Cross-border review of rail network officially launched

I’m on the Waterfordcarlow line and we end in Heuston- so I agree with you, Connolly much more central- you can walk easily to anywhere in the city centre, get a Luas either direction, buses, or Dart from there or very close. Heuston is way more isolated

It may not be as well located, but getting to Heuston is likely to be so much faster that I would think many would still prefer it. Especially when D+W is complete and there is DART frequency to Maynooth, as it will really start to crawl its way in. Getting to the OCB area would be quicker, and that would in theory mean journies to most of the city are quicker.

Plus if people really do want to go to areas along the Maynooth line (Maynooth Uni, Broombridge, even Connolly itself), it would likely be possible to transfer to a DART, which wouldn't be much slower than the Sligo services on that section.

the solution for poor capacity at connolly isn't to worsen capacity at heuston station, which won't have platform capacity, if there's any service improvements on the Cork/Kildare Line which is a TEN-T route.

My guess is they're having to prioritise core intercity routes, build up demand, to make a business case work for anything else. it also creates the case for the tunnel.

FourNorth the CEF project would be delivered before the clongriffin to Drogheda section, otherwise you're adding capacity to end in a bottleneck.

unless they added the two projects together, but then the cost might make it too expensive to get through approvals, or could delay solving the fourNorth part

What I really don’t understand about this plan is it’s not like they’re getting easy win projects out of the way first before tackling the big new infrastructure.

There’s many easy-win projects, like Waterford-Wexford and double track projects, that are left out (or are purposely vague on the details side…) in favour of projects like Portadown to Derry, which I think if done - about which I have my doubts - will be the single most expensive rail project in country’s history.

And a Hazelhatch - Portarlington bypass line, while crucial, really shouldn’t come ahead of a Clongriffin to Drogheda bypass line or I think a Maynooth to Hazelhatch link.

You would wonder though as some have said whether or not they are seeing a plan being made for FourNorth - the feasibility study for which is due soon enough in the new year if I’m not wrong - and don’t want to say anything until that plan comes out.

Also nowhere on the report do they specifically mention double tracking, which is an extremely poor and spineless move.

Overall though I think the plan is not so bad, and there seem to be good overall goals and outcomes, but some of the ways they seem to be going about it are odd. The prioritisation of projects also definitely seems like it was done by a politician and not a transport strategist, because really there’s a lot of cart-before-horse stuff going on.

Then again, the argument can be made (especially for the way our political system works, or in fact doesn’t work…) that if the cart is then there with no horse, it will make the case for the horse (DART Tunnel, Maynooth to Hazelhatch, Clongriffin to Drogheda, Derry to Letterkenny, etc.) a lot stronger and more likely to be approved.

there's a draft plan for two more platforms at Heuston. Apartments can go above train lines. Reading recent tender docs there's a capacity study ongoing at rail nodes in each of the cities which IE/NTA are both working on at the minute.

Alot of work doesn't get reported on because it's done through frameworks so projects don't get announced. Also IE do a PQQ and then an ITT. So the ITT isn't publicly available via e-tenders but there's always interesting reading about what will be made available to the successful tenderer.

Paths have to cross at some point in a network, having paths cross at Adamstown is a lot better than having paths cross at the single busiest point in the entire country's rail network. Because it is not a question about whether the paths are crossing or not, its a question of which paths and where.

And again, at Connolly the paths are crossing in a way that can be incredibly disruptive to the network. Any crossing of the lines at Adamstown would have a much smaller impact on the network than at Connolly.

Additionally, an advantage of the link is that there is plenty of space to optimise the junction at Adamstown to reduce the impact. Something there just isn't space to do at Connolly.

I would think so, or even just generally it could help with moving DART units in the off-peak.

I don't see the branch being so busy that a few DARTs here and there couldn't use it, although it entirely depends on how it is connected. If it has a direct connection to the slow lines it would be possible, but if it has to go to the fast lines to get to the line I don't think it would work very well.

Rail doesn't carry a massive % of the population's daily travel needs, and it's expensive. You can understand how "normal" people don't realise the strategic potential/need.

It is expensive because all infrastructure is. People tend to melt down at the cost of any infrastructure, saying "we could do X, Y or Z with that money instead". They also melt down when comparing the rail infrastructure costs here against (for instance) Spain.

Separately, a lot of our strategic rail projects are national-level (thus high cost) and can be compared unfavourably with small local infrastructure schemes or even OpEx and Roads Maintenance schemes which quickly buy the votes of small town populations who simply aren't very interested in national-level strategic infrastructure projects.

I wasn't implying for a second that rail is "too expensive", just so we're clear (because I don't believe that).

Just reading the report again and something I missed the first time is that it says as part of the short term interventions they are committing to delivering, they will install a spur at Portadown to “future-proof the Derry line.”

This is great, I never really thought that they were that serious about it, but it would be phenomenal for the area so I’m glad they seem to be committed to it.

Out of interest how will the spur look? Portadown is set to become a 4-way junction with the line to Armagh also being committed to being reopened in the report.

Looking at satellite imagery, it’s clear where the old junction used to sit, with the Dublin, Armagh/Clones/Mullingar, and Derry lines fanning out from the Belfast direction. The issue is the footprint of that junction is now taken up by the Portadown station car park.

Also, the first 250 meters of the Derry Road alignment has been taken over by the Corcraine Road, and the first kilometre of the Armagh branch by the A3 Northway Road. I wonder how they plan to overcome this… will they even use the same junction location?

While it would definitely make more sense for Armagh services to have direct access from Belfast rather than Dublin, a reversal at Portadown for Dublin to Derry services (which would presumably be the primary intercity service using the Derry Road) is less than ideal.

Of course, there looks like there could be space for a delta junction if they do decide to use the original junction and just reroute the roads, but this would be a very irregular delta junction, with a sharp curve, and an at-grade flat crossing in the middle of it for the Armagh branch…

Reversal does of course happen at Kilkenny on the Waterford line and is commonplace there, but for a new build line, it might be easier (also from the perspective of land take and closing the roads that have taken over the alignment) to build a new junction somewhere.

There is a nice site just after Portadown, just after the railway crosses the Ban - which seems to be a P-Way siding or compound of sorts (so already in NIR ownership) - where the line could split off, with plenty of space for grade separation too. The line could then follow the M1 all the way to Dungannon and just rejoin the original alignment (or as much of it as they can reuse).

For Armagh, of course the same junction could be used, but one south of Portadown might be better to save a 180° turn, where a new route could rejoin the original alignment at Richhill.

Can we realistically expect the Derry Road to be rebuilt at double track standard like the AISRR suggests…? By the time they likely get around to it, all other lines to major cities will be doubled/in the process of being doubled, so it’s not too outlandish to think they actually might… especially as it will require large sections of new alignment, if not an entirely new one altogether.

Just some musings, because I wasn’t to confident that they would commit to the line, but they definitely seem to be. Now whether or not that’s Northern Ireland just saying that or not is another question entirely, but the line has made it past 2 drafts of the review so who knows…!

Derry will need a new station for this route, and Letterkenny will need an entirely new alignment. No reuse is practical or sensible.