Phoenix Park tunnel: 4 trains per hour from 2016

Sam Russell wrote: »

You either have to drop the rail by 6 metres or drop the road by 6 metres. Neither is good.

Alternatively you raise one or other. Again not good.

Close the crossing? Not good either - might as well continue as is with over 50% closure.

Split the difference and raise one and lower the other. Rail down, road up is probably the easiest (not that it would be easy) as it would just require excavating which is easier than raising and building a bridge.

Cerdito wrote: »

I have a point-to-point ticket between Sallins and Heuston at present. Would this ticket cover me for travel via the PPT to the other city centre stations (e.g Connolly / Tara / Pearse)?

The ticketing and fares situation have yet to be disclosed, but I'd imagine that given you have to pay extra for LUAS/bus to the city centre, that Connolly/Tara St/Pearse will be a separate fare zone.

But that's purely a guess.

Banjoxed wrote: »

It would be a really smart move by IÉ if it didn't cost extra to go to Connolly-Grand Canal Dock.

There is an ongoing exercise of recalibrating the suburban ticket fare combinations by the NTA - every year during the annual fare review more station combinations have been revised for the relevant fares to become entirely distance based.

It is being done gradually in an effort to minimise the impact on company finances and end users.

But someone will always lose out and be outside a fare zone - that's a fact of life. Where do you draw the line?

In this case I can't imagine that Heuston will be the same fare as Connolly, particularly given that the services have to call at Drumcondra first.

Banjoxed wrote: »

It would be a really smart move by IÉ if it didn't cost extra to go to Connolly-Grand Canal Dock.

It would indeed be a very smart move. But I can't see it happening. I always felt that the add on fare from Heuston to the "city centre" was a complete con job dominated by CIE in general and then conveniently inherited by luas. It was originally a fare collected by the railway and then another fare collected by the bus, all under the same banner. The chance to banish the "remote" location of Heuston was certainly diminished by this practice.

First few months should be premoted as free travel between heuston and connolly. Get the numbers up and gain some lost customers back.

I'm amazed there wasn't a free bus addon brought in when trains to Galway/Wesport etc started being moved to Heuston from Connolly - 40 years ago or so?

tabbey wrote: »

In most capital cities, mainline termini are grouped together for fare purposes, but perhaps that is easy for long distance journeys, like Birmingham to London: Euston, Marylebone or Paddington, and more anomolous for short trips.

This is no longer true for a lot of London trips - if you are going to the normal terminus station (e.g., Southampton -> Waterloo on the southwest lines) then you'll pay X but if you want to go Euston or Paddington instead then it'll be X + £2 or £3 quid more.

The sensible thing to do is to remove each cc station as a pricing point and price them all as one dublin city centre. Anything between heuston - connelly - GCD - Point Depot. Increase fairs by 50c per journey. Be hard to integrate DB into such plans.

XPS_Zero wrote: »

I see commuter and ICR sets parked at GCD on and off at the designated platform for the tunnel, are they sing tested going through it or something?

I thought it was already used for swapping empty sets?

Also I'm curious people refer to special trains going thru the tunnel over the years. I'm already familiar with the blizzard Eucharistic Congresd ones that went from like Cobh to Sydney Parade but what of the GAA ones? Did they take intercity trains from the west to Connoly for matches? Why'd they stop doing thst?

Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Kerry went to Connolly most often as they served Kilkenny, Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Tipp who were most frequent teams to do well. Not sure about Galway/Mayo.

Also I'm curious people refer to special trains going thru the tunnel over the years. I'm already familiar with the blizzard Eucharistic Congresd ones that went from like Cobh to Sydney Parade but what of the GAA ones? Did they take intercity trains from the west to Connoly for matches? Why'd they stop doing thst?

I remember a spring show special from waterford , I travelled on in 1976, new MK2 and shiny 071, through the tunnel , to Lansdowne Road Station ( the 8 coach train didnt in any way fit the platform !) , walked up to the show along the Dodder, home same way

lxflyer wrote: »

Connolly, Tara Street and Pearse are all treated as one station already for ticketing purposes - city centre.

I know but with new destinations coming on board the city centre range needs expansion.

Include Luas Heuston to Point, Rail Heuston,Drumcondra GCD and Docklands stations all as dublin city centre. A 50c fare increase per journey added to all suburban services would be reasonable with a leap discount. Passengers can use any station or luas service within the zone all on the one ticket. Would also help ease congestion as well.

Broadstone - Stephens Green could be added when finished.

ClovenHoof wrote: »

It was designed to kill these services. CIEs assumption that there would eventually be no rail services beyond Athlone was their aspiration at the time.

As late as 1998, Irish Rail was still working towards this model. CIE/Irish Rail are always culturally trapped in their current thinking and can't see social or economic projections beyond tea time, let alone population and other projections into the future.

CIE management has been one of managing decline , not of building a business, because the state , especially the early state was constantly admonishing them to stay within budget , a budget that was typically hopelessly unrealistic

Hence you had as a manager in CIE no interest in building business, because all that did was increase the operational looses. in fact the alternative of a slow rundown , actually decreased looses and made you look " better". The fact that more losses might mean you were carrying more passengers , was beside the point

Once a business gets to that stage its like a cancer.

its only recently that we have a begrudging acknowledgement that rail transport must play a role . Yet we still have a CIE that keeps a few " rundown " lines in its back pocket ( Limerick waterford ) as insurance for the next Gov that claims its losses are too high. then they pull another " but Minister , we can shut this non performing line down to save money " , " aren't we great boys", leaving aside the fact that they have purposely run these lines down.

Thats why Im a part fan of Uk rail privatisation , as it partially addresses, this death wish management style

Paddico wrote: »

So when was the last time the train ran on that line between Mullingar and Athlone. I seem to remember using tha route around 92 and it had a stop in Moate

1980s.