Controversial Irish Rail extensions

DoctorPan

ohographite wrote: »

2. A brand new line from Hazelhatch to Maynooth,

Considering the new Dart depot is being put on the Maynooth line, I can see it being built to prevent stupid amounts of mileage for ECS from Hazelhatch.

Pete_Cavan

DoctorPan wrote: »

Considering the new Dart depot is being put on the Maynooth line, I can see it being built to prevent stupid amounts of mileage for ECS from Hazelhatch.

Surely some stabling will be provided at HH so trains can overnight there for the first services of the day?

sweet_trip

In a galaxy far far away.



Regular commuter trains From Cahir to Waterford.
Regular commuter trains from Wexford to Waterford.
Regular commuter trains from Kilkenny to Waterford
Regular commuter trains from New Ross to Waterford
Regular commuter trains from Tramore/Dungarvan to Waterford.
Trains from Waterford to Limerick City and none of this Limerick Junction shíte.
Trains from Waterford that match up with the Rosslare Ferry.
Express/direct trains from Waterford to Dublin.
Double track Waterford to Dublin, or at least insert more loops.

Plunkett station on the North quays with a sheltered pedestrian bridge to Red square. Regular busses from said station into the city.



Honestly it's so sad that the infrastructure is/was there to have an amazing train service serving the South East. Considering how mad busy the roads are in the morning with traffic compromising of workers and students it COULD be such a heavily utilised system if we were like The Netherlands or Japan etc.



This is total day dream pie in the sky shíte though.

L1011

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Surely some stabling will be provided at HH so trains can overnight there for the first services of the day?

Outstationing ends up needing quite a lot of facilities for toilet tank offloading and cleaning

ohographite

DoctorPan wrote: »

Considering the new Dart depot is being put on the Maynooth line, I can see it being built to prevent stupid amounts of mileage for ECS from Hazelhatch.

What is ECS?

Del.Monte

ohographite wrote: »

What is ECS?

Empty stock workings.

DoctorPan

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Surely some stabling will be provided at HH so trains can overnight there for the first services of the day?

No mention for the provision of staff support, cleaning or toliet empting facilites within the Kildare line tender.

From the tenders, the infrastructure break down seems to be depot in Maynooth and Drogheda, stabling points in Greystones and Drogheda off the top of my head.

Lord Glentoran

sweet_trip wrote: »

In a galaxy far far away.



Regular commuter trains From Cahir to Waterford.
Regular commuter trains from Wexford to Waterford.
Regular commuter trains from Kilkenny to Waterford
Regular commuter trains from New Ross to Waterford
Regular commuter trains from Tramore/Dungarvan to Waterford.
Trains from Waterford to Limerick City and none of this Limerick Junction shíte.
Trains from Waterford that match up with the Rosslare Ferry.
Express/direct trains from Waterford to Dublin.
Double track Waterford to Dublin, or at least insert more loops.

Plunkett station on the North quays with a sheltered pedestrian bridge to Red square. Regular buses from said station into the city.



Honestly it's so sad that the infrastructure is/was there to have an amazing train service serving the South East. Considering how mad busy the roads are in the morning with traffic compromising of workers and students it COULD be such a heavily utilised system if we were like The Netherlands or Japan etc.



This is total day dream pie in the sky shíte though.

All achievable without spending immense sums but pie in the sky in the Irish context. Rail infrastructure is expendable in this country. The perverse thing is that when the population expands it will all be needed.

cgcsb

sweet_trip wrote: »

In a galaxy far far away.



Regular commuter trains From Cahir to Waterford.
Regular commuter trains from Wexford to Waterford.
Regular commuter trains from Kilkenny to Waterford
Regular commuter trains from New Ross to Waterford
Regular commuter trains from Tramore/Dungarvan to Waterford.
Trains from Waterford to Limerick City and none of this Limerick Junction shíte.
Trains from Waterford that match up with the Rosslare Ferry.
Express/direct trains from Waterford to Dublin.
Double track Waterford to Dublin, or at least insert more loops.

Plunkett station on the North quays with a sheltered pedestrian bridge to Red square. Regular busses from said station into the city.



Honestly it's so sad that the infrastructure is/was there to have an amazing train service serving the South East. Considering how mad busy the roads are in the morning with traffic compromising of workers and students it COULD be such a heavily utilised system if we were like The Netherlands or Japan etc.



This is total day dream pie in the sky shíte though.

I don't see serious demand for such extensive commuter services to Waterford. The reason Dublin has that amount of commuter services is because of the cost of housing in Dublin, forcing long distance commutes. You can buy a small house or an apartment in Waterford city centre for the cost of the deposit on similar in Dublin. Property in Wexford or Cahir isn't much cheaper than in Waterford to buy or rent. I don't think it's a good thing for that to happen either. Waterford should develop as a more densely populated city with lots of housing in and around the centre without a need for epic commutes.

Pete_Cavan

L1011 wrote: »

Outstationing ends up needing quite a lot of facilities for toilet tank offloading and cleaning

Has it been confirmed that stock will be operating the DART service to HH will have toilets?

In this case, surely the operational benefits of providing such facilities on a small scale would outweigh the costs? There would be so much dead running between HH and Maynooth and the cost of a direct link would be significant.

DoctorPan wrote: »

No mention for the provision of staff support, cleaning or toliet empting facilites within the Kildare line tender.

From the tenders, the infrastructure break down seems to be depot in Maynooth and Drogheda, stabling points in Greystones and Drogheda off the top of my head.

Noted. Hopefully providing these on a smaller scale wasn't seen as necessary to mention in the project description. It could of course be added to the scope later if necessary.

DoctorPan

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Has it been confirmed that stock will be operating the DART service to HH will have toilets?

Yes, Peter Smythe mentioned this during a talk given to Enginers Ireland that with the expected lenght of runs, they would have to give toliets.

Noted. Hopefully providing these on a smaller scale wasn't seen as necessary to mention in the project description. It could of course be added to the scope later if necessary.

They would have to be included in the actual tender, which they weren't. Of course they could be added but would cost extra as it being a scope increase.

bennyineire

sweet_trip wrote: »

In a galaxy far far away.



Regular commuter trains From Cahir to Waterford.
Regular commuter trains from Wexford to Waterford.
Regular commuter trains from Kilkenny to Waterford
Regular commuter trains from New Ross to Waterford
Regular commuter trains from Tramore/Dungarvan to Waterford.
Trains from Waterford to Limerick City and none of this Limerick Junction shíte.
Trains from Waterford that match up with the Rosslare Ferry.
Express/direct trains from Waterford to Dublin.
Double track Waterford to Dublin, or at least insert more loops.

Plunkett station on the North quays with a sheltered pedestrian bridge to Red square. Regular busses from said station into the city.



Honestly it's so sad that the infrastructure is/was there to have an amazing train service serving the South East. Considering how mad busy the roads are in the morning with traffic compromising of workers and students it COULD be such a heavily utilised system if we were like The Netherlands or Japan etc.



This is total day dream pie in the sky shíte though.

I take it you're from Waterford then

sweet_trip

cgcsb wrote: »

I don't see serious demand for such extensive commuter services to Waterford. The reason Dublin has that amount of commuter services is because of the cost of housing in Dublin, forcing long distance commutes. You can buy a small house or an apartment in Waterford city centre for the cost of the deposit on similar in Dublin. Property in Wexford or Cahir isn't much cheaper than in Waterford to buy or rent. I don't think it's a good thing for that to happen either. Waterford should develop as a more densely populated city with lots of housing in and around the centre without a need for epic commutes.

When I say Regular, it only has to mean maybe 2 or 3 trains each way in the morning, afternoon and evening to cater for commuters.

If you knew the southeast you'd know that all of these roads are heavily commuted every morning and all of the towns mentioned become totally clogged at rush hour.



You have traffic jams every morning coming into and out of waterford and it can take 45 minutes to travel a few kilometers from Newrath Dual carriageway to WIT or UHW.
It's a total headwreck for people.

Most people are commuting upwards of 1 hour from Clonmel, Wexford, Kilkenny, Carlow, and Dungarvan into the City and vice versa. Even longer if you're one of the unlucky ones commuting from further afield like Tipp Town.

City traffic jams aside, the roads Leading from Tipperary are extremely dangerous and full of traffic. It's very similar to the old Waterford to Dublin road. Very few places to safely overtake and lines of trucks for miles.

From South Wexford most have to rely on the Ferry which is an essential link but it's so slow, expensive and the roads arent suitable anymore.

The bus service between these towns are subpar and essentially non existant for all the smaller towns and villages in between. It's really eroded in past decade too.

The South East is badly neglected in terms of public transport despite all the infrastructure originally being there.

You don't need the frequency of the DART but a handful of properly planned commuter trains every morning would do the world of good and people would actually use them.

I'd even be in favour of having a lot of the smaller villages having stops too, like Kilsheelan, Fiddown/Piltown, Mooncoin, and same for the other directison, Kilmacthomas, Tramore, Mullinavat, Wellingtonbridge, etc.

Of course this would have to involve major upgrades, because as it stands the Limerick Junction line is in ruins, and will more than likely never re-open. The Rosslare/Wexford line is dead.

The Kilkenny line is the best but even still speeds of the trains aren't ideal either.

bennyineire wrote: »

I take it you're from Waterford then

I don't actually live in Waterford, but I do a lot of driving all over the south east for work. All 5 counties so I see the potential for good commuter train services serving the workers and students of the South East.
Of course I only mention these lines because it's where I'm from.
I don't know a thing about rail network in the rest of the country because I've never even used a train to go to the west, or south of the county. So not my place to comment.

Pete_Cavan

DoctorPan wrote: »

They would have to be included in the actual tender, which they weren't. Of course they could be added but would cost extra as it being a scope increase.

The extra cost for such a scope increase on the consultancy contract would be negligible. The additional cost for constructing the necessary facilities would be small in terms of the overall DART Expansion project.

How is it envisaged a DART terminating at HH get to a depot at Maynooth? Turn back, go through PPT to Drumcondra, driver go to other end and drive to Maynooth? Seems like lot of hassle for every HH line DART to do twice a day.

River Suir

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

The extra cost for such a scope increase on the consultancy contract would be negligible. The additional cost for constructing the necessary facilities would be small in terms of the overall DART Expansion project.

How is it envisaged a DART terminating at HH get to a depot at Maynooth? Turn back, go through PPT to Drumcondra, driver go to other end and drive to Maynooth? Seems like lot of hassle for every HH line DART to do twice a day.

It's not a huge distance between Maynooth and Hazelhatch as the crow flies. A link between the two stations would be beneficial.

IE 222

Do toilets need to be emptied daily?? Either way sets can be rotated in service on a day by day basis much like the ICR's.

Pete_Cavan

River Suir wrote: »

It's not a huge distance between Maynooth and Hazelhatch as the crow flies. A link between the two stations would be beneficial.

But be a hell of a lot more expensive and take a hell of a lot longer to create than putting in stabling facilities at HH.

sweet_trip

Arent toilets emptied daily onto the tracks as the train moves or is that a thing of the past now?

Grew up along the Rosslare line and remember many big shítes on the track :pac:

end of the road

sweet_trip wrote: »

Arent toilets emptied daily onto the tracks as the train moves or is that a thing of the past now?

Grew up along the Rosslare line and remember many big shítes on the track :pac:

emptying on to the tracks is no more now.
trains have toilet tanks now which are emptied at the depots.

ohographite

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

But be a hell of a lot more expensive and take a hell of a lot longer to create than putting in stabling facilities at HH.

I'm not denying that, but there are more advantages to this potential line than not having to put stabling facilities in Hazelhatch.
I list three advantages below:

1. The line I suggest would run along the western edge of Celbridge, so a station can be built around there.
After the DART is extended to Hazelhatch, it can be extended from there to Maynooth via this line.
This would give Celbridge a DART station conveniently closer to the centre of the town than Hazelhatch is.

2. This line could also stop Dublin-Sligo journey times from rising (due to DART expansion on the current Maynooth line), if Sligo trains ran to Connolly via this line, through Hazelhatch and Clondalkin, and then through the phoenix park tunnel.

3. Finally, if all the DART trains planned to run to Hazelhatch continued to Maynooth, that would connect two DART routes together, and allow people to travel by train from Clondalkin to Leixlip, or from Celbridge to Clonsilla, to give two examples.

Pete_Cavan

ohographite wrote: »

I'm not denying that, but there are more advantages to this potential line than not having to put stabling facilities in Hazelhatch.
I list three advantages below:

1. The line I suggest would run along the western edge of Celbridge, so a station can be built around there.
After the DART is extended to Hazelhatch, it can be extended from there to Maynooth via this line.
This would give Celbridge a DART station conveniently closer to the centre of the town than Hazelhatch is.

2. This line could also stop Dublin-Sligo journey times from rising (due to DART expansion on the current Maynooth line), if Sligo trains ran to Connolly via this line, through Hazelhatch and Clondalkin, and then through the phoenix park tunnel.

3. Finally, if all the DART trains planned to run to Hazelhatch continued to Maynooth, that would connect two DART routes together, and allow people to travel by train from Clondalkin to Leixlip, or from Celbridge to Clonsilla, to give two examples.

All that is great in the context of an open-ended thread about rail lines without any other constraints but in the real world, stabling facilities at HH makes a lot of sense and could pay for itself before a new line to Maynooth opens (which certainly won't be this decade).

L1011

sweet_trip wrote: »

Arent toilets emptied daily onto the tracks as the train moves or is that a thing of the past now?

Grew up along the Rosslare line and remember many big shs on the track :pac:

Long gone. All Irish trains have had retention tanks for years now

sweet_trip

L1011 wrote: »

Long gone. All Irish trains have had retention tanks for years now

Only since they got the new intercity trains though, right?

L1011

sweet_trip wrote: »

Only since they got the new intercity trains though, right?

Yes. The mk2s didnt, can't remember the Mk3s as I rarely used them but most UK ones didn't.

IE 222

A line branching from Hazelhatch to Mullingar serving Straffon, Clane, Prosperous, Allenwood, Edenderry and Kinnegad.

GT89

L1011 wrote: »

Long gone. All Irish trains have had retention tanks for years now

The Irish and UK trains had tanks that were emptied onto the tracks but on the older trains on the continent the sh1t and piss just goes directly onto the tracks without any tanks. You can see the tracks from the toilet bowl.

Del.Monte

Thanks ^^^^ TMI and incorrect at that.

SeanW

For me, a wild idea would be to build a new tunnel (after Dart U. is done) from Bray to the City Centre and on to Maynooth (the latter could have some new surface track or 4 track). This would allow dual mode long distance trains from Sligo, Longford, Wicklow and Wexford to go into/leave the city much faster than sharing the Maynooth line and the DSE from Pearse to Bray.

New underground stations would be built to tie in with the surface stations in Maynooth, somewhere in the city centre and Bray to allow for interchanges with local services.

Implement electrification of Cork regional rail services to Mallow, Cobh and Midleton. Extend the Midleton line (electrified) to Youghal.

Reopen Athlone to Mullingar, in conjunction with new tunnel above, this would allow Galway and Mayo direct access to NUI Maynooth and the City Centre.

New line from M3 Parkway to Navan, double-track electrified DART, then a feasibility study into building a regional line to Kells, Cavan etc.

kiliandrury

Where do I start…?

I’ve had so many ideas for a potential Irish rail network over the years, I could probably write a book about it! In fact, I recently put some of my ideas down in writing and ended up making a 39-page document, full of proposals, maps and diagrams (although I also talk about suggestions for the Luas/ Metro, a tram-train for Cork city, and buses).

I won’t go into details here, and I can't post a link, but if you're interested there is a link to my blog on my profile somewhere, where I have posted about it - or send me a PM.

Regarding a controversial rail extension, I guess my biggest idea would be a combination of line upgrades and new builds to create a new route, with spurs running from both Cork and Limerick, through Dublin city and Dublin airport, then on to Belfast. I see this as a sort of new 'core spine’ of the Irish Rail network.

I don’t think there’s really a case for true high-speed rail (300 km/h+) in Ireland, but do think as much of the line as possible should run at speeds of up to 250 km/h, and should be electrified at 25 kV AC. I suggested a two-phase approach to construction, and bi-mode trains could be used after phase one so that the electrification process would not need to be completed in one go.

Journey time from Dublin to Cork should be under 2 hours, with Dublin to Belfast around an hour.

In terms of upgraded sections, these would be:

• Dublin to Portloise – electrification and extending quadruple track as far as Kildare.

• Dundalk to Belfast – again electrification, but quadruple tracking of the route into Belfast would be a lot more challenging than the Kildare route, I believe. Triple tracking may be possible though (I would suggest from Portadown to Belfast).

The new builds are where I think it gets interesting:

• Revive the ‘interconnector’ tunnel, but on a larger scale, capable of carrying both through mainline traffic as well as local DART services.

• A second tunnel, either following the route of the Dublin Port tunnel – or (drum roll…) using one of the bores of the already built port tunnel. I personally don’t think a two-bore road tunnel is necessary, certainly not for the intended purpose of diverting HGVs from the city centre, and would be better used as a rail tunnel. This tunnel would form the connection to Dublin Airport.

• A new line north of Dublin Airport, roughly following the M1, with spurs branching off in each direction along the Drogheda to Navan line, allowing connections to Drogheda and Navan. This line would meet the ‘old’ main line south of Dundalk.

The existing Dublin – Dundalk line would become a dedicated suburban rail line, with a massive increase in capacity. The DART should be extended to Balbriggan, and new commuter station should be built at Dunleer.

Phase two would see electrification of the rest of the route and another piece of new rail line:

• A new line branching off just north of Templemore, and re-joining the current Cork line just south-west of Charleville.

• This route would follow a line much closer to Limerick, with a short spur in either direction to Limerick. This would not only improve line quality and speed along the Dublin – Cork route, but would allow a much easier direct links from Limerick to both Dublin and Cork.

Once all this is complete I envisaged a new ‘Enterpise’ branded service running at least once an hour, with southbound trains alternating between Limerick and Cork, and minimal intermidate stops. It would also allow direct Limerick – Cork trains, much better regional/ commuter services and a new two-line DART network.

I also suggested spurs on the DART route to Celbridge and Naas, to bring rail access to their town centres.

If you're interested please do get in touch and I'll send you a link to the file with all my other wonderful, but sadly grossly overambitous and unrealistic ideas ;-).

kiliandrury

cgcsb wrote: »

Restoring the West Cork railway would be a good start every town along the cost there is chockers with cars.

I've always thought a tram-train system would be ideal for west cork; a light rail network, that runs as a tramway through cork city (and connecting with Kent station), but more like a regional railway outside the city.

Karlsruhe in Germany is the best example of this; they saved numerous regional rail lines from extinction by allowing them to run as trams straight into the city centre and connect better with the rest of the local network.