Cork Area Commuter Rail (CACR)

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091928#Comment_120091928

No they aren't easy wins or cheap.

Maximizing the existing network is critical to its future success. Tacking on a 22km extension to the Midleton line through mostly open and low population density countryside is nonsense when the existing network is crying out for modernisation and investment.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096109#Comment_120096109

your mentioned costs for youghal are an absolute bargain whether half the cost of foynes or 40 million.

no reason why it wouldn't be electrified, a diesel shuttle to midleton would rightly not be accepted by anybody whether campaigner or user so yes that would rightly be out.

any specific stations needing doing could be done regardless of other areas as the costs would be minimal in the great scheme of things.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096368#Comment_120096368

they absolutely are easy wins and are cheap in the great scheme of things.

plenty of money for modernisation of the existing infrastructure and implementing such infrastructure to more areas which will maxemise it even further.

reopenings don't prevent modernisation of and investment in existing infrastructure, political will does and always has, which is why we are only getting what we should have got decades ago and even then not as extencive.

questionmark?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096349#Comment_120096349

Yep, hands up, I misread the original message regarding the figures.

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096850#Comment_120096850

Have you costed it as you keep saying it's cheap? Reopening a railway line through mostly rural countryside to low population areas is an utter waste of money at this juncture when there are other far more pressing transport infrastructure projects that need progressing.

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096836#Comment_120096836

A diesel shuttle would likely be the same frequency as EMUs continuing from Midleton. It would also certainly be a single track line (unless you want to blow €100m on it) which would most likely mean a single train on the line at any time. You could put in a passing loop but its more cost and means more trains carrying mostly air to/from Youghal with higher rolling stock requirements and greater operational costs.

Whats acceptable to campaigners or potential users is irrelevant, what's acceptable to them wouldn't be acceptable to the rest of the country and likely wouldn't pass Public Spending Code tests. Everybody wants tens of millions spent on their local pet project, there are procedures to ensure that those which get funded offer value for money.

Look, setting aside Youghal, can this country please look at rail (just standard DART like) from Glanmire>Watergrasshill >Rathcormac>Fermoy and similar towards Bandon.

It's crazy the level of commuting to and from those towns for work and college.

Also need constant bus shuttles from train station to town if they insist on keeping the bus station at Parnell

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097324#Comment_120097324

New rail to the likes of Rathcormac and Fermoy is not going to happen. Improved buses, bus prioritisation and P&R at Dunkettle would go a long way to provide for those living there. But a rail line is simply not going to happen. Even in rail's heyday, there was no line from Cork to Fermoy via Glanmire, Watergrasshil, Rathcormac. So a brand new alignment is little more than a pipe dream.

As for buses from Kent, the 205 and 214 connect Kent to the city centre and the bus station - and onwards to places like UCC, MTU & CUH. Between them they are very frequent - with over 110 daily services each way providing a frequency of c.10 minutes. What more would you want?

snotboogie

I would say Carrigaline-Maryborough-Douglas-City light rail is a far more pressing need than Kent-Glanmire-Fermoy heavy rail. The population is far bigger, 15k in Carrigaline and 25k in Douglas and the entire South East needs to be funnelled through the traffic choked South Douglas and Douglas roads to get to the city, both of which are politically impossible to allocate dedicated bus lanes to. Its a complex, expensive and politically difficult undertaking so there are zero plans for it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097373#Comment_120097373

What I would love is if they had co-loacted the bus station there, when they had the chance, so that people are not getting the train, dragging baggage to a shuttle, then dragging baggage to onward bus.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097569#Comment_120097569

Totally agree on all this but there's no reason that Cork should not be running a Luas to suburbs alongside commuter DART to Tivoli.

Either that or literally subsidise massive high rise private builds in the City centre

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097324#Comment_120097324

I agree that something should be done for those commuters. However...

Glanmire-Watergrasshill is not really viable for rail. I know the geography of the area very well: the cost would be enormous. You an get rail to Glanmire from the Midleton/Cobh line alright (at high cost) but North of Glanmire the elevation rises dramatically, and Watergrasshill is one of the highest pieces of the national motorway network (if not THE highest). It's probably something like 180m climb in 9km and it's undulating. So fairly constant climbing for the train, and still a need for tunnels/bridges. It would be extremely expensive for such a small number of end users.

Thus, for Watergrasshill commuters, a bus P&R north of Glanmire, and also a P&R or full "transit hub" at Dunkettle/Tivoli for the train are probably the best options. I would actually be in favour of these, particularly because there's a plan to build/upgrade the hospital at Sallybrook, and an N40 North ring road. Killylough interchange should likely be a major interchange on the road network. It seems logical to me to plan a transit hub there (P&R) right by the Hospital, with high quality mass transit connectivity to the city. It could include rail, though the cost would be very high. More viable would be high frequency buses.

Rathcormac by rail would more realistically need to come via the Mallow line. Fermoy would almost certainly need to come via the Mallow line. That would still be difficult/expensive.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097638#Comment_120097638

You could still co-locate the bus station, as the space is available to the East of Kent. But it's not without its own issues: see the situation of the Galway bus/coach transit hub.

The historical issue in Cork is that the rail station is owned by IÉ, and the bus station is owned by BÉ. If BÉ were to move all operations, IÉ would need to charge them rent. And they were traditionally mandated (since the break-up of CIÉ) to compete for passengers. So IÉ would have effectively been mandated to charge BÉ a fairly high price.

That's a negative result of privatisation, basically. The ideal scenario would have been to separate the rail "network management" and "rolling stock" into two companies, with the state owning the network side. Rail transport outside of Dublin likely wouldn't have survived such a separation.

So a possible solution still available would be for the state to build and manage a new rail/bus/tram transit hub to the East of Kent (and one in Blarney and one in Dunkettle/Tivoli). Whether IÉ and BÉ would move operations would be complex though: they already have their own city stations and such a hub would be desirable/beneficial for the other independent competitor coach operators: so why would IÉ or BÉ move? And the Horgan's Quay land is already probably more valuable to IÉ as property on which to build density (this appears to be the strategy they're following).

Privatisation is difficult, shocker!

Sorry, I hope this is all still on-topic. I find it an interesting problem at least :D

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097638#Comment_120097638

Realistically there are relatively very few people who are dragging baggage from the train and then immediately taking an onwards journey from the bus station. I use Kent most days from East Cork as well as the Dublin train for work occasionally and the vast majority of passengers are commuters going to work/education who certainly aren't dragging baggage.

There's relatively very few dragging baggage from Kent to the bus station. And if there is, they have multiple options to get from the train station to the bus station. Frequent buses as mentioned, taxis or even the short 8-10 minute walk over.

Markcheese

Bus eireann and Irish rail aren't private ,

They're both still owned by CIE, ( I think)

Moving the bus station from Parnell place to Kent, would be a bit bonkers , it's relatively central , it'd be better if there was space for private coaches next to it ,or near by,at least all the coach travel would be centralized,

It's bonkers that there isn't a park and ride transport hub at dunkettle , and south ring orbital / northern distributor (when it's built) orbital , dunkettle is already the main transport hub for cork ..

munchkin_utd

bus eireann and irish rail are still part of the same group (but artificially set up as sworn enemies of each other lest a private bus operator sue someone for being a monopoly) and seemingly the property is all managed by CIE. Maybe CIE is petrified of getting sued if they built a joint bus and rail station ? https://www.cie.ie/en-ie/

The current bus station in Cork is far from a modern facility AND its location is obiously not such a draw factor seeing as the private coaches managed to startup a booming business the "wrong" side of the river nearer the rail station. If CIE were copped on they'd close the current bus station, redevelop it and make a killing on new apartments and offices, and with those millions provide a proper public transport hub by the station.

The benefit of a bus only hub, remote from the rail station, is also massively eroded by the cancelling of through ticketing of Expressway to regional and local services, so people now are going to have to buy 2x tickets to travel via Cork city to beyond

And all that aside.... a whole swathe of Cork bus services stop on the south side of the city anyhow on their way through and the likes of Ballincollig buses are now essentially city buses so they dont serve the bus station any more. The more you dig, the less reason there is to keep that bus station.

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098332#Comment_120098332

The two stations are about 700m apart. The word remote seems a bit of reach here. It's about an 8 minute walk with frequent buses also (205 and 214).

I would also say those using the bus arriving from west Cork for example, would not be happy having to stay on the bus through the city centre only to be dropped off further away from the centre than they currently are.

Economics101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098332#Comment_120098332

Well, CIE or IrishRail/Bus Eireann is currently building a new bus station alongside the rail station in Limerick. I know it replaces another adjacent bus facility. I should think that that Cork has insufficient space for a bus station near the train station: they were so focussed on commercial property development that they neglected their primary role - public transport

getoutadodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096368#Comment_120096368

Precisely. Focus on the main intercity and urban lines.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098269#Comment_120098269

Not quite 100% right. They're semi-state and are tasked with behaving as though they were private, as "munchkin_utd" laid out, precisely in case a private bus operator should sue them for behaving as a monopoly. It's what cause this "problem" unfortunately.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120099173#Comment_120099173

and reopen lines, both can be done in one of the world's richest countries.

reopening lines does not stop focusing on the main lines and the urban and suburban services that run along part of those main lines.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120099509#Comment_120099509

i wonder who are the other shareholders in the semi-states?

if the state is the only shareholder, which i believe it is in the case of CIE, then realistically it's just a semi-state in name only so he would actually be correct really.

but maybe there are other shareholders.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120099784#Comment_120099784

Yep I believe the owners of CIÉ are either just the minister and department, or a number of government bodies, but all government. So what makes them semi-state definitely isn't the ownership, as you rightly say!

But their model of semi-state tasks them with autonomy, competition and profit-making (!). Again, munchkin_utd has it spot-on, the whole thing is to keep private coach operators happy. There's almost no chance of CIÉ just telling them both to cooperate, because of privatisation.

As an aside, I think most or all of the old guard are gone now, but the CIÉ personnel from BÉ and IÉ who were close colleagues and used to sit side-by-side in the same offices were effectively told overnight to compete with each other. I've lots of stories about this, where neither of the two was happy about it and resented being told not to cooperate. But they did what they were told.

I guess all I'm saying is that the blame definitely doesn't lie with BÉ and IÉ. And the blame probably doesn't even with CIÉ, from what little I know.

Markcheese

Semi-state doesn't mean part privatized, it means owned by the state but run at arms length ..

RetroEncabulator

Yeah, the term 'semi-state company' is a bit of a weird piece of Irish public sector jargon. 'State owned enterprise' would be a more accurate and less confusing term.

Economics101

If we want a good integrated public transport system (especially for long-distance journeys), then the current competitive setup between IE and BE is to a large extent, nonsense. The role of the NTA should be to have competition for franchises to operate routes. Artguably urban bus services should be the responsiblity of local authorities in conjunction with the NTA. All of this might lead to Bus Eireann losing its raison d'etre.

The small scale of the Irish Rail system means that there is no room for competition: it's basically a natural monopoly, and as such a fairly comprehensive regulatory regime by the NTA is warranted

Basically, there has been little or no thought given to the overall governance and regulatory structure for public transport, just a series of ad hoc decisions on the roles of the NTA, TII, etc.

LXFlyer

Most of Bus Éireann’s commercial Expressway services don’t really compete with IE anymore as they have cut some routes and serve different markets on others.

The NTA set all of the PSO service levels nowadays, so the notion of BE and IE competing on this level is not valid anymore.

I really don’t see the need to move the bus station from Parnell Place. It’s in a good city centre location, and is directly connected from the railway station by the 214 bus, the 205 close by and even more routes under BusConnects which will have a zero penalty LEAP transfer fare.

The 225 and 226 buses to the Airport, Carrigaline, Ringaskiddy and Kinsale already start at the station.

You could perhaps start the West Cork PSO routes 233/236/237/238/239 at the railway station, but that’s really about all that would be necessary.

Economics101

How frequent, quick and reliable are bus links from Kent Station to Parnell place? Is there provision for a free transfer for long-distance rail or bus passengers? Maybe these thing should get sorted out, as well as the possibility of buying a through ticket from Dublin to West Cork. (East Cork is OK as it has rail links)

RetroEncabulator

They’re 750m walk away from each other (less if you use the new entrance on the rear). While it would be handy with luggage it’s not that big a distance - basically 1 tram stop distance.

LXFlyer

The 205 is every 15 mins (starting at the station) and the 214 every 20, but as I say there are far more services planned to serve the railway station under the new BusConnects network - https://busconnects.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Cork-New-Network-Central.pdf

It’s only a 650m walk between the two using the southern exit at Kent Station.

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120104347#Comment_120104347

The 214 and 205 both go from Kent to the bus station. Very frequent, about every 8-10 minutes, throughout most of the day. A little less frequent in the evening after rush hour.