LUAS Network + Future Expansion

Agreed, I think even the response of only mentioning a Finglas to Ballymun link was carefully chosen. I'm crediting the NTA too much though!

Only if the 24 was extended to cover more of Finglas West and South? Otherwise probably not unless it was extended. Anybody over Finglas East/Glasnevin would have the 19/24 but the Luas would be a bit of a distance for them outside people in Charlestown.

But sure there's lots of potenial adjustments to bus routes once Metrolink is active and even more once Luas Finglas is there too.

3 months isn’t that bad all things considering, imo.

Why stop services at Smithfield? There seems to be switchover outside Peacock Theatre. Or could they go to Connolly as I think that has a switchover too.

I think 3 months is far too long for such a small bridge. The Malahide viaduct was repaired in about that time frame.

That's as may be but I still think 3 months is too long for a critical public transport bridge of such simple construction. If they genuinely can't speed up fabrication (by throwing money, manpower and overtime at it) then perhaps they could have investigated the possibility of shoring up the damaged bridge for the duration by building a steelwork lattice around and under it to brace it while a replacement is fabricated. Was this possibility investigated I wonder? The Malahide viaduct repair was much more involved than simply replacing a deck, which is all that appears to need to happen here.

I would be interested to know if the fabrication will actually take place around the clock or only during a traditional 8 hour work day. If it's not taking place around the clock, why not? By way of example, the Berlin to Hamburg main line is currently completely closed. It will remain closed for 9 months in total in which time it will be completely rebuilt from the ground up, all new track, sleepers, points, signals, platform works, new station buildings, some new bridge structures etc. The works are taking place 7 days a week, 24 hours a day to get the line reopened as soon as possible. We do have some night time noise to put up with but ho-hum, it's for the greater good. I'd like to know if the same impetus in getting the red line reopened is present. If the works had not been scheduled to take place 24 hours a day, they would have taken 3 times longer.

Three. They were hauled back at low speed with hydraulic rams holding up the bridge deck according to what I've seen written, on here somewhere I believe.

Sooo, the bridge was shored up in a couple of days and three 60 tonne vehicles rolled over it. With a bit more shoring up the bridge could have been kept in service at slow speeds until the replacement deck was ready to be slotted in over a weekend closure. Where there's a will, there's a way (as seen by the efforts made to return the stranded trams to their depot). If there was any doubt about the integrity of the shored up bridge they would have used low loaders to take those trams back to the Red Cow and not risked it. Sure, the passengers add some weight, but the bridge could have been shored up some more.

Has anyone seen them pull the trams back? I imagine it was such a low speed, likely starting-stopping constantly, that if it did have passengers, they would be screaming out to use a bus replacement, or walk.