Cork Area Commuter Rail (CACR)

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123566039#Comment_123566039

They're not maps, they're engineering drawings. Most likely they started this project before the new interchange was fully mapped at this scale. The interfaces between the new build and existing roads are unchanged by the Dunkettle project, so there was no need to change the base layer.. People in the area know exactly where the station is going to be based on that drawing.

If you really can't locate the site from that drawimg, I'll do up a composite for you with the current road and the new station - but not today.

(also, the brochure gives latitude and longitude coordinates for each of the proposed stations... something I haven't seen before, but a very useful idea for communicating the locations clearly and unambiguously)

spacetweek

Thanks for offering Kris, but I don’t have difficulty finding proposed Dunkettle station on a map. I just think it’s a red flag when a project of this scale is based on out of date maps.

spacetweek

They're going to close Myrtle Hill Terrace Level Crossing and provide alternative access.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Myrtle%2BHill%2BTerrace%2C%2BTivoli%2C%2BCork/%4051.9031429%2C-8.4436151%2C671m/data%3D%213m2%211e3%214b1%214m6%213m5%211s0x48449abb48272947%3A0x92a19b53f56aaedc%218m2%213d51.9031429%214d-8.4436151%2116s%2Fg%2F119tdnqgl?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDYxNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Wonder how this will be achieved, perhaps at the far end - but the site is very tight.

They would have to go through a private piece of land to reach the overpass at Bellevue Villas.

This is the only level crossing that will be closed as far as I can see. There are others at Midleton, but these are not on the central shared busier section.

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123568282#Comment_123568282

honestly I was shocked they didn’t close that level crossing when they built that bridge to the other houses. I honestly assumed the road on the other side of the level crossing went all the way to that bridge but I walked up there and it doesn’t. Many locals from that general area assumed it did.

Hibernicis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123568282#Comment_123568282

The plan is a left hand turn off the far side of that enormous overbridge they build 20 years ago. (So the current RH turn becomes a T junction)

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123568513#Comment_123568513

That overbridge wasn’t built in 2005 was it ?

Hibernicis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123569633#Comment_123569633

I stand corrected. It was 2009.

https://www.bamireland.ie/our-work/bam-civil/rail/tivoli-rail-overbridge/

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123567816#Comment_123567816

It was one of my first comments when I saw the end-to-end drawings too, but the emerging preferred options has newer images at least:

https://www.irishrail.ie/getmedia/f5900fd9-4c47-4f59-939a-0a18f33f96ca/CACR-Emerging-Preferred-Options_1.pdf.

Another omission from the drawings is the new proposed greenway at Dunkettle. This is relevant for a few reasons: a new greenway overbridge will exist at Tivoli - have dimensions been dealt with, can the greenway alignment dovetail with train station so that only one bridge is needed etc. And again at Little Island station, a new bridge is proposed.

So yes I agree with you, I'd have preferred newer drawings. The world's not perfect though, so let's see what the consultation brings.

hans aus dtschl

I still feel the Tivoli station should possibly be more to the East. There's going to be low footfall coming from North of the station in its current proposed position. The available Tivoli land tapers to the West, so the proposed location is not going to be equidistant from all Tivoli users in practice: it should be more weighted towards the East where comparatively more housing will be. Few from Glanmire will access it in its current proposed position.

If we instead moved it near to the Transcar lot then: it's still near to roughly the same number of Tivoli users, but starts to appeal to Glanmire people (particularly the new Ballinglanna Western Development but maybe even some new Northern distributor houses), also the new greenway bridge infrastructure could be integrated into the overall station design which is great for everyone.

Make it 2km from North Esk as the crow flies, IMO. Alternatively link the proposed location directly to Burke's Hill somehow. It's not a big deal, just that the proposed location just doesn't seem to offer many benefits to anything North of the line, so if all is equal south of the line then why not move it East.

namloc1980

There doesn't seem to be any direct pedestrian access built into the Carrigtwohill West station to access the IDA estate on the south side of the line. It would mean a long enough walk around and a disincentive to use the train.

thomil

I was at Kent Station earlier for the first public consultation event for CACR. Apart from walking away with a snazzy brochure, I also picked up some interesting tidbits from talking to people:

• The system will be electrified with 25kv from the start. The details are still being worked on, but the voltage and the basic facts of electrification have been nailed down, not least because the aim of this project is to serve as a “kick starter” for the electrification of the entire Cork-Heuston main line.
• The current plan is to have the entire project done and dusted by 2032. This is extremely ambitious, but the people from CIE and IE that I talked to seemed to have a real fire to get this thing rolling sooner rather than later!
• On that note, the plan is to start moving on stations that are purely on CIE/IE land and that don’t require any track layout changes as soon as possible after the second consultation closes, since those stations can be worked on “in-house” without waiting for the Railway Order to make its way through the planning system.
• Related to that, the track block layout for the current signalling upgrade on the existing lines was designed with the locations of the future stations, passing loops, etc. in mind, meaning that there’s probably not going to be much room to have stations relocated, something that was mentioned in here earlier iirc.

Interestingly, one of the people I talked to was a Swiss guy who seems to have had some involvement with the Swiss railways (SBB) in the past, though I’m not sure about the extent of said involvement. I think the whole thing, and the drive that the project seems to have from the CIE/IE side, is pretty impressive, and I actually feel better about the chances of this happening now than I did before going there.

Bit of a note: I posted a very similar post on another forum, so if you see some repeating posts, don’t worry. I’m only stealing from myself 🙃

Hibernicis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123576515#Comment_123576515

Very interesting report. Thanks for posting.

Hibernicis

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_sMNvw8XkgU

Latest update from Dronehawk showing progress on the Middleton line double tracking.

hans aus dtschl

Lovely to see the R&H Hall concrete put to good use. Does anyone know for sure what's happening with the skew bridge at the Elm Tree? Is it being widened? It just looks from the video like there isn't enough space for two tracks. Same question for the Youghal Carpets bridge right after it actually.

And really hard to understand why a new Carrigtwohill West station wouldn't connect Northwards, judging by that video.

And sorry slightly off-topic but since it's in the video…

The text erroneously lists "Cork-Youghal Cycleway (Under Construction)" at 1:13. That's actually the completed section of IDA greenway, completed and open a few years now. It's junk "PFO" infrastructure really but sadly it will likely form part of the Cork-Youghal greenway if/when the other council/TII/NTA sections are joined to it. Some of that IDA section is very bad, it'll drag down the quality of the other sections around it, which are generally of high quality. For instance the future greenway loop/underpass partially visible at 1:23 is a really beautiful piece of design work by that project team.

Hibernicis

Looks like both of the bridges you mentioned are to be retained, no reference to widening in the documents submitted to ABP for the RO. Some credit due to the Victorian engineers and capitalists who designed and funded the structures for their foresight, and those who followed and maintained the clearances.

The only over-bridge bridge that will be substantially altered is the Ballyadam House access bridge, referred to as OBY8, which appeares to be disused based on Google maps. (Clearly visible in Dronehawk's video above at 2:05). This is to be demolished and not replaced.

Full details in this document: (Railway Order Drawings - Book 3 - Bridge Structures https://www.pleanala.ie/publicaccess/EIAR-NIS/315087/04%20Railway%20Order%20Drawings/Book%203%20Structure%20Plans.pdf?r=180677686724

hans aus dtschl

Thanks! I can't believe I never spotted that Ballyadam House bridge before. I hope they can put what are likely to be old cut stones to good use elsewhere. Also, Ballyadam House has always struck me as a beautiful property, I hope they get/got a nice payout with the greenway CPO and can afford to keep the place nice. Who knows, maybe even convert some of those outbuildings.

thomil

It’s worth pointing out that all of the bridges along the line will have to be redone as part of the electrification works, given that electrification will take the shape of 25kv delivered through overhead wires. There will have to be proper clearance between the wires and any bridges, as well as between the wires and the top of the trains to avoid any short circuits. Believe me, that is no fun.

I wonder whether it’s worth writing in my submission that they should leave enough space to allow for running of double-decker trains in the future? 🙃

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123577997#Comment_123577997

Double-decker towards Cobh/Youghal seems ambitious/excessive? In fairness they do say that trackbed works might be possible rather than bridge works, so hopefully some of the old bridges can be dealt with that way. All-in-all they seem to have been very forward thinking though, so I'm optimistic whatever they do will be of high quality.

thomil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123578160#Comment_123578160

I was thinking more in the context of future-proofing the line between Cork and Mallow in the context of a future electrification of the Heuston main line. Austria, Switzerland, Germany, France, and others all run double-decker trains under overhead wires designed for single-deck trains. I’ve spent countless hours of my life on one of those DB Regio “DoStos” when I lived in Frankfurt, and quite a few on TGV Duplex trains once they started running between Frankfurt and Mannheim. It just seems like an easy way to prepare the line for additional capacity in the future.

hans aus dtschl

Ah yeah, definitely on the Dublin line it makes sense. At the same time they maybe haven't ever thought about double-decker on the IC and will shoot it down. Possibly better mentioned to the AI rail review than to the cork commuter team? Still, no harm drawing attention to it.

I still really wish we had more commercial/retail integration, particularly at the busiest station(s) like Kent. It just doesn't seem to be a big thing in Ireland but the big commuter stations internationally usually have lots of retail and aside from increasing revenue (via rent) it makes commuting that much easier/more pleasant: you can grab small bits of shopping or food etc. So I know it probably seems a bit out of scope but with an increase in ridership I'd love to see an effort to provide a few more retail units. Kent is pretty protected, but why not extend out over a bit of Platform 1? Or am I underestimating the effort required here?

thomil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123578283#Comment_123578283

To be fair, even our big stations don’t really have that much traffic. Kent Station gets around 6300 passengers per day, which is about as much as Speyer Hauptbahnhof, the train station in the town where my parents used to live. Spoiler alert: that is not a big station! It doesn’t have any intercity services and not even much in the way of long distance regional services. Most of the traffic is made up of the trains of the S-Bahn Rhein-Neckar.

And their retail offerings are pretty much comparable, at least as per the last time I was there. Both have a manned ticket office and a convenience store. In the case of Speyer, the latter is combined with a bakery. In addition, Cork has a café/sandwich shop, whilst Speyer has a large newspaper/book shop (Bahnhofsbuchhandlung).

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123578335#Comment_123578335

That is fair, but they're proposing roughly double the passengers by 2050, so I was thinking it might be nice to have as a consideration. Mind you, Haarlem (for instance) has 40k+ per day and is still very limited, so I guess I'll just continue to dream.

goingnowhere

Longer platforms would be the approach if we got into capacity issues

Mallow, Blarney and Cork will be capable of 220m trains, with the exception of Cobh it would be easy to provide 174m platforms at all the other stations

Cork is currently 2 coach trains, step 1 moves it from 8 2 coach trains to 8 4 coach trains, thats double capacity and then electrification which will triple that again. Go to longer trains double again

So that would be a 12 fold increase…

KrisW1001

Yes, Cork is starting from a very low base. 3x frequency and double-length trains (the switch to EMUs won’t add much - a 5-car X’Trapolis train has the same capacity, more or less, as a 4-car DMU) will be enough for quite a while.

If it comes to lengthening platforms, Cobh is difficult, but nothing is really impossible: a transfer of some of the quay (currently just used to park cars on) to IE would allow longer platforms to be built there. That, however, is a problem for the 2050s…