An idea missed?

Zebra3

Sorry if this is somewhere in the latest government plan, but if it is I can't see it.

There was an idea put forward in some paper (might have been last year) that if a metro was built from the city centre to the airport that it should be extended as far as the Dublin-Belfast line and that, assuming it was underground, the tunnel be built big enough for InterCity services to use.

Twofold benefits:

1) The current DART line (on the northside) is relieved from carrying the Enterprise and outer suburban services.

2) The public transport to the airport becomes more national-oriented instead of just Dublin-oriented.

philologos

http://www.dto.ie/fig7.pdf
look at the blue line going from the city centre to airport on that map

dowlingm

Not possible if RPA use European gauge rather than Irish.

bk

Not a good idea, you would only be transfering the problems that the Dart surfer from to the Metro, namely Metro/Darts having to wait for trains to pass through, it wouldn't solve anything.

An idea might be to build a rail station out somewhere by swords/airport and have Belfast commuters transfer onto the Metro to the city centre at that station.

However this won't happen.

Zebra3

Surely different gauges could be used in a quad-tracked tunnel?

dowlingm

quad tracked? Now you're in fantasy land. The tunnelling required would be enormous.

A DART starting around Balbriggan heading SW to Swords, then Dublin Airport through to Stephen's Green gets my vote, as it relieves the east coast line and maintains commonality of stock, gauge etc. but built from scratch without LCs to allow "metro quality" headways. No through ICs without provable numbers of those transferring from Cork-Dublin to Dublin-Belfast.

spacetweek

Zebra3 wrote:

Sorry if this is somewhere in the latest government plan, but if it is I can't see it.

There was an idea put forward in some paper (might have been last year) that if a metro was built from the city centre to the airport that it should be extended as far as the Dublin-Belfast line and that, assuming it was underground, the tunnel be built big enough for InterCity services to use.

Thought of that one myself, always thought it made sense. Reckon Donabate would be the most logical place to join to.

If you're starting anywhere north of about Howth Junction you'd get to the airport faster by travelling north to Donabate rather than south into the city centre and accompanying congestion, and transfer to Metro there.

Other ideas:
- Luas extension from Citywest to Rathcoole
- Spur to UCD from DART southbound
- Spur from DART east of Adamstown south along Outer Ring Road to Baldonnel airport, Newcastle and N7 P+R

MarkoP11

spacetweek wrote:

- Luas extension from Citywest to Rathcoole

Possible but nothing beyond Citywest, very very slow if you want the city centre

spacetweek wrote:

- Spur to UCD from DART southbound

Nope no possible alignment all exteremly built up (and wealthy areas) would sap capacity best of looking at a spur of the Green Line as was proposed

spacetweek wrote:

- Spur from DART east of Adamstown south along Outer Ring Road to Baldonnel airport, Newcastle and N7 P+R

Stick the P and R in Sallins only a mater of 200m from the N7

Andrew Duffy

Nope no possible alignment all exteremly built up (and wealthy areas) would sap capacity best of looking at a spur of the Green Line as was proposed

While I agree that it probably isn't a great idea, there is a very clear alignment from Booterstown to UCD alongside the proposed Eastern Bypass.