Cork Area Commuter Rail (CACR)

Actually, on thinking about it, I really like what I called the “tenuous” connection to saighaid and its link to arrow/dart, but I accept that no Irish word containing a -gh- consonant could be used as a brand-name in a country that receives so many English monoglot visitors. (Every time someone says “droggeda”, a puppy dies; I’d hate to add "sag-head” to that list of shame)

However, that word’s English translation, “Arrow”, could be resurrected. It was the branding used for all non-DART commuter service in the past, and I believe the heritage-repainted 2600 DMU pair still runs on the Cóbh line today (IÉ Class 2600 in original Arrow Livery at Cork Kent.)

So, if there were a vote, my vote would be for “Arrow”, and for the lines to be numbered “A1”, “A2”, etc (I don’t see more than three in Cork) . Dublin can keep DART, of course, but Arrow should be the name used elsewhere.

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A note on Prague: I see you’ve been reading the Wikipedia page… I should go and edit that, because it’s slightly misleading. “Esko” really doesn’t mean anything more than “the letter S” (the Czech Wiki page states this directly: V češtině slovo „esko“ znamená označení písmene S / In Czech the word “esko” means the [sign/mark/designation] of the letter S), so while they gave it a name, that name is the letter. The reason why they don’t use “S” alone is because s is already a word in Czech, meaning “with”/“accompanied by”.

What about "Piléar" if we wanted to go as Gaelige?

Bullet - In theme with "Arrow/Dart"

Secondary definition as "Pillar", it's "supporting the cities"

And pronunciation shouldn't escape the Sasanachs

Another great video from Dronehawk showing significant progress on the Harpers Island to Midleton double tracking project.

from my understanding, and from the documents I grabbed at the consultation, Dunkettle station is going to be located at the old rail container terminal, which is already fully in CIE ownership. It has direct access to the N25 via the Little Island-East/North Esk exit, and a direct spur from the M8 via Dunkettle interchange.

My understanding is that CIE have been working on planning behind the scenes for the better part of a decade at the very least, most likely a lot longer, as a lot of preparatory work was needed to even get the railway network down here into a condition where such an upgrade would even be possible. Upgrading signalling, closing of level crossings, none of this can happen overnight, whilst at the same time not being as "sexy" as new stations and trains. You couldn't simply have reopened, say Blackpool station ten years ago because the network simply wasn't ready.

And neither were the trains for that matter. Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs), especially the tin cans currently operating on the cork suburban network, simply aren't suitable for high frequency commuter services. They don't accelerate fast enough. At the same time, purchasing a handful of dedicated EMUs only for operation on the Cork network would not have made operational sense, as it would have required dedicated, possibly incompatible, spare parts for maybe two dozen trains at most. It made more sense to wait until the replacement for the DART fleet was due to be ordered anyway and simply tag new trains for Cork onto that large order.

Speaking of Dublin, another aspect of why this is happening now is that Irish Rail apparently sees the electrification of the Cork commuter network as simply the first phase of the electrification of the Cork-Dublin mainline. By getting the Cork network done relatively quickly, there seems to be an element of producing a showcase for government that electrifying the rest of the mainline isn't all that difficult. The current fleet of loco-hauled trains on the Cork-Dublin run is due for replacement within the foreseeable future and from what I've seen, the preference is to replace them either directly with EMUs or with diesel units that can be quickly converted to electric. That's also the reason why, according to a Swiss railway engineer I talked with at the event, the new system will be electrified at 15KV 16 Hz AC, the same standard that is used on mainlines and high speed lines in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and several other European countries.

Now, I need to temper all of this with the fact that I'm not a railway engineer myself, nor am I involved in the project myself. I'm just a public transit nut (and general nutcase 🤪) with a lot of interest in railways. Having said that, the general feeling I got at the consultation event I attended is that there's an understanding at Irish Rail and CIE that this is a once in a generation chance to bring Cork's railways into the 21st century. As a result, there's a real fire to get this going and done sooner rather than later.

As for Galway and Limerick, I vaguely remember reading that similar projects are in the pipeline for both cities, albeit on a smaller scale. I haven't really paid attention to that though, so someone else might be better suited to answer that.