Irish Sea Tunnel (Rail Only)

BlueCam · 09-05-2012 7:32pm

It was certainly expensive, yes. But it's worth pointing out that not a cent of the funding for the tunnel itself came from either the British or French governments - it was privately funded.

The problem was it was massively underbudgeted and passenger numbers were far below expectations during the first few years. Pentagon Law of Large Projects effectively.

monument · 09-05-2012 11:14pm

BlueCam wrote: »

It was certainly expensive, yes. But it's worth pointing out that not a cent of the funding for the tunnel itself came from either the British or French governments - it was privately funded.

Althought funded privately, both governments led/aided the starting process and the design was based on the previous abandoned governments-led project.

Capt'n Midnight · 10-05-2012 1:16am

http://www.cbrd.co.uk/histories/euroroute

EuroRoute, proposed something so unbelievably grand that its architectural drawings could be easily mistaken for posters for a long-forgotten fifties sci-fi movie. This page tells the story of that unsuccessful bid.

Glossy Brochure
http://www.cbrd.co.uk/histories/euroroute/euroroute.pdf

royboymaps · 20-05-2012 7:49pm

My name is Roy Harford. I believe that this project has a good business case and enough traffic to use it. I am planning to do a more detailed investigation on this. If you think you might be able to help me with this please email me as soon as possible. royboymaps@gmail.com

Judgement Day · 20-05-2012 8:04pm

Yeah, sure why not - I have a couple of billion Euros in loose change that I can let you have and I'm sure some of the other Boardsies will chip in. .will the Irish Sea Tunnel ever reopen as a railway line.....:D

corktina · 20-05-2012 9:13pm

royboymaps wrote: »

My name is Roy Harford. I believe that this project has a good business case and enough traffic to use it. I am planning to do a more detailed investigation on this. If you think you might be able to help me with this please email me as soon as possible. royboymaps@gmail.com

i've got a shovel and wheelbarrow you can borrow.:D

Capt'n Midnight · 20-05-2012 9:36pm

royboymaps wrote: »

My name is Roy Harford. I believe that this project has a good business case and enough traffic to use it. I am planning to do a more detailed investigation on this. If you think you might be able to help me with this please email me as soon as possible. royboymaps@gmail.com

http://www.irishferries.com/ie/ships-ulysses.asp

uilt in Aker Finnyards in Rauma, Finland, Ulysses was constructed between mid 1999 and Feb. 2001 at a total cost of €100 million! It stands 12 decks high and its gross tonnage is 50,938 tonnes and is the largest car ferry on the Irish Sea!

Towering over other vessels at a height of 167 feet (51 metres) from keel to mast. With almost 3 miles of parking space for 1,342 cars or 240 articulated trucks per sailing no other passenger car ferry in the world can match its vehicle carrying capacity.

Ulysses operates two return sailings between Dublin Port and Holyhead each day with a sailing time of just over three hours. This means that in just one single day of operations, she has the capacity to transport 5,368 cars or 960 articulated trucks across the Irish Sea!

Most importantly though, Ulysses can carry up to 2,000 passengers and crew on board per sailing!

This is what you are up against for freight.

Any freight that doesn't go on a ferry is not time critical so you have to undercut even more to attract that tonnage.

As for passengers, Ryanair limits the maximum price you can charge for a ticket. http://www.seat61.com/Ireland.htm €45 gets you sail/rail from Irish ferryport to any UK mainline station. So figure out what fraction of €45 you can skim off on a journey that starts in Inverness.

stats
http://www.statcentral.ie/viewStat.asp?id=250

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/a0f5beaf#/a0f5beaf/1 cf. table 15 / 16 / Graph 19

LoLo
All island near 1,000,000 TEU per year
ROI containers = 671,534 with cargo and 127,686 empties.
Dubin 431,405 / 93,139

RoRo
1,607,544 freight units / 724,728 Via Dublin

So perhaps 1.5 million TEU/freight units a year and 2m passengers - check car numbers too.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0518/passengers-increase-revenue-down-icg-statement.html - from the revenue of this company and it's revenues you can see the market size. And this is the price you have to beat while financing a loan of ~ 7% over several decades.

royboymaps · 28-05-2012 11:58am

The Dublin-Holyhead route definately has a good business case

Gotthard Base Tunnel, 57km - CHF 9.74 billion (€8.1 billion)
High Speed 2, 530km - £32.7 billion (€40.8 billion)

In comparison to them:
Irish Sea Tunnel, 105km - €15 billion
High Speed line from Holyhead to HS2, 170km - €13 billion
Total Cost - €28 billion

10 million passenger a year x average fare €50 = €500 million a year
€500 million x 60 years = €30 billion

The project would pay for itself in 60 years, this is the same timeframe for HS2. This is only based on passengers using the tunnel. I would expect a lot more freight trains to use the tunnel if a new deepwater port was built in the Shannon Estuary. This would bring in even more revenue and would cover any other costs not taken into account here.

Losty Dublin · 28-05-2012 1:38pm

corktina wrote: »

i've got a shovel and wheelbarrow you can borrow.:D

To save costs, we can use all of the old railway tunnels around Ireland and the UK as part of the route. We can get guys on FAS courses can dig them up and move them down to the east coast.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-05-2012 2:09pm

royboymaps wrote: »

10 million passenger a year x average fare €50 = €500 million a year
€500 million x 60 years = €30 billion

Two little points to consider
a. the price
b. traffic volume

a. how do you reckon you can make €50 PROFIT when a sail-rail ticket currently costs just €45 ?

That €45 includes VAT, harbour charges and onward travel to ANY mainline station in the UK. And it's not super-apex, it's the price you pay on the day of travel. Also how do you think Ryanair - they of the 99c flights - will react ?

b. passenger volume on the Chunnel is 17 million, including road traffic freight volume is 14 million truck shuttles

You are just not going to get the same volume of traffic - look at my earlier post

So perhaps 1.5 million TEU/freight units a year and 2m passengers

Overall I reckon your profit is out by a factor of 10 and your traffic volume is out by a factor of 5 , but since you'll only get 50% of the traffic call it a factor of 10 too. 50% because higher costs will drive traffic elsewhere and lower costs will reduce profit.

So I reckon you are out by two orders of magnitude in your profit x volume calculation.

monument · 28-05-2012 2:50pm

You may well be right about his math. But:

A small enough point in the grand scheme of things, but Sail and Rail to London on the day of departure is now €51 (only €45 in advance)
More importantly: Due to demand, ferries have now limited the amount of Sail and Rail ticket holders they will take per sailing.
City station - city station is far more attractive to many than port - port - port station - city station, or airport - airport - airport station - city station.
How did Ryanair etc react to Eurostar?
How do you think Ryanair etc are going to react to increasing fuel costs? The same way they have reacted with the increases in the last year?
There were also horror stories of Eurostar failing and/or the ferries failing, but these proved wrong.

If the case for it fails on numbers for now or for the next 50 years, fine, but the rhetoric is history repeating it self.

royboymaps · 28-05-2012 4:22pm

I don't think the amount of passengers is overestimated. In 2007 21.3 million people travelled between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain, according to the UK Civil Aviation Authority and the UK Department for Transport. I know that this takes into account a lot of routes which wouldn't be competitive with air or sea, such as Northern Ireland to Scotland, but 12.5 million of these passengers travelled by air to/from London, Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool, routes HSR would be very competitive with, and a further 2.3 million travelled by ferry from Dublin/Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead/Liverpool, which HSR would also be very competitive with. I have not yet done detailed research on freight, but I would expect it to be a lot higher than your figures. A major new port in the Shannon Estuary would be one of only two ports in Europe capable of handling Malaccamax Ships. This is likely to generate a lot of freight traffic from the Shannon Estuary through to Great Britain and Europe.

I will do more research on the fares and get back to you about it, but I can tell you that although Ryanair might sell some fares for 99c, this is definately not their average fare. The taxes alone from Dublin to London are €36 euro. You also have to take into account all of the extra charges on top of this (which Ryanair has a lot of), and the cost of a train/bus/taxi from the airport to the city centre. You can walk from the train station!

Sources:

http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=80&pagetype=88&pageid=3&sglid=3

http://www.dft.gov.uk/statistics?post_type=table&series=sea-passengers-parent-series

ballooba · 28-05-2012 5:29pm

What about the Beaufort Trench?

Capt'n Midnight · 28-05-2012 5:37pm

monument wrote: »

[*]A small enough point in the grand scheme of things, but Sail and Rail to London on the day of departure is now €51 (only €45 in advance)

My bad ,
OK you have to book 24 hours in advance to get the good price.

monument · 28-05-2012 5:49pm

ballooba wrote: »

What about the Beaufort Trench?

Unless I'm very confused, we're not talking about anywhere near that far north.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-05-2012 6:04pm

royboymaps wrote: »

A major new port in the Shannon Estuary would be one of only two ports in Europe capable of handling Malaccamax Ships. This is likely to generate a lot of freight traffic from the Shannon Estuary through to Great Britain and Europe.

Check out how much traffic uses Bantry Bay these days.

Shannon is only closer for transatlantic traffic, anything heading up from the South won't really benefit that much. Transshipping is a big cost.

This island has about one million container shipments a year.
so half a million in and half a million out
which is less than 10,000 a week

Or one 18,000 TEU ship a fortnight, for the whole Island.

OK lets export them by train
18,000 TEU, is 109Km long.

And our track is the wrong gauge.

And the real kicker, it would probably be cheaper to build the Sakhalin tunnels and upgrade the track beside the Amur, that way containers from Japan/China arrive in 15 days instead of over 45 days.

You also have to take into account all of the extra charges on top of this (which Ryanair has a lot of), and the cost of a train/bus/taxi from the airport to the city centre. You can walk from the train station!

Take the number 39 bus to the airport.
you have to pay ?€4? for a ticket from Dublin Ferry Port.

No matter.
Like I said earlier look at the income from the Ferry companies.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0518/passengers-increase-revenue-down-icg-statement.html

In the first four months of the year, Group revenue was €77m, slightly down compared with €78.1m in the same period last year.

Scale this up to the total market and there still isn't enough margin to come close to making €500Bn profit.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-05-2012 7:06pm

€500m a year by 60 years = ?

First.
You have to sink 30Bn into a big hole for say 6 years before you get any income. ( 6 years - as if )

http://www.independent.ie/business/european/irish-government-bonds-stable-amid-latest-euro-crisis-3081498.html
At present our government can get money at 4.97% on 5 year bonds. (take it and run,

4.97% for 6 years means you now owe €40Bn for the hole in the ground.

Or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98resund_Bridge#Costs
cost about €5Bn
compare the toll charges too - yours would need to be a LOT more.

€5Bn will get 18Km link in 20-30m water
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fehmarn_Belt

€30Bn sounds cheap - don't forget with a tunnel on land you can use side tunnels to remove the waste

also tunnel costs aren't linear, twice as long doesn't mean it costs only twice as much

Assuming no cost overruns - how much did the channel tunnel cost to build in todays money ??

royboymaps · 28-05-2012 8:11pm

I wasn't referring to the cost travelling to Dublin Airport, I meant London.

A single train ticket from Luton Airport to the city centre costs £14.50 (return £25) and takes 45 mins, a single from Stansted £22.50 (return £31.50) and also takes 45 mins. Fares from Gatwick seem to vary a lot, but the cheapest I can find is £8.50 single (£16 return) with a 30 mins journey time. From Heathrow it costs only £5.30 (45 mins) but Heathrow is also more expensive to fly to. The Heathrow Express only takes 20 mins but costs £19 single or £34 return. From London City airport it only costs £4.30 each way (30 mins journey) but again it is more expensive to fly to. From Southend it costs £14.30 single or £22.10 return with a journey time of 55 mins. Some of these prices are also only in advance.

I know that the profits from the ferry companies is nowhere near my profits for a tunnel, but remember that the majority of the current traffic is by air. We would have to check the revenues of the airlines as well to get a more accurate figure.

Victor · 28-05-2012 9:18pm

royboymaps wrote: »

My name is Roy Harford. I believe that this project has a good business case and enough traffic to use it. I am planning to do a more detailed investigation on this. If you think you might be able to help me with this please email me as soon as possible. royboymaps@gmail.com

Roy, can you explain your interest in this?

Victor
Moderator

little swift · 28-05-2012 9:40pm

something to ponder on.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/3/prweb9335114.htm

royboymaps · 29-05-2012 12:09pm

Victor,

Personally, I have a huge interest in all types of transport and I always had a huge interest. I am a student at the moment and I am hoping to get a career in transport planning in a few years time. I am so interested in this because I have seen how successful high speed rail has been accross Europe. We have seen from the volcanic ash clouds last year, that we can't rely on air travel anymore. I would like this project to be ready to go as soon as funding becomes available. The Metro North project was not ready to go when the funding was available. By the time it got a railway order the recession had started. If that railway order was given 5 years ago, when funding was available, it would be operational today. The recession won't last forever. We need to have the Irish Sea Tunnel ready to go when the recession ends.

corktina · 29-05-2012 1:13pm

theres no point comparing this with the Eurotunnel or high speed rail across Europe...theres a minute amount of demand for it compared with the millions who live and work either side of the English Channel or across Western Europe.

It amazes me that someone hoping to make a career in Transport Planning can't instantly see that.

You would be far better to spend your time planning improved rail and motorway links to the various ports here and in the UK

Capt'n Midnight · 29-05-2012 1:20pm

royboymaps wrote: »

Victor,

Personally, I have a huge interest in all types of transport and I always had a huge interest. I am a student at the moment and I am hoping to get a career in transport planning in a few years time. I am so interested in this because I have seen how successful high speed rail has been accross Europe. We have seen from the volcanic ash clouds last year, that we can't rely on air travel anymore. I would like this project to be ready to go as soon as funding becomes available.

Look again at the cost benefit of this.

The HSS takes 99 minutes to cross the Irish Sea

The channel tunnel cost about €21Bn in present prices

An Irish Sea tunnel would be twice as long.

Although it includes a lot of track the Bering Strait tunnel would actually be three shorter tunnels adding up to the length of an Irish one, so tunneling costs would be lower. Tunneling time would be at least half - you can start in the middle too - so financing costs would be a low lower. And they reckon it will cost $99Bn, also it's not as deep either. Also there are more potential customers and higher freight volumes that could probably go through the that tunnel.

The only large volume traffic I could see going through our tunnel would be imported cars.

http://blogs.voanews.com/russia-watch/2012/04/28/join-russia-and-usa-by-rail-tunnels-under-the-bering-strait/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2028854/99bn-Bering-Strait-tunnel-approved-Kremlin-paves-way-East-West-rail-link.html

Thing to remember is that until the good times are here again , cost is more important than speed. Tunnels only offer speed over shipping. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-01-27/news/30670341_1_container-lines-container-unit-shipping-lines

"There is still some potential for slow-steaming, both for us and probably for the industry," Engelstoft said in a January 23 interview. "We are looking into the possibility of super slow- steaming. That would be 12-16 knots." The 19th-century clippers, the fastest ships of their time, transported tea to the UK and US from China and India, according to the website of the UK Tea Council. The ships, which had three or more masts and dozens of sails, could reach a peak average speed of more than 16 knots.

Slow-steaming, coupled with idling ships, helped turn a 2009 industry-wide operating loss of $19 billion into a $17 billion profit the year after."

royboymaps · 29-05-2012 5:00pm

Corktina,

There is not a minute amount of demand for the route. In 2007 21.3 million people travelled between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain, according to the UK Civil Aviation Authority and the UK Department for Transport. I know that this takes into account a lot of routes which wouldn't be competitive with air or sea, such as Northern Ireland to Scotland, but 12.5 million of these passengers travelled by air to/from London, Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool, routes HSR would be very competitive with, and a further 2.3 million travelled by ferry from Dublin/Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead/Liverpool, which HSR would also be very competitive with. The Dublin - London air route is now the busiest in Europe. All of the routes which used to be busier than it now have a high speed rail link.

royboymaps · 29-05-2012 5:17pm

Capt'n Midnight,

The Bering Strait tunnel will not cost $99 billion to build. This figure also includes the 1000's of kilometres of railway lines linking to it. According to the BBC video below the tunnel section will only cost $10-12 billion (€8-9.6 billion). My estimate for a tunnel under the Irish Sea with a similar length was €15 billion (based on cost of Gotthard Base Tunnel).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5TAXsFDtA8&feature=player_embedded

corktina · 29-05-2012 7:42pm

royboymaps wrote: »

Corktina,

There is not a minute amount of demand for the route. In 2007 21.3 million people travelled between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain, according to the UK Civil Aviation Authority and the UK Department for Transport. I know that this takes into account a lot of routes which wouldn't be competitive with air or sea, such as Northern Ireland to Scotland, but 12.5 million of these passengers travelled by air to/from London, Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool, routes HSR would be very competitive with, and a further 2.3 million travelled by ferry from Dublin/Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead/Liverpool, which HSR would also be very competitive with. The Dublin - London air route is now the busiest in Europe. All of the routes which used to be busier than it now have a high speed rail link.

Thast a tiny amount...you wont get many people to travel first to (lets say) Rosslare from Belfast or Donegal or Galway when they could use more direct routes.You also patently wont be able to charge a realistic fare as you'll have to compete with umpteen airports and ferryports charging already rock bottom prices. If you can't service the debt, you go bust and the debt would be HUGE.
Its not just the cost of the tunnel, you also have to factor in improving access to whereever the tunnel comes ashore either side of the Irish Sea and if you look at the existing infrastructure, its basically pants.

It's total pie in the sky, why it needs TWO threads (or even one is beyond me)

Judgement Day · 29-05-2012 7:46pm

I can't understand how this thread has reached 117 118 posts. Ireland is more likely to put that AEC trailer from Inchicore on the Moon than build a tunnel to the mainland....inserted to provoke a reaction.

Tarabuses · 29-05-2012 8:50pm

Judgement Day wrote: »

I can't understand how this thread has reached 117 118 posts. Ireland is more likely to put that AEC trailer from Inchicore on the Moon than build a tunnel to the mainland....inserted to provoke a reaction.

Were you thinking of somewhere near Rosslare to somewhere near Roscoff? A long way.

Losty Dublin · 29-05-2012 8:53pm

Judgement Day wrote: »

I can't understand how this thread has reached 117 118 posts. Ireland is more likely to put that AEC trailer from Inchicore on the Moon than build a tunnel to the mainland....inserted to provoke a reaction.

No point, it's the wrong gauge for their network.

royboymaps · 30-05-2012 2:01pm

Corktina,

In my opinion the only route for a tunnel that would make sense is Dublin - Holyhead. One third of Ireland lives in Dublin, so they won't have to travel too far to get to the tunnel. Dublin is also the main focus of Irelands railways. People can travel from Belfast/Cork/Galway to Dublin, then change trains onto another train to Britain. A new standard gauge track would have to be built from Dublin to the Shannon Estuary for freight trains using the new superport. Passenger trains could also use this line, allowing direct trains from the southwest of Ireland to Britain. Half of all the air passengers travel to London. If the high speed trains use the new HS2 line they will be terminating in Euston Station, a lot closer to the city centre than any of London's six airports. If you take into account the time taken to travel from the city centre to the airport, and airport check-in times, it would be quicker to take the train. Why wouldn't it get passengers? Eurostar carries more passengers than all the airlines combined on the routes it operates. Airlines might even withdraw routes and use codeshares with train operaters, like Air France did on the Paris - Brussels route.

I agree with you that this doesn't need two threads. Not because it doesn't deserve two, but because it would be easier to keep track of posts on just one.

When judgement day said the mainland I think he meant Britain, not Europe. British people in Northern Ireland refer to Great Britain as their mainland. Also, what is the AEC trailer?

Irish Sea Tunnel (Rail Only)

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