Navan Rail Line

Yes - I said similar earlier that a 2tph service will make justifying significant capital spend difficult but I don't think anyone wanted to hear it.

What are we realistically talking about - around 1 million passenger trips per year? Existing DART does 25m or so, Luas 50m and Dublin bus 150m.

This alignment is quite long, has to compete with a motorway which takes 15 minutes to drive from Navan to the M50, doesn't provide anything in terms of creating a "network effect" as it's a terminal branch. So in any analysis it will be competing pure on passenger numbers - and specifically displacing the use of private cars.

New electrified metro heavy rail alignments are very expensive (and this would effectively be a new alignment) and need high passenger numbers and service frequencies to justify. If you can justify spending 2B on Navan DART, then on a pro-rata basis of expected passenger numbers, DART underground/tunnel should be allocated around 20B?

Having said all that, I couldn't bring myself to seriously object to this project particularly when you see money wasted on other stuff. My head says no while my heart says yes.

Hopefully when the Navan line is complete, all M3 Parkway services would be extended to Navan if the sets are available (with the current status of the depot this might be more of a question than it should be). That would at least be 4tph. Though, I don't disagree that it might be hard to justify the costs for only 4tph.

However the line could allow the first mostly electrified freight services, between Tara mine and Dublin port. With the connection of Dublin port to the Maynooth line and if the Navan line is electrified, it should be possible to run a loco on mostly OHLE power between Tara mine and Dublin port. Especially since by the time the Navan line is complete we should have new bi-/tri-mode locos to replace end-of-life 071s and to meet increasing freight demand. It still might not be the best justification given the price, but it is a massive step in the right direction for the future of the network.

I don't think it can work unless the Maynooth to Hazelhatch link is also built taking Sligo trains to Heuston and thereby increasing the capacity of the Maynooth and Navan lines, that would make 4tph or 6tph work to Navan.

No, its a fair question. As expensive as the Navan line might be, it still is the fraction of a price of any completely new line especially through CC, and the Navan line would also connect into existing DART network. And the line is still able able to connect a large amount of people without needing to build the route or line from scratch, though as discussed, it shouldn't be the exact same as the original. With only rerouting 1 or 2 sections of the line, Dunshaughlin, Ratoath, and Navan would all be very well connected with the rail network. Trim and Ashbourne additionally can be served by the line, although not as well as the other three, and Ashbourne residents would likely be better served by Luas Finglas (which should be complete before the Navan line).

What you drew could be more feasible for some future metro project, and Ashbourne could be considered as an option for a terminus for a metro line, especially if the airport ever recieves a third terminal.

M3 J5 has bridges to allow the line pass under it, but the line stops soon after. It originally veered east, right under M3, before coming west again at Fairyhouse station on the western side of M3 - clearly that alignment couldn’t be kept. There's no tunnel beneath the M3 mainline.

Its certainly there, there are photos of it during construction

Its ~13m across so more than enough for 2 tracks and all the required clearance for unrestricted operation

As its slightly lower than surrounding levels it looks low, but its in the region of 5-6 m floor to roof inside

Do you have anything to support your claim that there is clearance of 5 - 6m? That would be a considerable depth and I doubt the M3 team (who wouldn't have cared about trains) would have gone to the effort and expense of building retaining walls to that depth.

Even if that is the case, if trains were to go through the underpass there, they would have to be descending from a good distance back. The train would be passing through the local road to the south. Obviously that isn't possible so you have to raise the road there. The houses and GAA club impose restrictions on both the vertical and horizontal alignments and any solution will have serious opposition. You then have a major structure to cross the Navan link road north of there.

And you have to CPO all lands anyway (much of the old track bed in the area has been built on) and you are restricted in how far into Navan trains can go. I don't see any benefit in that underpass, it just ensures other issues which very limited scope to minimize them.

Back in the Meath On Track Days they did survey the line and report on all the encroachment, and were fairly critical of Meath Co Co allowing unregulated building and land use changes on the alignment. A lot of the "issues" you highlight are known and identified and can be engineered around or CPO'd if necessary. The realignment of the Bective road is raised as well south of the underpass.

I doubt the M3 team (who wouldn't have cared about trains) would have gone to the effort and expense of building retaining walls to that depth.

They would have built it to the spec they were told to. i.e. to enable the re-instatement of the rail line in the future (as Transport 21 had specified both projects). As the M21/Foynes project has these underpasses/bridges spec'd now. We've seen with other projects, like KRP and Luas that Sisk and JP etc. can get a pre-cast bridge in place with minimal road closures.

Sorry to dig up a golden oldie .. has there been any update on this where they are on opening phase 2 of this railway to Navan ? .. I can recall a news article from before Christmas stating there would be some movement on this coming up to summer 25. Crazy to think that the first phase was open nearly 15 years ago and the second phase was never stared. Part of me thinks it was never finished due to the cash cow toll bridge that lies after the line ends. Sad to see with the exception of the freight line to Fynes and some upgrades to some older lines we have no major rail infrastructure projects happening around the country.

It's a bit more complicated than that. I don't want to say "they are starting from scratch" as I think that would be a massive oversimplification, but I don't know how else to describe it.

My understanding is they are going back to the option selection stage to reanalyse what the best way forward. It is a lot of work and of course sets the project back quite a bit from where it previously was. But it is necessary as some of the assumptions made during the previous design were not great (at least in my opinion) as well as how that area of Meath has changed over the last decade.

Notably the assumptions about electrificaiton and service frequency I think made no sense even for when the did the initial study. From my memory they assumed the line would use DMUs into the 2040s and BEMUs after that with no plans for OHLE electrification, and would only see 2tph frequency. In addition Navan, Dunshaughlin, and Ashbourne have all seen quite large population growth since the last census and that will likely have an effect on the design.

Every Bus Éireann commuter service into/out of Dublin uses those same coaches (except the 103/105) - they’ve been in use for years now.

Hardly unusual.

They’ve also been rolled out on regional commuter services into Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.

Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill - those sort of coaches are very common across many countries for regional commuter routes nowadays.