competitive.

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

London to Paris is around 450km by Eurostar, so call Dublin to Paris 950km. I'd question your 3 hours 40, can we call it 4hours, Dublin airport to Gare du Nord? So now we need a 3 hour travel time Dublin to Paris (180mins). Which would require an average speed of 320km/h (feasibile), plus a connection between HS2 and HS1 (unlikely, but if the UK joined Schengen it would be desirable).

Huh, so we have 3 hours from Dublin to London, 2h 20 mins London to Paris, 1 hour security at Dublin and this is all assuming you don't stop in London to change trains or have to do passport and security there.

So you are looking at 6 hours 20 mins best case scenario, but maybe 7 hours 20 mins (changing trains in London).

So 4 hours flying versus best case scenario of 6 hour 20 minutes. Still well over 2 hours slower.

bk

ncounties wrote: »

It would be worth looking at a comparable distance project. The Dublin - Holyhead tunnel is to us, what a Helsinki - Tallinn tunnel is to Finland and Estonia. The Finn's expected such a project to cost €20b back in 2018, and China's Touchstone Capital has offered to fund up to €15b of this.

Better comparison would be the Channel Tunnel.

Adjusted for inflation, it cost £18 Billion, about €20 Billion. But it is only 50 km, we would need 100km so that is over €40 Billion. But it is much more difficult project, being much longer, I'd say it would really be 50Bn, if not more.

Then you need about 150km of need HS2 track across Wales. At the per km cost for HS2, that is about €13 Bn.

And of course you will want a Dublin to Belfast HS2, otherwise why would the British agree. That would cost about €15 Bn

So conservatively Belfast - Dublin - London would be about €70 - €80 Billion. In reality I'd say it could easily hit the 100 Billion mark.

Brian CivilEng

bk wrote: »

That is a pity, there was no need to do that. Your numbers were pretty spot on, though maybe a bit over optimistic (see below), mostly you just needed to be realistic about security and passport control and add 1 hour to each.

I subtracted 56mins from three hours and got 184mins. Luckily nobody spotted it. I don't hide my identity on here and I'm supposed to be a chartered engineer.

bk wrote: »

In the end, the numbers are what they are, I think they very clearly showed that Belfast is completely mad and that even via Holyhead it would be a hard sell.

Which is why I think this is a good exercise. NI to Scotland tunnel is feasible with current tech, but a simple numbers game shows that it would have limited use outside of a fast connection to Scotland.

bk wrote: »

In the end most major capital projects are decided on the cost. Afterall if this project cost just 1 billion, then I'd say go for it, even if slower then flying, just based on the environmental benefits and more options. But at 100 billion....

However for a thread on boards, quoting that cost would make it completely unrealistic just kills the conversation, and I'm left sitting here thinking that I would have enjoyed another four hours trying to shave off 2mins with by-passing Conwy before ruling the whole thing out.

bk wrote: »

Well hold on there now, lets use real numbers!

Why are you adding 20 minutes for taxi ride to Dublin airport. I thought you were putting the HSR station out by the airport. Won't you need to make the same taxi ride to there?!

I probably phrased that badly, I was trying to use real numbers. I disagreed with your London Heathrow travel time as optimistic, but in the past I have made it from the Euston Tap to home in just over four hours. So I said since it was 20mins taxi to my house, we'd set a target travel time of Dublin Airport to London of 3 hours 40mins.

bk wrote: »

And Dublin to London via Holyhead is 582km best case scenario.

My notional Dublin Airport to Tunnel to Crewe alignment came to 260km by what was a likely routing not a straight line (accepting I'm not a permanent way engineer). HS2 Phases 1 and 2a is 240km. Hence my 500km. Checking my numbers, the HS2 figure is just to Old Oak Common, add another 8km for Euston. And if we are being fair then, another 9km for Dublin Airport to town. 520km.

bk wrote: »

And of course that is non stop to London, no stops along the way, perhaps unrealistic.

HS2 stations would be Crewe (which will have an express by-pass), Birmingham Interchange, Old Oak Common and London. Would a Dublin - Crewe - Brum - OOC - London service be max 15mins longer than a non stop service? Allow a 2min dwell time and 3mins lost to acceleration/deceleration per stop.


I think your numbers proved that it probably wouldn't be first choice for business travelers (although there is an argument that train time is not lost time as it is easier to work but we'll ignore that for now). Would there be enough usage without business travelers? The comparison with the Channel Tunnel is one I'd like to discuss further. It gets 20million pax per annum (split about 50% eurostar, 50% car shuttle, I'm ignoring freight for now). Could those numbers be sustained with a link from Ireland?

I think I said earlier that there was 15million passengers from Dublin to the UK in 2019, I meant to say from Rep. Ireland to the UK (showing my hometown bias here). So the question is how much of that market could be captured by high speed rail? I know I read a paper on this before, I'll see if I can root it out again.

bk

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

I think your numbers proved that it probably wouldn't be first choice for business travelers (although there is an argument that train time is not lost time as it is easier to work but we'll ignore that for now). Would there be enough usage without business travelers? The comparison with the Channel Tunnel is one I'd like to discuss further. It gets 20million pax per annum (split about 50% eurostar, 50% car shuttle, I'm ignoring freight for now). Could those numbers be sustained with a link from Ireland?

I think I said earlier that there was 15million passengers from Dublin to the UK in 2019, I meant to say from Rep. Ireland to the UK (showing my hometown bias here). So the question is how much of that market could be captured by high speed rail? I know I read a paper on this before, I'll see if I can root it out again.

The Dublin to London Air route has 4.7 million passengers per year or just over 13,000 passengers per day.

Though I'd be shocked if you could even capture half that, for the following reasons:

- Lots of folks are heading to Heathrow, to transfer onto other flights to US, middle east, etc. Major hub airport.
- Business Travellers probably better off heading straight to LCY
- People not actually heading to London City, but somewhere on the outskirts.
- Cheaper flights, Ryanair is going to go all out competing with this.

I'd be surprised if it hit 6,000 per day.

On the other hand, you would might gain passengers from ferry services, in particular cars.

I'd be surprised if it could hit 5 million people per year (13,600 per day).

I think missing out on business travellers would be a major concern. Premium class tickets can really help make or break services like this.

Nermal

It's concievable that at some point there will be no flights for an extended period (Eyjafjallajökull-type event) and that flights may become prohibitively expensive (environment-related taxation).

Is that not an argument in favour of building the NI tunnel that we know can be built, even though we know it will not give a positive return in normal conditions? Redundancy and anti-fragility are important.

bk

Nermal wrote: »

It's concievable that at some point there will be no flights for an extended period (Eyjafjallajökull-type event) and that flights may become prohibitively expensive (environment-related taxation).

Is that not an argument in favour of building the NI tunnel that we know can be built, even though we know it will not give a positive return in normal conditions? Redundancy and anti-fragility are important.

It is possible of course, but it would be a disaster for us.

Such a tunnel would do nothing for flights to the US, middle east and would be silly slow for getting most places in mainland Europe. So we wouldn't want to wish for that.

loyatemu

Nermal wrote: »

Is that not an argument in favour of building the NI tunnel that we know can be built,

do we know that? Northern channel is very deep and full of munitions. I've seen talk of a combined bridge/tunnel but it's still a pretty bonkers ambitious idea.

Brian CivilEng

loyatemu wrote: »

do we know that? Northern channel is very deep and full of munitions. I've seen talk of a combined bridge/tunnel but it's still a pretty bonkers ambitious idea.

There are routings that make it possible to avoid the munitions dump, and wouldn't be any longer or deeper than tunnels which already exist. Although at >300m below sea level it would not be simple.

loyatemu

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

There are routings that make it possible to avoid the munitions dump, and wouldn't be any longer or deeper than tunnels which already exist. Although at >300m below sea level it would not be simple.

would the shortness of the crossing and the depth involved cause gradient issues?

River Suir

If the journey by rail from Cork to Dublin can be got down to sub 2 hours using the existing infrastructure and the journey from Dublin to Belfast can be got down to say, just over the hour, again using the existing infrastructure that in itself would be a massive benefit.

Now add a new direct rail link from the Heuston to Connolly lines and reroute the Dublin Belfast line via Dublin Airport you now have a good quality fairly high speed rail link without spending crazy money.

ncounties

HS2 stations would be Crewe (which will have an express by-pass), Birmingham Interchange, Old Oak Common and London. Would a Dublin - Crewe - Brum - OOC - London service be max 15mins longer than a non stop service? Allow a 2min dwell time and 3mins lost to acceleration/deceleration per stop.

I don't think any HS service ex. Ireland would warrant a stop at Crewe. The only benefit I could see it offering is the ability to change for services to Liverpool or Manchester, but there'd be dedicated services for these cities anyway.

Additionally, Birmingham's Curzon Street Station is a Terminus, approached from the South East. If it were to be a stop on a service to London, it would affect the duration by a lot more than 5 mins.

These HS services could only function as dedicated services, calling at one station only in the UK, their destination.

Brian CivilEng

loyatemu wrote: »

would the shortness of the crossing and the depth involved cause gradient issues?

High Speed Rail can have a 2.5% - 4% gradient. Assuming 2.5% that would mean around 12km to get to full depth. But it wouldn't be full depth exactly at the coast.

I allowed for 4km each side to account for the gradient, just because a 100m fall seemed a nice round number.

bk

One thing for folks to keep in mind when thinking about a project like this, is how truly difficult it would be, it would be one of the most difficult engineering projects ever!

We say the channel tunnel is 50km, but actually the undersea section is only 38km long and the seabed only 60 meters deep.

The Japanese Seikan tunnel is only 23km long underwater, though it is deeper, seabed depth 140 meters.

By comparison Dublin to Holyhead is actually 100km long undersea, with a seabed depth of 120 meters.

It would be a monumental engineering challenge and not even sure if currently possible. It would be over twice as long as the longest undersea tunnel ever built!

No TBM has ever travelled that long. Looking at the Helsinki to Tallinn project, it is proposed to be 50km long undersea, making it the longest ever. But there are also proposing building two new artificial islands for safety and engineering reasons. The TBM's will actually only do 25km.

So it is questionable if we could even find a TBM that could tunnel 100km and/or if it would require building four artificial islands like the Finnish project and would that even be possible given the depths.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we will never have the technology to do this or that it won't ever happen. But I wouldn't expect it in my lifetime. Don't underestimate what a massive project it would be.

Kellyconor1982

bk wrote: »

One thing for folks to keep in mind when thinking about a project like this, is how truly difficult it would be, it would be one of the most difficult engineering projects ever!

We say the channel tunnel is 50km, but actually the undersea section is only 38km long and the seabed only 60 meters deep.

The Japanese Seikan tunnel is only 23km long underwater, though it is deeper, seabed depth 140 meters.

By comparison Dublin to Holyhead is actually 100km long undersea, with a seabed depth of 120 meters.

It would be a monumental engineering challenge and not even sure if currently possible. It would be over twice as long as the longest undersea tunnel ever built!

No TBM has ever travelled that long. Looking at the Helsinki to Tallinn project, it is proposed to be 50km long undersea, making it the longest ever. But there are also proposing building two new artificial islands for safety and engineering reasons. The TBM's will actually only do 25km.

So it is questionable if we could even find a TBM that could tunnel 100km and/or if it would require building four artificial islands like the Finnish project and would that even be possible given the depths.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we will never have the technology to do this or that it won't ever happen. But I wouldn't expect it in my lifetime. Don't underestimate what a massive project it would be.

I think this is one of those projects that aren't really feasible until at least mid century. It's definitely an interesting one though and it would be great to see rail links between Ireland and Uk/mainland Europe even if I'll be a very old man if it ever happens.

marno21

Another hurdle (not as big as the Irish Sea hurdle) would be high speed rail across North Wales. Anyone who has driven the A55 from the Britannia Bridge as far as Colwyn Bay has seen the challenging terrain around there, and there isn't a whole pile of space for a high speed rail alignment between settlements and the mountains. Look how crammed in the A55 is just east of Conwy running on spare railway alignment past Colwyn Bay and has a 50mph limit to keep the noise down.

In saying that, a route via the North Wales onto Cheshire would be far more useful than a route through central Wales given the travel demand to Liverpool/Manchester/Leeds and beyond.