European Mega Train Network (Dublin to Cork)

riddlinrussell · 29-06-2020 4:27pm #1

https://www.corkbeo.ie/news/local-news/game-changing-high-speed-train-18500253

Has anyone else seen this? Ultra Rapid Train Network plan
Supposed to be part €2 trillion EU covid stimulus package

High Speed rail Dublin to Cork (1 hr 9 mins) with a Ferry link and continuing to Paris

Estimated €24 Billion for the Irish contribution

Thoughts?

Edit: Sourced the original paper https://wiiw.ac.at/how-to-spend-it-a-proposal-for-a-european-covid-19-recovery-programme-dlp-5352.pdf (Page 13 for the Rail section)

Valhallapt · 29-06-2020 4:57pm

I thought this was an April fools joke at first, but a high speed train to cork would be welcome.

Are there plans to put on high speed ferries also? Not a whole lot of details, would it be roll on roll off for trains/ cargo or just a passenger terminal colocated with ferry ports How would that work?

riddlinrussell · 29-06-2020 5:01pm

Valhallapt wrote: »

I thought this was an April fools joke at first, but a high speed train to cork would be welcome.

Are there plans to put on high speed ferries also? Not a whole lot of details, would it be roll on roll off for trains/ cargo or just a passenger terminal colocated with ferry ports How would that work?

I'd imagine it would be train to terminal, I think a roll on/roll off train would be a bit mad, and force the Irish section to be standard gauge so the train would work. (Not that I'm anti it being standard gauge, but interoperability with the current network would probably be a good idea...)

bk · 29-06-2020 6:44pm

€24 Billion, so one high speed rail line between Cork and Dublin or spend the same money building 8 Metro lines, say 5 in Dublin and one each in Cork/Limerick/Galway!

I'm a Corkonian living in Dublin, that would be a terrible waste of money.

It is weird, folks here on this forum are always talking about HSR from Cork to Dublin, but honestly I've never heard anyone in Cork talk about it, there really doesn't seem to be any demand for such a service amongst the public. And yes I'm aware that this article was in Crokbeo, but honestly folks in Cork would laugh at spending €24 billion on something like this.

Plus the Ferry side of this idea is mad, you'd still end up flying anywhere in Europe much faster and cheaper.

On the other hand 8 Metro lines throughout the country.......

bk · 29-06-2020 6:50pm

riddlinrussell wrote: »

I'd imagine it would be train to terminal, I think a roll on/roll off train would be a bit mad, and force the Irish section to be standard gauge so the train would work. (Not that I'm anti it being standard gauge, but interoperability with the current network would probably be a good idea...)

The whole idea is mad IMO, but for €24 billion you would be talking about proper, full HSR. So you would be talking about a completely new alignment, not shared with any existing service, thus you'd be talking about standard gauge.

You can't mix slower services with true HSR, it doesn't work.

Either way, it will never happen.

CatInABox · 29-06-2020 7:01pm

€24 Billion spent solely on purely public transport projects would essentially solve the commuter crisis in our three biggest cities, and do a fair job on a few more.

A high speed line would be great, but it'd be load down on my list of projects to complete.

riddlinrussell · 29-06-2020 7:22pm

CatInABox wrote: »

€24 Billion spent solely on purely public transport projects would essentially solve the commuter crisis in our three biggest cities, and do a fair job on a few more.

A high speed line would be great, but it'd be load down on my list of projects to complete.

Agreed, even if spent just within the railway network in general that amount could be absolutely transformative.

JohnC. · 29-06-2020 7:50pm

This isn't even anything remotely official, is it? Just some third party group saying "If you're doing this Covid recovery package, here's an idea on what you could do with some of it". Or in the language of this forum, crayons.

Harry Palmr · 29-06-2020 7:55pm

What nonsense is this? The obvious route is Dublin tunnel to Wales and hi speed to Channel tunnel. Cork is irrelevant in a European high speed network.

29-06-2020 8:00pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Cork is irrelevant in a European high speed network.

ya gowl!

CatInABox · 29-06-2020 8:05pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

What nonsense is this? The obvious route is Dublin tunnel to Wales and hi speed to Channel tunnel. Cork is irrelevant in a European high speed network.

Yeah, but that'd involve spending money in a non-EU country, which is obviously a total no go now.

ncounties · 29-06-2020 8:09pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

What nonsense is this? The obvious route is Dublin tunnel to Wales and hi speed to Channel tunnel. Cork is irrelevant in a European high speed network.

Exactly. Studies have led EU policymakers to believe that high-speed rail in Europe is generally competitive over travel distances of between 200 and 500 km, with journeys lasting up to four hours.

If a tunnel was built, it would need to be between Dublin and Holyhead. Then perhaps you might see services from Cork and Limerick to the likes of Liverpool, Manchester. With Belfast and Dublin sustaining additional routes Birmingham and London. Dublin may even be able to support an overnight service to Paris. I could really see demand from both Irish and French markets for that kind of service.

Apart from this, the HS network in Ireland would be well utilised by folk looking to reach other Irish cities.

CatInABox wrote: »

Yeah, but that'd involve spending money in a non-EU country, which is obviously a total no go now.

The EU regularly invest in non-EU countries. Look at North Africa, Morocco in particular, and Balkan states. Besides, I'm sure funding would be forthcoming from the UK, and there would be appetite for such a scheme amongst their electorate. It would also open up a connection with NI, the DUP would love that.

riddlinrussell · 29-06-2020 8:18pm

CatInABox wrote: »

Yeah, but that'd involve spending money in a non-EU country, which is obviously a total no go now.

From the look of the plan they decided they wanted to connect every EU capital and awkwardly drew semi feasible lines between them.

ncounties · 29-06-2020 8:24pm

riddlinrussell wrote: »

From the look of the plan they decided they wanted to connect every EU capital and awkwardly drew semi feasible lines between them.

What demand would there be between Dublin, Galway, Limerick and any of the locations in France up until arriving in Paris? Then compare that with demand of a line going via Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London.

Carawaystick · 29-06-2020 11:09pm

the Chunnel was barely breaking even linking London and England with the mainland, there's no way a tunnel from Dublin to Wales would be a good use for the cash.
Also the trains would go no further due to the gauge difference between Ireland and the other Island.

If there was to be HSR in Cork, where would the new station and route out of the city go?

ncounties · 30-06-2020 7:45am

Carawaystick wrote: »

the Chunnel was barely breaking even linking London and England with the mainland, there's no way a tunnel from Dublin to Wales would be a good use for the cash.
Also the trains would go no further due to the gauge difference between Ireland and the other Island.

If there was to be HSR in Cork, where would the new station and route out of the city go?

"If a tunnel was built..." it would be significantly cheaper to build it from Dublin to Holyhead than anywhere else in the Republic.

Kellyconor1982 · 30-06-2020 7:58am

I think it sounds really cool. I don't see any need for it now and possibly 50 years, but I guess you could argue a lack of foresight has been part of the problem with us.

If by 2050, Dublin had a 5 line Metro system with DU and excellent rail connections around the country and Cork and the other regional cities had excellent pt, then that is surely where we should spend our money.

I know Boris was talking about a rail tunnel between NI and Scotland. That was most likely election spin but the British have talked about that since Victorian times. It might make more sense if we piggybacked on this and had access to the UK and EU through this. I'd love the Hollyhead tunnel, but I would imagine that would be an enormous cost.

Kellyconor1982 · 30-06-2020 8:02am

https://stateofwales.com/2017/10/celtic-crossing-an-irish-sea-tunnel/

Rulmeq · 30-06-2020 8:09am

riddlinrussell wrote: »

From the look of the plan they decided they wanted to connect every EU capital and awkwardly drew semi feasible lines between them.

Nothing awkward about the Louth to Cork via Clare alignment

CatInABox · 30-06-2020 8:59am

ncounties wrote: »

The EU regularly invest in non-EU countries. Look at North Africa, Morocco in particular, and Balkan states. Besides, I'm sure funding would be forthcoming from the UK, and there would be appetite for such a scheme amongst their electorate. It would also open up a connection with NI, the DUP would love that.

The EU regularly invest in countries that are classed as developing, and who want to be closer to the EU. Despite the economic damage that Brexit has inflicted, the UK isn't "developing", and they're clearly antagonistic towards the EU. While there might be a project that the EU would fund, it certainly wouldn't funnel billions into it, hundreds of millions perhaps, but definitely not billions. Projects between Ireland and Northern Ireland would almost certainly get approval, but probably nothing between Ireland and Britain.

Carawaystick wrote: »

Also the trains would go no further due to the gauge difference between Ireland and the other Island.

If there was to be HSR in Cork, where would the new station and route out of the city go?

If true high speed rail was built in Ireland, it wouldn't be Irish gauge, it'd be standard gauge, as high speed and normal rail can't mix anyway. So it'd be all new alignments, all new stations, etc. At a guess, a new station in cork would be on the outskirts for this reason.

L1011 · 30-06-2020 10:46am

CatInABox wrote: »

At a guess, a new station in cork would be on the outskirts for this reason.

If you've got an unlimited chequebook, just do a Vigo and tunnel in to the new station. :pac:

They demolished the main station (after moving everything to a secondary station) and dug down to meet the tunnel.

bk · 30-06-2020 10:51am

Kellyconor1982 wrote: »

If by 2050, Dublin had a 5 line Metro system with DU and excellent rail connections around the country and Cork and the other regional cities had excellent pt, then that is surely where we should spend our money.

Exactly. I think there is an important point people forget when talking about HSR for Ireland. Many people look at other EU countries and see them building HSR networks and say we should be doing the same.

But what they seem to miss, is that most of these EU countries already have excellent public transport/Metro systems built in the primary cities that the HSR is connecting. Think Madrid to Barcelona or Milan to Rome.

They have already spent the time and money building out metro systems in their big cities and now the next logical step is building HSR to connect those cities.

I would argue that excellent public transport system in each city connected by HSR is a pre-requisite for building HSR. After all, there is no point in having HSR from Cork to Dublin, if you then spend an hour stuck in traffic in Dublin getting anywhere! Your HSR really needs to be plugged directly into an extensive metro/DART system in each city to be successful.

The truth of the matter is that we are WAY behind the rest of Europe in infrastructure investment (for obvious and understandable reasons) and we are slowly playing catchup.

We started by building the Motorway network to connect our cities, mostly done, with just the M20 and a few other bits to do. Now it is time to turn our attention to building out high quality public transport systems in our cities, Metrolink, Dart underground, etc.

30 to 50 years from now, hopefully we will have excellent public transport systems and with a growing population in our cities, it would be time to reconsider true HSR * to connect them.

But doing so now, before we have Metros, etc. would be very much putting the cart before the horse.

* Obviously I'm talking about true HSR, not reasonable speed upgrades to the existing rail network.

riddlinrussell · 30-06-2020 12:21pm

L1011 wrote: »

If you've got an unlimited chequebook, just do a Vigo and tunnel in to the new station. :pac:

They demolished the main station (after moving everything to a secondary station) and dug down to meet the tunnel.

I feel an eventual proper HSR link would probably want to Start in Belfast (Maybe Derry?) And basically tunnel under Dublin (to Heuston probably best to avoid any City Centre wrangling, and by the time it could seriously be considered we would have the Interconnector done) And then tunnel under Cork, Station at Kent, and then across to Ringaskiddy where these magical rapid ferries they propose would be waiting to take you to Brest, or more likely somewhere more practical on the north French coast

ncounties · 30-06-2020 1:15pm

CatInABox wrote: »

The EU regularly invest in countries that are classed as developing, and who want to be closer to the EU. Despite the economic damage that Brexit has inflicted, the UK isn't "developing", and they're clearly antagonistic towards the EU.

I'd say going by very recent reports, it could be deemed developing rather quickly.

CatInABox wrote: »

While there might be a project that the EU would fund, it certainly wouldn't funnel billions into it, hundreds of millions perhaps, but definitely not billions. Projects between Ireland and Northern Ireland would almost certainly get approval, but probably nothing between Ireland and Britain.

You're 100% correct about the current attitude of the Boris Government, and it fails in all aspects of everything it approaches, but I think the EU is above this, and Boris will be but a bump in the road of the relationship between the EU and UK longer term, which I could see the UK re-entering the Union when they've stopped with their stupid nationalistic folly. Such a rail link would improve the economies of Ireland, North and South, and connect Ireland with regions of the UK that voted remain. Liverpool, Manchester, Warwick and London.

The EU is clearly trying to tackle the rise in air transport, particularly on busy internal air routes. It can't possible ignore our busiest air route, and the chance to serve some other extremely busy air routes by overnight rail, AMS (DUB being the 4th busiest route out of there) and CDG.

But as BK said, it would make much more sense to ensure we had decent public transport at the termini of the HSR routes in Ireland first, before we look at HSR. Additionally it would make much more sense to have HSR in place before we contemplated a tunnel.

Kellyconor1982 · 30-06-2020 4:06pm

I was actually thinking of this project during the day.

It would be a great project down the line. A lot to like about it. If the British funded half and the EU covered a big chunk of it, then as gigantic a cost as it would be, it might be attainable within two generations. Being able to get to Amsterdam, Paris and Brussels from Dublin within a few hours, let alone Liverpool or London by train would be magnificent. The idea of being able to then connect with cities all over Europe would be incredible. Business, tourism and the environment would all benefit from this project. The more I think of it, the less daft that it sounds and it could be achievable by 2050 or so.

The big battles though are on a local scale. Huge parts of Dublin have 2nd rate pt and within a generation the population of Greater Dublin will be much bigger. Comparable European cities would have a metro of 3-5 lines or at least be well on the way to this. We currently are nicely on the way to half a line by the end of the 2020s. Don't get me wrong it is a huge step in the right direction and it will be a great success, but I feel that it will be the 2030s or 2040s before Dublin begins to resemble having the world class transport system that we crave. Hopefully DU will be a huge part of this as well as multiple Metro lines.
It is encouraging that pt in our regional cities will also be prioritised.

Once these battles are won, then this could be the icing on the cake.

D.L.R. · 30-06-2020 5:20pm

We seem a little overly obsessed with intercity infrastructure in this country, when the real problem is urban transport networks.

Time to focus on the cities where the real capacity problems are.

riddlinrussell · 01-07-2020 11:50am

D.L.R. wrote: »

We seem a little overly obsessed with intercity infrastructure in this country, when the real problem is urban transport networks.

Time to focus on the cities where the real capacity problems are.

To be fair this study is Austrian, not Irish, it has a very 'Closer-ties' focused conception.

If we were to have that amount of money available for rail it would be far better served by making commuter rail feasible in every major city, creating light rail in Cork/Limerick/Galway, metros in Dublin and capacity upgrades to the intercity network

bk · 01-07-2020 3:55pm

riddlinrussell wrote: »

To be fair this study is Austrian, not Irish, it has a very 'Closer-ties' focused conception.

I haven't looked into it in detail of the plan, but the general idea of linking countries in mainland Europe, many of which already have extensive HSR networks, makes sense at a quick glance *

* Though in reality, some of the links, like tunnelling under mountain ranges like the Alps, might prove crazily expensive.

I do feel like the Irish element of it looks like last minute tacked on. Like they thought about mainland Europe and then went, whoops, we forgot about Ireland, they are still in the EU and tacked that on with a crazy ferry.

I don't think for now, the Irish element is a starter at all. Though if we can convince them to give us money to build out Metros, DART, etc. instead, that would be great.

JJJJNR · 01-07-2020 4:03pm

Would it not make more sense to have it in rosslare "europort" everything already in place accept the fecking trains.!!

riddlinrussell · 01-07-2020 4:06pm

bk wrote: »

I haven't looked into it in detail of the plan, but the general idea of linking countries in mainland Europe, many of which already have extensive HSR networks, makes sense at a quick glance *

* Though in reality, some of the links, like tunnelling under mountain ranges like the Alps, might prove crazily expensive.

I do feel like the Irish element of it looks like last minute tacked on. Like they thought about mainland Europe and then went, whoops, we forgot about Ireland, they are still in the EU and tacked that on with a crazy ferry.

I don't think for now, the Irish element is a starter at all. Though if we can convince them to give us money to build out Metros, DART, etc. instead, that would be great.

If the "Closer ties" aspect is the key focus I don't think you could ask for more that a Big sign saying "PAID FOR WITH EU FUNDS" and a big EU Flag on all our Public Transport Schemes to make the people of Ireland feel the warm fuzzies for the European project

bk · 01-07-2020 4:19pm

JJJJNR wrote: »

Would it not make more sense to have it in rosslare "europort" everything already in place accept the fecking trains.!!

It shows that this really isn't thought out.

Either way, no one is getting a high speed train to either Cork or Rosslare and then taking a 14 hour ferry to France and then getting on another train for a few more hours to Paris, etc.

Not when you can just drive to Dublin Airport and jump on a flight and be in Paris in just 1h 40mins. Even with adding on security time, etc., it still wouldn't make sense and you have to do security at the Ferry port anyway.

I suppose by saying Cork to Dublin, they are just being honest, that really it is just an internal Cork to Dublin HSR, no one is actually using it to take the ferry to France. More realistically some Cork folks might use it to get to Dublin Airport quicker.

Also to point out, that in terms of HSR, nothing is in place at Rosslare. HSR wouldn't use Irish gauge, it would use a new, completely separate line, using standard gauge. So from that perspective, Rosslare doesn't have existing infrastructure other then perhaps space.

Really if you were to do true HSR, it would be a complete clean sheet, not using much of any of the existing rail network and as a result it would probably make more sense to go via Cork as then at least it creates a Cork to Dublin connection.

Anyway, not that any of this is happening.

bk · 01-07-2020 4:23pm

riddlinrussell wrote: »

If the "Closer ties" aspect is the key focus I don't think you could ask for more that a Big sign saying "PAID FOR WITH EU FUNDS" and a big EU Flag on all our Public Transport Schemes to make the people of Ireland feel the warm fuzzies for the European project

Yep, I would think the same. Big blue signs like that at the entrance to every Metro station in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, etc. would get seen WAY more often daily, by hundreds of thousands of people, compared to just the entrance to two HSR stations and a slow ferry to France.

liamog · 01-07-2020 5:31pm

Reminds me of the Hawaiian interstat funding, it's a Federal Programme so they couldn't be seen to be denied funding.

Kellyconor1982 · 01-07-2020 9:25pm

The only way that it would be really feasible would be a tunnel from Dublin to Holyhead. This would open up the UK and with the Channel Tunnel it is feasible to get to the continent in decent times to make it attractive. Gigantic costs but with British funding and EU funding, this may go a long way towards making it slightly more reasonable.

I quite like the sound of it, but in reality with the amount wrong with our transport system, it seems like something from another planet.

The mad thing is that a tunnel like this would get more support around the country than big transport projects like DU and multiple Metro lines in Dublin.

Brian CivilEng · 02-07-2020 4:10pm

I wish that a serious study would be carried out out on the feasibility of a high speed rail connection to the UK and continental Europe. Because while unfeasible, it is not ridiculous, is possible with today's technology and while expensive may come down in price as technology advances. It's something I give a lot of thought to when I need a break from work without letting the analytical part of my brain shut down.

Some of my thoughts, based entirely on operations, not costs. Assuming 160km/h max speed in a tunnel and 260km/h otherwise. Calcs may not be exact, some rounding etc. Thought exercise only.

Cork to Brest Ferry:
in order to compete with flights to Edinburgh/London/Paris/Brussels you need a sub 4hr city centre to city centre travel time. That rules IMHO out the Cork ferry connection for anything other than those who can't or don't want to fly. Not a large enough user base. Maybe if overnight, but you are still talking 600km Brest to Paris even afterwards. Landbridge across the UK is the only option, once British President Leo Blair takes them back into the EU of course.

Tunnel from Northern Ireland to Scotland:
The actual tunnel is feasible and would not break any world records for length or depth. I'm assuming a curved tunnel from Bangor to Portpatrick, approx 40km long (shorter than the Channel Tunnel), with a max depth of 300m below sea level (shallower than Rogfast in Norway).

Bare minimum infrastructure required to get it open (call it Phase 1) would be an above ground standard gauge (1435mm) line from Belfast to the tunnel (around 25km), and a connection from the Scottish side to the existing railway line near Stranraer, about 15km, plus some line upgrade works between Stranraer and Ayr. So with that, you'd could probably do Belfast to Glasgow in three hours, Edinburgh in four.
Phase 2 works are needed in reality. On the Scottish side you'd need a high speed railway from Portpatrick to Carlise (to link in with future HS2 services). Maybe 150km with some tunneling. On the Irish side you'd need a high speed standard guage railway from Belfast to Dublin (around 160km). At this point travel times are getting reasonable assuming average speed of 200km/h and forecasted HS2 journey times. Add another hour assuming a High Speed Railway is constructed from Cork to Dublin.
Belfast (Dublin) to:

Carlisle: 1 hour 10mins (2hours)
Glasgow: 2 hour 50mins (3 hour 40mins)
Edinburgh: 2 hour 40mins (3 hour 30mins)
Manchester: 2 hour 50mins (3 hour 40mins)
London: 4 hour 15mins (5 hour 5mins)
(assuming 60min stopover in London)
Paris : 7hour 30mins (8hour 20mins)
Brussels: 7hour 15mins (8hour 5mins)
Amsterdam: 9hours (9hour 50mins).

Dublin to London by slow ferry and boat takes around 8 hours right now so a good 3 hours would be knocked off this. However I can't help but think that HS2 should knock 30mins off the journey time anyway, and a high speed North Wales line Holyhead to Crewe could easily knock another hour off of this (6hours 30mins total), plus would future proof for a Dublin to Holyhead tunnel.

In summary, Scotland to Northern Ireland is technologically feasible, but would require 150km of new railway in Scotland and 200km in Ireland, would only compete with air for routes to Glasgow/Edinburgh/Manchester, and at a pinch London. Although there would be a lot to be said for a Cork - Dublin - Belfast - Glasgow - Dublin axis economy connected by rail.

Tunnel from Dublin to Holyhead:

I'm assuming a tunnel portal around Baldoyle. On the Welsh side the tunnel would emerge near Holyhead. You are looking at 100km minimum. This is twice as long as the current longest rail tunnels in the world, the Channel Tunnel, Seikan tunnel in Japan and Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland. Depth would be around 120m, so similar to Seikan, but much deeper than the Channel tunnel. Probably not feasible using current technology, or if it is it would be quite expensive. But for this thought experiment lets assume that it is.

Bare minimum infrastructure that you'd need would be a transfer station to the Northern Line near Portmarnock. A more useful do minimum would be a railway line from the portal to Dublin Airport for connections via Metrolink. Then you are looking at 120km from the airport to Holyhead. Travel times 30mins city centre to the airport, 50mins to Holyhead, then the current 3 hours 45mins to London, so lets say 5 hours Dublin to London. Knock 35mins off that for when HS2 opens. Almost competitive with flying. Almost.

Now imagine a high speed railway line from Dublin to Belfast via Dublin Airport, with a delta junction allowing direct Dublin to London or Belfast to London trains. Add on 1 hour for a Cork to Dublin high speed line. Then on the Welsh side assume there is a high speed line from Holyhead to Crewe.

Dublin (Belfast) to:

Crewe: 1 hour 50mins (2hour30min)
Glasgow: 4hour 35mins (5hour 15mins)
Edinburgh: 4hour 35mins (5hour 15mins)
Manchester: 2 hour 10mins (2 hour 50mins)
London: 2 hour 45mins (3hour 15mins)
(assuming 60min stopover in London)
Paris : 6 hours (6 hour 40mins)
Brussels: 5 hour 45mins (6 hour 25mins)
Amsterdam: 7hours 30mins (8 hour 10mins)

Definitely competitive to London. Would struggle against flying for further journeys in my opinion. Travel times to continental Europe are hampered by the Euston to St. Pancras walk.

I haven't really looked at the Rosslare Fishguard tunnel option, so let me come back to you on that one.

Conclusions:
Would these tunnels be used? For freight, definitely. For passengers, last year around 15million pax travelled from Dublin to the UK by air, pretty much all of those would be up for grabs with either tunnel. Assuming around 7.5million using the tunnel per year, or about 20,000 passengers per day. Channel Tunnel gets three times that.

I don't know. Would love to have this studied in detail. For now, back to work.

bk · 02-07-2020 5:15pm

One thing to keep in mind in these comparisons, is that the flight time from Dublin to London is just 1 hour and 15 minutes, Dublin to Paris 1 hour 40 minutes. When you might say 4 hours, people are adding time to get to the airport, security, etc.

But for this comparison, you have to remember that boarding these sort of HSR trains will require the same sort of security checks, passport, emigration, etc. at the train station, as you'd get at the airport, as you are travelling internationally.

For example for Eurotunnel, you have to check in at least 45 minutes in advance and up to 2 hours before. It is much more like an airport experience then normal train experience. So I'd say add at least an hour to all those above times to make it a fair comparison.

So even in your best case scenarios, it would be in no way be competitive with getting to mainland Europe.

For the UK, I'd also say it wouldn't be competitive going from Dublin via Belfast.

Going to London via Holyhead would make it roughly the same as flying. So maybe sort of ok, though I'd say it would struggle to compete with Dublin to London City Airport that many business travellers do.

So what we are saying, the only way this would work is by going for the insanely expensive option, that requires engineering that we doesn't even exist and not sure is possible. And even then, it might just barely be match flying to London today and pretty useless for getting to mainland Europe.

I'm guessing doing this via Holyhead and with HSR2 on both sides, would be approaching 100 billion

I won't say never, but I can't see it happening in my lifetime. Specially now with Brexit. I don't think the UK cares about Ireland at all, so why would they pay for it? And why would the EU pay for it, as it really just a link for us to the UK, not really mainland Europe.

It would certainly be criminal to spend that sort of money, before we have sorted the urban transit networks in our cities first.

Definitely an interesting thought experiment.

ncounties · 02-07-2020 6:06pm

Studies have already led EU policymakers to believe that high-speed rail in Europe is generally only competitive over travel distances of between 200 and 500 km, with journeys lasting up to four hours.

Considering this, if a tunnel was built, the longest HSR route that would be seen as viable would be Dublin to London, or Belfast to Birmingham (perhaps London too, ignoring these findings).

Destinations farther afield, to the likes of Paris or Amsterdam, could only be viable as overnight services.

Brian CivilEng · 02-07-2020 6:49pm

bk wrote: »

One thing to keep in mind in these comparisons, is that the flight time from Dublin to London is just 1 hour and 15 minutes, Dublin to Paris 1 hour 40 minutes. When you might say 4 hours, people are adding time to get to the airport, security, etc.

But for this comparison, you have to remember that boarding these sort of HSR trains will require the same sort of security checks, passport, emigration, etc. at the train station, as you'd get at the airport, as you are travelling internationally.

For example for Eurotunnel, you have to check in at least 45 minutes in advance and up to 2 hours before. It is much more like an airport experience then normal train experience. So I'd say add at least an hour to all those above times to make it a fair comparison.

Well maybe President Leo Blair will let the UK join Schengen. Trains to UK would be no different to domestic ones though surely, with the current CTA in place?

We did Ferry+Train+Eurostar to Disneyland last year. Needed to show a passport and go through security but was way less stressful than flying. Boat to Holyhead was fine, train to London was a bit crowded and 3hrs 45mins was slightly too long for a 3 year old. The Eurostar itself was relaxing after a night's sleep in London. Would definitely recommend it as a reduced stress holiday, but not if time is any way restricted.

bk · 02-07-2020 6:56pm

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

Well maybe President Leo Blair will let the UK join Schengen. Trains to UK would be no different to domestic ones though surely, with the current CTA in place?

Even if we were all part of Schengen (LOL not happening), given the dangers of an explosive device on a train in an underwater tunnel, you would be certain that security would be similar to an airport, if not higher. That is why it is like that with Eurotunnel. The passport isn't the major issue, checking bags, vehicles, etc. for explosives is.

Specially when you would consider the delicate political nature with Northern Ireland and certain groups history of targeting explosives at trains over decades and even Ferries in the past year.

Brian CivilEng · 02-07-2020 7:26pm

I love that you didn't bat an eyelid at President Leo Blair of Britain but Schengen, now that's pushing it!

While none of this is likely to happen in our lifetime, I still believe it would be a worthwhile study. Particularly as I would expect other efficiencies to be identified.

gjim · 02-07-2020 8:00pm

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

I wish that a serious study would be carried out out on the feasibility of a high speed rail connection to the UK and continental Europe. Because while unfeasible, it is not ridiculous

I beg to differ. It's ridiculous because of the cost versus the benefit is so out of whack that it would make getting a national children's hospital for 10B look like a bargain.

I'm not going to pick through everything you've written but to give some idea of the sums of money we're talking about here - the 200km of HSR you're proposing for the Irish side to use a North Channel tunnel could cost over 30B if estimates for HS2 in the UK are accurate and I don't see much reason to think that such infrastructure is going to be any cheaper to build in Ireland than the UK.

That's before you even get to the point of tunnelling under the sea.

The whole thing could easily cost north of 100B and at the end of the day what benefit does it actually provide? At least 10 times as many people will want Dublin-London over all the other pairs of end-points put together (Cork-Edinburgh, Belfast-Carlisle). But for these people, the journey will take longer than flying.

I mean we're talking about spending more than 10 years our capital spending on motorways, schools, hospitals, public transport, etc. to "benefit" at best 10 thousand passengers a day. For comparison the Channel Tunnel carries about 50k passengers a day.

Brian CivilEng · 02-07-2020 8:11pm

gjim wrote: »

I beg to differ. It's ridiculous because of the cost versus the benefit is so out of whack that it would make getting a national children's hospital for 10B look like a bargain.

Just to point out one thing I mentioned in my post above was that I wasn't going to talk about costs, it was a thought experiment about what could be achieved if it was there. What I called for was a proper feasibility study, not for it to be built!

There is value in working through these things, as in doing this you will encounter and solve problems that are relevant to today.

bk · 02-07-2020 8:15pm

I do think it is an interesting thought experiment, so lets look at the numbers you gave. First some assumptions.

- Lets exclude travel time to Dublin Airport, since you are suggesting putting the HSR train stations for this near there. A very good idea BTW, tie in with Metrolink, Northern Line and all the intercity bus services at the airport. Makes a lot of sense from that perspective, though I don't know about suitability of that area for the start of a tunnel, etc.

- Lets say you need to be at both 1 hour before departure for security. DAA says 90 minutes, but that is only because they want you to shop at Duty Free. Any frequent flyer knows that 1 hour before is plenty of time (pre-Covid19 obviously). Hell an hour before and in my experience you'll have a good 20 minutes sitting at the gate.

- Lets only look at the best case scenario in terms of journey speed. Dublin via Holyhead using HSR2 all the way.

Dublin to Paris:
HSR: Security 1h + Journey 6 hours = 7 hours
Flying: Security 1h + Flight 1 hour 50 minutes + train to Paris 50 minutes = 3h 40 mins

Yeah, not a starter at all. And I'd take the above just a proxy for mainland Europe, going anywhere else in Europe is going to be much worse then that.

Dublin to London Train:
HSR: Security 1h + Journey 2h 45mins = 3h 45min

Dublin to London City Airport:
Flight: Security 1h + Journey 1h 30min = 2h 30 mins

No business traveller is going to take the train. Specially when you consider that LCY drops you within almost walking distance of where most business travellers are going.

Dublin to Heathrow:
Flight: Security 1h + Journey 1h 30min + Heathrow Express 15 minutes = 2h 45 mins

So I'd say not competitive at all for mainland Europe and barely for London.

Certainly not worth at probably 100 billion price tag. I suppose you could make an environmental argument. But I think that would be poor, think what you could do with that money. You could literally replace every single car in Ireland with a brand new Electric car and have enough left over for 12 Metro lines!!!

ncounties · 02-07-2020 8:16pm

It would be worth looking at a comparable distance project. The Dublin - Holyhead tunnel is to us, what a Helsinki - Tallinn tunnel is to Finland and Estonia. The Finn's expected such a project to cost €20b back in 2018, and China's Touchstone Capital has offered to fund up to €15b of this.

Whilst I would be uncomfortable of our nation to be heavily [further] indebted to the Chinese, this is still a point worthy of note, as it shows there are plenty of funding options out there for a project of this scale.

Edit - I personally always thought the current docks would be the ideal terminus for our international HSR services.

Brian CivilEng · 02-07-2020 8:29pm

ncounties wrote: »

It would be worth looking at a comparable distance project. The Dublin - Holyhead tunnel is to us, what a Helsinki - Tallinn tunnel is to Finland and Estonia. The Finn's expected such a project to cost €20b back in 2018, and China's Touchstone Capital has offered to fund up to €15b of this.

Unfortunately Dublin to Holyhead would need to be at least 100km in tunnel. Helsinki to Talinn is about 50km, which is about where the industry is at the moment.

Brian CivilEng · 02-07-2020 9:02pm

My sums are all over the gaff here, just deleted them to save face. Here's the gist of my argument, it's too late.

bk wrote: »

Certainly not worth at probably 100 billion price tag. I suppose you could make an environmental argument. But I think that would be poor, think what you could do with that money. You could literally replace every single car in Ireland with a brand new Electric car and have enough left over for 12 Metro lines!!!

Again, can we please keep price out of this! And opportunity costs. I don't mean to sound rude, it's just that what I'd like to discuss based on the valid points you made above would be what problems would we need to solve to make it viable rather than why it's impossible, that's kind of the thought experiment I'm going for.

Working backwards, what travel time would be required to make the rail viable to different destinations?

Dublin to London is 500km via my route to Crewe and then HS2 to London (I define arriving in London as having my first pint at the Euston Tap). I'd say there are more time costs to flying, like walking from pier to terminal, waiting for baggage, waiting for train to city etc, but personally I've never made it door to door in less than 4 hours by plane. It takes me 20mins to get to the airport by taxi, so lets call it 3 hours 40mins Dublin airport to Euston Tap. Which is pretty darn close to what I had worked out.

London to Paris is around 450km by Eurostar, so call Dublin to Paris 950km. I'd question your 3 hours 40, can we call it 4hours, Dublin airport to Gare du Nord? So now we need a 3 hour travel time Dublin to Paris (180mins). Which would require an average speed of 320km/h (feasibile), plus a connection between HS2 and HS1 (unlikely, but if the UK joined Schengen it would be desirable).

Eurostar has a top speed of 320km/h outside of the Channel tunnel, and HS2 is being designed to a 400km/h design speed (not running speed). I tried to work out what speed we'd need and got too bogged down, but suffices to say, it would be faster than what technology exits.

So to get a competitive Dublin to Paris train journey you'd need:

Tunnel Dublin to Holyhead
North Wales High Speed Railway
HS2 to HS1 through running connection
An express train, only stopping in London.
Trains that could run faster than the design speed of the track.
Accepting a slightly longer journey as a trade off for the comfort of a train

bk · 02-07-2020 10:36pm

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

My sums are all over the gaff here, just deleted them to save face. Here's the gist of my argument, it's too late.

That is a pity, there was no need to do that. Your numbers were pretty spot on, though maybe a bit over optimistic (see below), mostly you just needed to be realistic about security and passport control and add 1 hour to each.

In the end, the numbers are what they are, I think they very clearly showed that Belfast is completely mad and that even via Holyhead it would be a hard sell.

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

Again, can we please keep price out of this! And opportunity costs. I don't mean to sound rude, it's just that what I'd like to discuss based on the valid points you made above would be what problems would we need to solve to make it viable rather than why it's impossible, that's kind of the thought experiment I'm going for.

I appreciate that, but I don't think that is a realistic to ask. In the end most major capital projects are decided on the cost. Afterall if this project cost just 1 billion, then I'd say go for it, even if slower then flying, just based on the environmental benefits and more options. But at 100 billion....

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

Working backwards, what travel time would be required to make the rail viable to different destinations?

Realistically it would need to beat a business person flying from Dublin to London City Airport. That just isn't happening. At best it would be competitive with Heathrow.

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

Dublin to London is 500km via my route to Crewe and then HS2 to London (I define arriving in London as having my first pint at the Euston Tap). I'd say there are more time costs to flying, like walking from pier to terminal, waiting for baggage, waiting for train to city etc, but personally I've never made it door to door in less than 4 hours by plane. It takes me 20mins to get to the airport by taxi, so lets call it 3 hours 40mins Dublin airport to Euston Tap. Which is pretty darn close to what I had worked out.

Well hold on there now, lets use real numbers!

Why are you adding 20 minutes for taxi ride to Dublin airport. I thought you were putting the HSR station out by the airport. Won't you need to make the same taxi ride to there?!

And Dublin to London via Holyhead is 582km best case scenario.

London to Paris is 450km and takes 2 hours and 23 minutes.

That means at the same average speed it would take 3 hours for Dublin to London.

I actually think it would take longer, as the train can only go 160km/h in the tunnel, and with an Irish tunnel twice as long, it would probably be another 20 minutes. But lets be overly optimistic and say 3 hours.

And of course that is non stop to London, no stops along the way, perhaps unrealistic.

Now add 1 hour for security/emigration control and you are at 4 hours.

By comparison, Dublin to London City Airport is 1hour security + 1h 30 minutes flight and puts you in the heart of Londons business district.

That is 2h 30 minutes at the moment, versus 4 hours by train! Even if you want to round the flying up to 3 hours, it still isn't really competitive.

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

London to Paris is around 450km by Eurostar, so call Dublin to Paris 950km. I'd question your 3 hours 40, can we call it 4hours, Dublin airport to Gare du Nord? So now we need a 3 hour travel time Dublin to Paris (180mins). Which would require an average speed of 320km/h (feasibile), plus a connection between HS2 and HS1 (unlikely, but if the UK joined Schengen it would be desirable).

Huh, so we have 3 hours from Dublin to London, 2h 20 mins London to Paris, 1 hour security at Dublin and this is all assuming you don't stop in London to change trains or have to do passport and security there.

So you are looking at 6 hours 20 mins best case scenario, but maybe 7 hours 20 mins (changing trains in London).

So 4 hours flying versus best case scenario of 6 hour 20 minutes. Still well over 2 hours slower.

bk · 02-07-2020 11:00pm

ncounties wrote: »

It would be worth looking at a comparable distance project. The Dublin - Holyhead tunnel is to us, what a Helsinki - Tallinn tunnel is to Finland and Estonia. The Finn's expected such a project to cost €20b back in 2018, and China's Touchstone Capital has offered to fund up to €15b of this.

Better comparison would be the Channel Tunnel.

Adjusted for inflation, it cost £18 Billion, about €20 Billion. But it is only 50 km, we would need 100km so that is over €40 Billion. But it is much more difficult project, being much longer, I'd say it would really be 50Bn, if not more.

Then you need about 150km of need HS2 track across Wales. At the per km cost for HS2, that is about €13 Bn.

And of course you will want a Dublin to Belfast HS2, otherwise why would the British agree. That would cost about €15 Bn

So conservatively Belfast - Dublin - London would be about €70 - €80 Billion. In reality I'd say it could easily hit the 100 Billion mark.

Brian CivilEng · 03-07-2020 9:45am

bk wrote: »

That is a pity, there was no need to do that. Your numbers were pretty spot on, though maybe a bit over optimistic (see below), mostly you just needed to be realistic about security and passport control and add 1 hour to each.

I subtracted 56mins from three hours and got 184mins. Luckily nobody spotted it. I don't hide my identity on here and I'm supposed to be a chartered engineer.

bk wrote: »

In the end, the numbers are what they are, I think they very clearly showed that Belfast is completely mad and that even via Holyhead it would be a hard sell.

Which is why I think this is a good exercise. NI to Scotland tunnel is feasible with current tech, but a simple numbers game shows that it would have limited use outside of a fast connection to Scotland.

bk wrote: »

In the end most major capital projects are decided on the cost. Afterall if this project cost just 1 billion, then I'd say go for it, even if slower then flying, just based on the environmental benefits and more options. But at 100 billion....

However for a thread on boards, quoting that cost would make it completely unrealistic just kills the conversation, and I'm left sitting here thinking that I would have enjoyed another four hours trying to shave off 2mins with by-passing Conwy before ruling the whole thing out.

bk wrote: »

Well hold on there now, lets use real numbers!

Why are you adding 20 minutes for taxi ride to Dublin airport. I thought you were putting the HSR station out by the airport. Won't you need to make the same taxi ride to there?!

I probably phrased that badly, I was trying to use real numbers. I disagreed with your London Heathrow travel time as optimistic, but in the past I have made it from the Euston Tap to home in just over four hours. So I said since it was 20mins taxi to my house, we'd set a target travel time of Dublin Airport to London of 3 hours 40mins.

bk wrote: »

And Dublin to London via Holyhead is 582km best case scenario.

My notional Dublin Airport to Tunnel to Crewe alignment came to 260km by what was a likely routing not a straight line (accepting I'm not a permanent way engineer). HS2 Phases 1 and 2a is 240km. Hence my 500km. Checking my numbers, the HS2 figure is just to Old Oak Common, add another 8km for Euston. And if we are being fair then, another 9km for Dublin Airport to town. 520km.

bk wrote: »

And of course that is non stop to London, no stops along the way, perhaps unrealistic.

HS2 stations would be Crewe (which will have an express by-pass), Birmingham Interchange, Old Oak Common and London. Would a Dublin - Crewe - Brum - OOC - London service be max 15mins longer than a non stop service? Allow a 2min dwell time and 3mins lost to acceleration/deceleration per stop.

I think your numbers proved that it probably wouldn't be first choice for business travelers (although there is an argument that train time is not lost time as it is easier to work but we'll ignore that for now). Would there be enough usage without business travelers? The comparison with the Channel Tunnel is one I'd like to discuss further. It gets 20million pax per annum (split about 50% eurostar, 50% car shuttle, I'm ignoring freight for now). Could those numbers be sustained with a link from Ireland?

I think I said earlier that there was 15million passengers from Dublin to the UK in 2019, I meant to say from Rep. Ireland to the UK (showing my hometown bias here). So the question is how much of that market could be captured by high speed rail? I know I read a paper on this before, I'll see if I can root it out again.

bk · 03-07-2020 11:32am

Brian CivilEng wrote: »

I think your numbers proved that it probably wouldn't be first choice for business travelers (although there is an argument that train time is not lost time as it is easier to work but we'll ignore that for now). Would there be enough usage without business travelers? The comparison with the Channel Tunnel is one I'd like to discuss further. It gets 20million pax per annum (split about 50% eurostar, 50% car shuttle, I'm ignoring freight for now). Could those numbers be sustained with a link from Ireland?

I think I said earlier that there was 15million passengers from Dublin to the UK in 2019, I meant to say from Rep. Ireland to the UK (showing my hometown bias here). So the question is how much of that market could be captured by high speed rail? I know I read a paper on this before, I'll see if I can root it out again.

The Dublin to London Air route has 4.7 million passengers per year or just over 13,000 passengers per day.

Though I'd be shocked if you could even capture half that, for the following reasons:

- Lots of folks are heading to Heathrow, to transfer onto other flights to US, middle east, etc. Major hub airport.
- Business Travellers probably better off heading straight to LCY
- People not actually heading to London City, but somewhere on the outskirts.
- Cheaper flights, Ryanair is going to go all out competing with this.

I'd be surprised if it hit 6,000 per day.

On the other hand, you would might gain passengers from ferry services, in particular cars.

I'd be surprised if it could hit 5 million people per year (13,600 per day).

I think missing out on business travellers would be a major concern. Premium class tickets can really help make or break services like this.

Nermal · 03-07-2020 11:40am

It's concievable that at some point there will be no flights for an extended period (Eyjafjallajökull-type event) and that flights may become prohibitively expensive (environment-related taxation).

Is that not an argument in favour of building the NI tunnel that we know can be built, even though we know it will not give a positive return in normal conditions? Redundancy and anti-fragility are important.

European Mega Train Network (Dublin to Cork)

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