I came across some road infrastructure plans for Dublin which never happened, THANKFULLY. I thought it would be interesting to post here and see what other projects people can think of.
It's still there, but between T1 and T2. It will be used by Metrolink.
There is no station box anywhere.
Urban legend
Not a box, no, but an area has been kept free of services between T1 and T2 to facilitate an underground rail station.
There isn't that either.
The T2 Surface Carpark, which isn't between the terminals (what is between the terminals is basically more terminal - the bus gates and airport lounges in the remains of Pier C of T1) is where the station will be dug and then a new bus terminal put on top of it. Its beside the church.
Rural Light Rail for Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal
https://www.oceanfm.ie/2017/01/20/light-rail-proposed-to-connect-sligo-donegal-and-northern-ireland/
Luas for Sligo Town
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/sligo-plans-tram-system-to-beat-traffic-1.168341
Reopening the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties
https://www.constructionireland.ie/construction-news/80833/consideration-for-ambitious-enniskillen-rail-plans
You'd have to wonder what sort of drug intake at council meetings was going on.
A now deceased rail enthusiast drew up nice looking documents (but not viable plans) for tram-trains on basically every closed railway line and a few councils took them quite seriously. I don't know if there's an archive of his website anywhere.
At one point the WRC wikipedia page had a diagram showing it being reconstructed as an LGV (yes, as in TGV)
Dublin Corportation had a plan in the 1930s which included - I am not making this up - Closing the loop line because the stairs were were a problem for old folks using them. Stopping all rail service into the city and reopening the canals for passenger use, and my favourite of all, turning O'Connell Street into an airport. This is not a joke the plan is out there if you search.
There was also that psychotic plan to build a flood barrier from Howth to Bray with 'a Luas running down the middle'.
Killed himself because his rural rail evangelism didn't take off. Tragic but true. Poor guy had a lot of issues and took his zeal for his Rural Rail Link plans way too OTT.
Dublin Car-poration more like.
Can he be named?
Less Grand Vitesse?? 😂
He can be, but he should be left to rest in the peace that was denied him by some smartarses on the Internet while he lived.
Agreed
They wanted to fill in the canals and squeeze in a four-lane dual carriageway (just about possible) or go the whole hog and construct Newcastle-style twin-deck full urban motorway.
Post deleted by mod for violating Godwin’s law.
BRT for Dublin. This was what was being touted when BusConnects first launched. Turned out, it's just more dressed-up QBCs.
Yep, Swiftway it was called. 6 of the Bus Connects spines are the new incarnations of the Swiftway routes, but are a downgrade in terms of spec.
It really annoyed me the way the gov buried the idea and seemed to deny all knowledge.
This is the sort of thing that comes to mind whenever I hear complaints that our local councils haven't enough power and should be given greater funding and authorities. To paraphrase the quote attributed to Churchill; the greatest argument against having Local Councillors is a 5 minute conversation with the average Local Councillor. And I don't for a second believe that it'd attract a better class of politician-look at what we send to the Dáil.
I'm not sure if they're still there, but a few years ago someone looked for every wikipedia page they could find about places or buildings in Galway/Mayo/Sligo along the general WRC corridor and edited them to insert a line saying "X will be served in the near future by the Y station on the Western Rail Corridor"
There’s a lot of true believers out there.
No white smoke for these:
https://silvermineshydro.ie/
Green energy proposal Spirit of Ireland, got a lot of press at the time but never much in the way of detailed design.
It's far too early to call these two as "never happened"
The GRAZE gas plant is not yet behind the published schedule, and Silvermines Hydro is moving to the planning phase:
https://tippfm.com/news/energy-environment/huge-step-forward-multi-million-euro-silvermines-hydro-plant/
Ironically there is already some murmurings coming out of some official circles about Double Deckers not having enough capacity even under BusConnects, particularly with the lack of driver shortages and passenger numbers up 10% versus 2019 and likely to continue increasing. They seem to be talking about BRT might be needed again!
Interestingly Dublin Airport is currently getting shiny new 18 meter EV BRT's for the car park service, these might act as a test bed for BRT.
I've said a few times, but Swiftway shouldn't have been cancelled, instead it should have been integrated into the overall BusConnects plan.
Of course I've no doubt by the time we get some BRT routes, they will already open overcapacity and we will start talking about Luas lines for these routes!
A missing piece of the Dublin Rail Rapid Transit Proposals was a proposed busway from the Central Bus and Train Station to Tallaght via Mount Argus. It would have ran on bus lanes to Mount Argus, and then on a dedicated busway from Mount Argus via Kimmage, Templeogue and the N81.
The route was protected for a couple of years. Then it got low density housing built on key parts of it, not least Mount Argus itself. It would have been a ready made surface metro route if it had survived.
