New bridge across river Liffey planned by Dublin Port

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120503071#Comment_120503071

No, it stopped a good while ago. Last time I remember it, was back in the late 90s.

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120502821#Comment_120502821

Bulk liquids also travel with the containers. And there’s a timber train from the west as well.

Podge_irl

Rail freight is only ever going to make sense if you are not having to tranship back onto road transport for any significant distance at the end. Ultimately its hard to see many scenarios in Ireland that rail freight makes sense unless its somehow significantly cheaper.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120502867#Comment_120502867

b) and c) are not that relevant in Ireland. c) is super relevant in places like the States where trains get delayed (or just plain go missing) with great frequency. b) is not that relevant once you can ship at least a container sized load - it doesn't need to be more than that.

But a) is a big one. Going by rail would be slower anyway, never mind additional transhipping times at either end of the rail line.

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120505362#Comment_120505362

Would it make sense in terms of helping to reach our emissions targets though? Not just from a monetary perspective.

magicbastarder

how much is shipped via containers and how much via 'standard' artics?

i.e. is it a case that (say) a container arrives in dublin, goods are transferred to a truck (be it in the same container, or actually transferred to a truck) and then driven to cork or galway, say?

i would assume that with the likes of the massive distribution hubs the likes of tesco operate, all their produce is shipped to those first before being despatched to the actual stores?

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120507097#Comment_120507097

The question you have to ask then is, how much would the government need to subsidise it to make it economically attractive for companies to use it. And then that leads to the question, we’ll how much environmental benefit do you get for that given amount of money and could you potentially get more benefit from the same amount of money subsidising insulation in homes or more EV’s or EV trucks or more wind farms, etc.

Honestly I don’t have the answer to that question, I’d love to see a study done into it. A lot of people like to throw around ideas saying think of the environment, without doing any practical cost benefit analysis to see if it actually holds up.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120507097#Comment_120507097

A bit? It depends on how much travel needs to be done to and from the rail centres. As bk raises, it may not be the best investment to achieve emissions targets.

To be honest, emissions-wise it would make more sense to have container vessels going to various ports around Ireland. Given the size of the country, the lack of electrification of the rails and the motorway network it would probably make more sense to focus on decarbonising road transport (so biofuels and whatnot)

magicbastarder

biofuels are a con though really, aren't they? though that's a topic for another thread...

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120507145#Comment_120507145

I'm sure the data is available to various government departments to answer these questions. There really needs to be an assessment of the data done to assess the viability of rail freight.

I can't see for sure but I would assume most containers go to a central distribution point to be opened and contents removed. We are seeing more and more goods going from a central depot direct to the customer. This is obviously the case for online retailers but also some types of shops no longer hold stock and purchased items are delivered to the customer, e.g. large electrical goods. Argos is gone here now and scaled back in UK, that's because holding stock at many locations doesn't work v large centralised storage and distrubute from there. For bulk delivery of goods to the central distribution point, it needs to be located on the rail network but also with good access to the road network for onward delivery of individual orders.

If you take all of the containers which arrive in Dublin on a particular day, then look at those which are going outside Dublin as the sealed container, i.e. a supposedly suitable for rail transport. How many trains would have to carry them? I mean, you could run a train to Cork and drop off containers along the way (ignoring for now the operatioal difficulties this would cause, the handling facilities required, etc.) but is there enough containers to justify running that train? Same goes for trains to Limerick, Galway, Mayo, etc. It's all well and good saying there are lots of containers but not much good if they have to be split across multiple trains such that all struggle to cover the cost of running the train.

You'd likely have to have the train(s) available to run each day even if they are not full to break even point, customers are not going to switch to rail if the operator is doing things to suit themselves at the expense of the customer. Customers will expect their containers delivered when they requested them, they won't accept their container arriving a day later because there wasn't enough other containers that day to justify running the train.

A few years back I pulled the freight data off the CSO site and graphed it. You can view it in the linked post below.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/113363448#Comment_113363448

Suffice to say that even the earlier 1% estimate for the share of freight on rail is extremely optimistic

loyatemu

Ireland aint going to solve the global climate crisis, WHATEVER we do.

that's true, but we're signed up to global agreements which are codified into Irish law. The port company can't just ignore them (and in their response to Ryan they claim that they have taken them into account).

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120514284#Comment_120514284

And when a majority of people start noticing a reduction in their quality of life, they will elect people who will uncodify them (see US & UK in 2016 etc).

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120512430#Comment_120512430

No. Though as with all things, there are good and bad ways of doing it. There isn't any better way of decarbonising heavy goods transport (or flying for that matter) at the moment.

Ireland is never going to be a good candidate for more rail freight - the time to drive to basically anywhere from Dublin is just too short.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120514354#Comment_120514354

Or when they are disingenuously led to believe that there's been a reduction in their quality life, but that's probably one for the politics thread.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120514284#Comment_120514284

The first EV tractor truck just arrived in Ireland this week. There is a picture of it up on Irish Commercials Instagram, a Volvo FH Electric.

An Post has run a very successful trial of using HVO for their trucks between Galway and Dublin which say a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

So we don't necessarily need rail freight to reach those global agreements.

Also there is the problem that if we start pushing a large amount of rail freight through Dublin's already overcrowded rail network, you could destroy the DART schedule. DART every 10 minutes, not a hope with many rail freight movements on the network.

Folks want to improve the journey times on the Cork and Belfast line. Cork to Dublin in 2 hours, maybe even 90 minutes at some stage. Well you can forget about that when your train is stuck behind a freight train.

There is a really danger that we make passenger services much worse, which will only lead to people going back to their cars, which obviously negates any emission savings.

Generally speaking large amounts of freight traffic, isn't really compatible with high frequency passenger services. It is why the US has great rail freight, but terrible passenger services.

jlang

Tangent to the freight/container discussion, but I suppose a reason to maintain a dormant rail connection to the port is to allow for delivery of railcars direct onto the rail network.

When Luas (and future Metro) vehicles arrive into Dublin are they typically moved by road to the relevant depot or just to the nearest suitable point of the network and towed/run the rest of the way on the tracks? I guess the articulated segments are shipped by road and assembled together at the depot.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120514773#Comment_120514773

Well, Luas and Metrolink rail vehicles cannot run on IR rails because the gauge is different. They will have to go by truck.

andrewfaulk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120514773#Comment_120514773

It ain't dormant, its used 3 times a day by actual freight trains that seem to get ignored on this thread..

andrewfaulk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120512745#Comment_120512745

While it makes for poor reading, you have also missed a few key points..

1) the CSO figures includes some business that will never be transport by rail again, like Milk from farm to dairy, cattle from farm to Mart etc..

2) Your figures are in tonnes, but rail tends to do longer journeys than road(both in Ireland and Internationally), laden tonne/kms would be a more accurate measure

3) the rail figure does NOT include Bord na Mona and the other bog railways, which until 4-5 years ago move large tonnages by rail every year from bogs to Power Plants, briquette factories and tipplers.

andrewfaulk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120512689#Comment_120512689

Taking DPCs 2022 Q4 figures, https://www.dublinport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/DPC-Throughput-Statistics-Q4-2022.pdf, there were 352,219 unitised loads handled, of which 103,911 were Lo/lo(containers).. They don't mention if the Ro/Ro figure also includes containers(CLDN operates a containerised Ro/Ro(CON/RO) service into Dublin Port from Rotterdam, Santander and Zeebrugge).. So take 29.5% are containers.

Not all business goes to CDCs, for some industries(supermarkets) Dublin based CDCs would have a big role, but for a lot of others it's container direct from Port to warehouse or facility.. Also, some of the supermarkets have RDCs located around Ireland( Lidl in Newbridge, Mullingar and Charleville, Aldi in Mitchelstown and Naas) Also any LCL/groupage containers that I know of get de-vanned(offloaded) in the greater Dublin area(may be a few in Cork also).. But I think about 70% of loads go no further than 15kms from the M50, can't remember the source but I think it was a DoT White paper.. My experience including handling inbound loads on behalf of overseas offices tells me this is about right..

Again, the focus on timing in this thread is nuts, people seem to forget that a load takes 35+ days to arrive from China and 15-20 days from the USA.. Even a load from Europe, if it's in a container is likely low value goods and can wait a day or two if needed, cost is a bigger consideration. Not everything is pharma or car parts needed on a production line, those make up a small amount by volume(and even less by weight) of the freight transported. Warehouses operate 5 or 6 days a week, and want their deliveries and loadings spread across the week to maximise efficiency. A few hours makes little difference to a big warehouse handling a couple of hundred loads a week, and the small bit of extra lead time can easily be built into stock management planning..

gjim

It's not the extra time, it's the extra complexity and huge capital investment required to make rail freight in any way viable. We don't have dense rail coverage nor spare capacity (outside of Dublin and Cork, you're mostly dealing with single track alignments) nor extensive warehousing linked to rail-heads. Given the relatively small number of potential locations for unloading freight trains, trucks are going to be involved in freight one way or another. I'm fairly confident that trucking will flip to battery power fairly soon given the huge fuel savings available - and we have a fairly decent motorway network (including a motorway tunnel to Dublin Port) so I just don't see the massive win here for the environment. Every billion spent on trying to build up rail freight infrastructure is a billion less spend on public transport, finishing the motorway network, improving ports, etc.

Ramasun

Tunnel is the way to go.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120526178#Comment_120526178

You mean like the Dart Underground, formerly the Interconnector. Or perhaps the Metrolink, formerly Metro North.

I wonder what it will be called on the first outing, and what the new name will be for the redesign.

bk

DartLink …..

millb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120518041#Comment_120518041

https://www.irishrail.ie/en-ie/about-us/iarnrod-eireann-fleet/freight-fleet

andrewfaulk

That info is about 5 years out of date and even so is wrong..

IWT Dublin to Ballina is 5 trains per week each way Monday to Saturday

DFDS have been replaced by XPO

Tara mines is 2 trains per day