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FourNorth - Quad Track Railway - North Dublin

Disco24

Crawled at snails pace on an off peak drogheda- connolly service this week from howth jct to Connolly section.

4 track along with signalling improvements is in a pipeline.

The doubling of track would mean hundreds of houses, apts along with stations, bridges, roads being demolished. Cost would be huge. Just wondering how realistic the project is.

10 min dart frequency from drogheda without passing loops is going to make enterprise trains be in the same snails pace position.

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Bsharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123902060#Comment_123902060

can't imagine the NDP will cover anything more than what has planning, or nearly has planning, if even. The plans are meant to be shared in the next month or so, but I'd imagine they'll be vague. You'd need post tenders prices to know how much of dart+, busconnects, luas finglas, and metrolink could be delivered before the funding cap is reached.

TherapyBoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123901687#Comment_123901687

Excuse the noob-ishness, but what does GSJ mean?
Great thread btw, enjoying reading all the potential plans & info 👍🏼

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123903429#Comment_123903429

Grade Separated Junction, basically one line over another so that trains don’t have to cross tracks.

riddlinrussell

Grade Separated Junction, I.e no conflict between lines (one train having to wait for another to pass, slow section due to risk of collision etc.) In Ireland, common on major roads, open to correction but I don't know that we have any for rail? At least where it would be a crossover?

murphaph

Glasnevin Jct. is partially grade separated I guess. Can't think of anything else on the heavy rail network. Some Luas stuff is grade separated (Red Cow, bits of the Bride's Glen Extension). We have build dozens if not hundreds of GSJs on the road network.

OisinCooke

Arguably “the dip” at Newcomen Junction where the North Wall branch dives under the Northern Line is an example, but the one real actual Grade Separated JUNCTION we have on the entire island is the Bleach Green Viaduct in the north where the Larne line splits from the Belfast - Derry line. It’s an absolutely stunning triple viaduct (I’ll attach an image from the web) where the up and down Larne line separate and dive under and through the viaduct that carries the Derry line over Three Mile Water, just north of Whiteabbey - incredibly unique, an engineering marvel, and absolutely stunning.

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123903513#Comment_123903513

The dip is further north, leading to/from north strand junction.

specialbyte

An international example in the extreme is the western approach into Zurich Hauptbahnhof. Obviously they are at the centre of a European rail network with 100+ years of significant investment in rail but it can give you an idea of how far you can push grade separation – there's countless underpasses, overpasses and tunnels. It's the only way they could maintain the large volume of terminating and through train movements of local, regional and international train services. They are lining up trains multiple kilometers away so that trains can end up in exactly the right platform without crossing the paths of other arriving or departing trains.

loco_scolo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123904889#Comment_123904889

We can dream 🤤😅

Charles Babbage

If they had built a third bore for the Port tunnel they could have brought an express line under the city without any extra planning, this could have provided an express airport service and then joined the Belfast line north of Malahide. Not quite that simple, but a bit of foresight would have solved the problem.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123910417#Comment_123910417

There is no business case for an express line connecting the port to Dublin Airport (never mind the colossal amount of work required to get from Santry to the airport and then to Malahide).

Useful commuter lines need stops!

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123910417#Comment_123910417

That would not have connected to any existing rail line at either end and would have been completely pointless.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123910746#Comment_123910746

The object of such a line is to allow Belfast, Dundalk, Drogheda and Airport trains not get stuck behind Darts that stop at every stop.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123910751#Comment_123910751

As I said you can build on the surface at the northern end, this is an area with limited development owing to the zone around the airport. The southern end is more complex. but you could provide a portal to the rail tunnel in Fairview Park and run trains into Connolly or tunnel a line to a station under Connolly for interchange or join it to a DART underground project.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911169#Comment_123911169

The Port Tunnel comes to the surface in a developed area of Santry / Coolock

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911277#Comment_123911277

Since everyone claims that the quad line cannot be built because of neighbouring buildings, stations etc, I suggested a route that could have been considered to greatly reduce these issues. No doubt there would still be issues, but I am not aware of any serious consideration of this at the time the DPT tunnel was built, although the tunnel machine and the workers were there. The largest group of buildings close to the M1 was the Gateway factory which closed in 2002 and the government could have bought the whole site then.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911572#Comment_123911572

The Port Tunnel comes up in the middle of the M1! Not to mention Northwood was already there, as well as the housing estates on either side of the motorway.

You would also have needed a third bore about twice the size of the other bores to have bi-directional rail. And its not connected to anywhere useful on either end. And, most importantly, it would be pointless as it would have no stops. Nobody needs an express underground link to the airport from Dublin port.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911572#Comment_123911572

There was no serious consideration because it's not a useful idea.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911671#Comment_123911671

Whether or not it is a useful idea can only be judged after some more substantial consideration than your off the cuff comments.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911686#Comment_123911686

Your idea is off the cuff, and not good.

It's a railway line from nowhere to nowhere with no option for stations on it.

loyatemu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911686#Comment_123911686

unless you've got a time machine, whether it would have been useful or not is moot. It would also have been great if, when they were building the Great Northern Railway, they'd laid 4 tracks, but they didn't. I don't think "invent a time machine" is one of the options the feasibility report will be considering.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911707#Comment_123911707

Of course, and of course they could have prevented buildings being built so close to the line. The only question is whether we are doing any better than that in our future planning. I doubt it.

TherapyBoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911722#Comment_123911722

”..future planning..”

😂😂😂 Good one! 👍🏼

murphaph

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911572#Comment_123911572

Not everyone is claiming that the northern line cannot be quad tracked ;-)

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911864#Comment_123911864

Like how they designed the Clontarf to City Centre bus improvement works to interchange with the new Preston St entrance to Connolly station.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123911969#Comment_123911969

Indeed, and am I one of those. But unfortunately it is an uphill battle of legal challenges and excuses. They should have been doing this for years, as even partial quadding would help.

murphaph

They certainly shouldn't have allowed development so close to the line but in the 1970's and 80's I guess Ireland was a pretty grim place economically and the idea that quad tracking would be needed was probably laughable back then. They were still closing lines and singling others back then.

A1ACo

Talking of the 1970s, dreaming and grade separated junctions, have a look at Sé Metro station in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Its on another level…

Station de métro dans la ville la plus peuplée du Brésil - YouTube

Sé (São Paulo Metro) - Wikipedia

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123913600#Comment_123913600

Perhaps, but the Dublin area was growing even in the 80s and the idea of a line to the airport was always around. A green band along the line would have reduced noise if nothing else.

The GNR looked at quadding the line in the 1950s.

KrisW1001

We did not have a planning approval system in this country until the 1960s. Basically, if you owned land you could build on it, so they're really wasn't a concept of reserved areas

That said, I don't see anything along the corridor that makes quad-tracking impossible. Some parts might be difficult, and it may be needed to reduce the running line to one track in some places for short periods, but it all looks to be within the range of what has been done here before in terms of civil engineering..

murphaph

100%. We've built much more complicated structures than this already in Ireland and post-metrolink it will look even easier.