IE 222 wrote: » Greens are in there now so wouldn't be surprised if the bypass was to be pulled. It's not really needed to be fair. 18th century, you make it out as though the line has been closed since the 1900's. M20 will be the biggest waste of tax payers money. I travel the N20 regularly at rush hour and apart from a few more 2 plus 1 lanes between Croom and Newtwopothouse it doesn't need much upgrading. The M9 is empty for the best part and that leads to Dublin.
Cookiemunster wrote: » The bypass won't be pulled. The Greens have already caved in on that one in the PFG. The bigger parties want these roads built. All they've gotten is the 2:1 commitment of spending for PT over roads with another commitment to revisit the infrastructure plans. And the improved connection to Foynes is a European Ten-T route so it will be built. I'll just leave this post from the M20 thread of the roads fourm here. That plus the fact that the engineering team (the actual experts) have already looked at all the possible routes (6 of the 7 options involved some connection to the M8) and have already decided to follow the current M20 for the reasons stated in the above quoted post. And I've no idea why the M9 from Waterford to Dublin is in any way relevant. The current N20 has a higher AADT that the M9. And that's on a dangerous narrow windy road with no hard shoulder for over hard the route.
Cookiemunster wrote: » Old 18th century alignments are not the answer.
Cookiemunster wrote: » The WRC shows this where the bus is much faster using the motorway.
Cookiemunster wrote: » If commuter rail is going to be built, then it should be done properly, not half arsed on slow winding tracks.
Cookiemunster wrote: » And a direct rail connection from Cork to Limerick is part of the M20 design remit. Although a reconfiguration of Limerick Junction is probably the simplest and cheapest way to achieve this.
IE 222 wrote: » A motorway is not required for the level of traffic on the N20. It's over kill. M9 as a comparison is to show it also was not needed to built as a motorway for its entirety, maybe as far a Carlow.
road_high wrote: » This gets really tiresome. NRA traffic stats all suggest otherwise. They're easy to look up and compare with all the other motorways. If the M9 is empty then so are all the others.
dowlingm wrote: » Returning to the Adare railway line idea. I can’t see people in Adare being thrilled about their village becoming a railhead for commuters in Limerick and cheap/quick housing being thrown up all around it. Nothing I have heard about Limerick local government makes me thing anything else would happen. To my mind, a Limerick-Adare shuttle for the Ryder Cup is difficult because it would imply a large park and ride somewhere and I can’t identify a plot of land which is large enough (even with temporary decking over parkland) AND good enough road access to move lots of cars in and out from various directions. Maybe the P&R would have to be somewhere on the Ennis, Limerick Junction or Nenagh lines Trying to ram heavy rail through Carey’s Park and into the station proper should be to my mind the subject of a longer term project with much better justification than the Ryder fecking Cup
metrovick001 wrote: » "Old 18th century alignments are not the answer" the funny thing is thats exactly what the new motorways have done
River Suir wrote: » I have no doubt that if the Department of Finance and the NTA gave railways the same priority as roads then money would be found immediately to build straighter alignments than the existing ones.
bk wrote: » I see comments like this repeated a lot and I'm really surprised that folks don't really understand how government work.Decisions on major infrastructure projects are not made by the NTA/TII/DoT, etc. Such decisions are made right at the top, by the government cabinet. The above bodies only implement the decisions and policies made by cabinet, with funding made available to them by cabinet.
River Suir wrote: » The biggest cost in railway construction is the purchase of the land on which to run the railway.
Pete_Cavan wrote: » That is absolutely not true. The cost of purchasing land is little compared to the cost of actual construction. Even where the land is already owned, the cost of rebuilding the railway is extremely high. Building and maintaining railways is extremely expensive.
Cookiemunster wrote: » What? The motorways are most definitely not following old 18th century alignments. They may roughly follow the route of the old roads they replaced, but that's about it. They are completely new roads on new straighter alignments allowing for grade separation and faster travel. How you can't see that new straighter rail alignments, grade separated from the road network allowing quicker trains aren't better than reopening old slow alignments like Ennis - Athenry is beyond me.
Losty Dublin wrote: » Yes the government of the day decides on what they want done but in practice Cabinet relies on their base departments to commission reports and studies and obtain stats and figures that are used to determine how their policy is implemented.
River Suir wrote: » It would be helpful to give a breakdown of costs of such a project?
Pete_Cavan wrote: » WRC Phase 1 cost approx €1.8m per kilometre. This is the low end of the scale given the land had already been leveled, gradients set, etc. due to it having previously hosted a railway so minimal civil works required. Building a new railway on a natural landscape which is generally not level enough for rail tracks, geographical features to deal with, God knows what kind of ground conditions, etc. A new line would be multiples of that. Lets say we want to build 50km of railway. To purchase 1km of say, 25m wide corridor for rail would be 6.18 acres. Average price of an acre nationally without a residence in 2019 was €8,823. Lets more than double that to €20,000 to allow for disruption etc caused. That would be approx. €125,000 per km if railway. If you want to build 50km of railway would cost €6.25m Assuming on average a house has to be CPOed every 1km (unlikely to be that high but anyway). Thats 50 @ say €350k average price (current national average is €260k) so thats €17.5m. If you want to build 50km of railway so not all is agricultural land, some will be in or near urban areas with commercial properties or other lands. Lets say another 50 properties/plots of land @ €500,000 each, thats another €25m. All that isn't even €50m, or about half the construction cost per km of WRC Phase 1, which remember is the low end of the scale. Have you got anything to support your claim that the biggest cost in railway construction is the purchase of the land on which to run the railway?
River Suir wrote: » Sure, Google HS2. Plenty there.
Cookiemunster wrote: » Lands costs in the densely populated England (432 people per square km) are a tad higher than land costs in the sparsely populated Ireland (71 people per square km).
River Suir wrote: » So in that case theDepartment of Transport and NTA’s policy of only building railways on existing or previous alignments makes no sense.
River Suir wrote: » After all land being so cheap and all that means that railways could and should be expanded. The cost for the Ennis to Athenry extension without land purchase was quite cheap compared to the cost of the Tuam bypass which was five times that of the railway.
River Suir wrote: » But it seems that roads aren’t subject to so much scrutiny and anger by keyboard engineers.
River Suir wrote: » So in that case the Department of Transport and NTA’s policy of only building railways on existing or previous alignments makes no sense. After all land being so cheap and all that means that railways could and should be expanded. The cost for the Ennis to Athenry extension without land purchase was quite cheap compared to the cost of the Tuam bypass which was five times that of the railway. But it seems that roads aren’t subject to so much scrutiny and anger by keyboard engineers.
Pete_Cavan wrote: » WRC Phase 1 cost approx €1.8m per kilometre. This is the low end of the scale given the land had already been leveled, gradients set, etc. due to it having previously hosted a railway so minimal civil works required. Building a new railway on a natural landscape which is generally not level enough for rail tracks, geographical features to deal with, God knows what kind of ground conditions, etc. A new line would be multiples of that. Lets say we want to build 50km of railway. To purchase 1km of say, 25m wide corridor for rail would be 6.18 acres. Average price of an acre nationally without a residence in 2019 was €8,823. Lets more than double that to €20,000 to allow for disruption etc caused. That would be approx. €125,000 per km if railway. If you want to build 50km of railway would cost €6.25m
Losty Dublin wrote: » With respect but you appear to be ignorant of the extent of work undertaken to have the line reopened.The old track was lifted while the old track ballast was dug up and removed from site. All old signalling was removed, along with trackside signage. New CWT track and ballast was laid with new colour light signalling to control train movements. The base of the trackbed was cleaned, with over a century of debris of underlying muck removed. Once this was done excavation teams came in to dig out and to remove some of the steeper cambers and dips en route Where possible curves were eased; again excavation teams were involved for same. Embankments along the route were examined, repaired and strengthened to deal with faster trains. As with the trackbed, some were eased to level off the route as much as possible. Cuttings were also cleared and reengineered as appropriate. The entire route had membranes laid. This will assist the long term drainage and stability of the route. All bridges and culverts en route were surveyed and inspected and either strengthened or rebuild as required. Drains and overflows along the route were cleared and improved or replaced as required. Some private level crossings were closed and replaced with bridges or shared crossing points. Others had their layouts improved and widened to allow for safer use, and in many instances cattle grids and matting was provided. Road crossings had automatic monitored barriers installed. Fencing was also renewed. New stations were provided along with car parking. Gort, a crossing point, also had a wheelchair assessable footbridge provided. This list isn't by any means exhaustive but it is entirely fair to say that the line was not far from rebuilt. While you are correct to say that there won't be much in the way of new civil engineering, it is but one factor to allow for.
