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High speed rail Cork - Dublin

draiochtanois

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Carawaystick

Irish rail say you've to turn up 20 mins for a reserved seat in Heuston too.

cgcsb

marmurr1916 wrote: »

As of now though, the entire train journey takes about 3 hours, not much faster than doing it by car, maybe slower if you drive at quiet times and don't hit too much traffic in Cork and Dublin.

The Express Cork-Dublin takes 2 hours 15 mins with no stops. At Present work on the line between Hazelhatch and Portlaoise is expected to knock 15 mins off the journey when complete this in November bringing the express down to 2 hours, you really would not beat that in a car. The upgrade would also see 15 mins knocked off Dublin-Limerick which would see some Dublin-Limerick journeys take as little as 100 minutes. Exciting times.

marmurr1916

cgcsb wrote: »

The Express Cork-Dublin takes 2 hours 15 mins with no stops. At Present work on the line between Hazelhatch and Portlaoise is expected to knock 15 mins off the journey when complete this in November bringing the express down to 2 hours, you really would not beat that in a car. The upgrade would also see 15 mins knocked off Dublin-Limerick which would see some Dublin-Limerick journeys take as little as 100 minutes. Exciting times.

So Cork city centre to Dublin city centre will take about 2.5 hours even with the improvements and if you take the Express service? Not really worth the price of a train ticket to save 30 minutes, and that's without factoring in the extra flexibility that you have if you drive.

Sam Russell

marmurr1916 wrote: »

So Cork city centre to Dublin city centre will take about 2.5 hours even with the improvements and if you take the Express service? Not really worth the price of a train ticket to save 30 minutes, and that's without factoring in the extra flexibility that you have if you drive.

Like the ability to park in the city centre, if you can find any.

Markcheese

marmurr1916 wrote:

So Cork city centre to Dublin city centre will take about 2.5 hours even with the improvements and if you take the Express service? Not really worth the price of a train ticket to save 30 minutes, and that's without factoring in the extra flexibility that you have if you drive.

The reason people take the train isnt for high speed (yes it does have to be reasonably competitive) ,its for comfort - its not having to drive, being able to work or read (or sleep ), probably not worth doing if you've got to head to some industrial estate way out of the centre...

spacetweek

marmurr1916 wrote: »

So Cork city centre to Dublin city centre will take about 2.5 hours even with the improvements and if you take the Express service? Not really worth the price of a train ticket to save 30 minutes, and that's without factoring in the extra flexibility that you have if you drive.

It's 2h soon not 2.5h and you're assuming people have a car, or that they have a car and want to sit in it without being able to walk around for 2.5 hours, and that they can afford the petrol etc.

[Deleted User]

Markcheese wrote: »

The reason people take the train isnt for high speed (yes it does have to be reasonably competitive) ,its for comfort - its not having to drive, being able to work or read (or sleep ), probably not worth doing if you've got to head to some industrial estate way out of the centre...

Yes, let the train take the strain!

cgcsb

marmurr1916 wrote: »

So Cork city centre to Dublin city centre will take about 2.5 hours even with the improvements and if you take the Express service? Not really worth the price of a train ticket to save 30 minutes, and that's without factoring in the extra flexibility that you have if you drive.

Its a popular service so obviously most disagree. Its also a 3 hour drive btw.

guylikeme

cgcsb wrote: »

Its a popular service so obviously most disagree. Its also a 3 hour drive btw.

Do that many people start AND end their journey at the city centre points though? Most are out of town and get onto the motorway

OR

have to make their way into the station in the first place, adding overhead to their journey in time and cost.

Car almost always trumps for time and price, especially if >1 travelling.Advantages of working on laptop on train but that assumes a non-packed train and the workers office being near the endpoint.

cgcsb

guylikeme wrote: »

Do that many people start AND end their journey at the city centre points though? Most are out of town and get onto the motorway

OR

have to make their way into the station in the first place, adding overhead to their journey in time and cost.

Car almost always trumps for time and price, especially if >1 travelling.Advantages of working on laptop on train but that assumes a non-packed train and the workers office being near the endpoint.

which is why work is being done to improve the speed. I doubt that most intercity journeys are suburb to suburb though. Most of Dublin's offices are centrally located.

marmurr1916

spacetweek wrote: »

It's 2h soon not 2.5h and you're assuming people have a car, or that they have a car and want to sit in it without being able to walk around for 2.5 hours, and that they can afford the petrol etc.

I was told a couple of days ago that Cork Kent to Heuston would be 2 hours. I'm not referring to that journey, I'm referring to the journey between the centre of Cork city (a good 10 - 15 minutes walk from the train station in Cork) and Dublin city centre, a good 15 minutes journey from Heuston by Luas, if you take into account the time needed to transfer from the train to the Luas.

And yeah, I'm comparing journeys by car with journeys by train - what of it?

I doubt that most people who can't afford to own and run a car would be able to afford regular train journeys from Cork to Dublin, unless they're pensioners or disabled, in which case IE gets peanuts.

marmurr1916

cgcsb wrote: »

Its a popular service so obviously most disagree. Its also a 3 hour drive btw.

Most disagree? Most journeys between Cork and Dublin are made by train? Got figures for that?

cgcsb

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Most disagree? Most journeys between Cork and Dublin are made by train? Got figures for that?

Aecom Consultants reckoned in 2011 that Irish Rail had about 40% of the market for Dublin-Cork journeys, that was at a time when a typical Heuston-Kent journey took 2h50 and there was no express service. Now you can see on the ground how busy the trains are especially the express. I'd be shocked if that 40% hadn't increased significantly now that we have hourly trains, averaging 2h30 with a 2h15 express and a 15 min reduction on the way.

So clearly a large proportion of people, likely a majority of people, chose rail for Dublin-Cork journeys.

LXFlyer

To be fair about this, the train will suit some people, and not suit others.

But it is fair to say that there is a reasonably large market for travelling to/from Dublin City Centre which the train will serve, while at the same time the out of town business market is probably best served by road.

I think that it is important to point out that the work being carried out is at a relatively low cost (€10m in 2015), and is not megabucks.

It will deliver journey time improvements for all routes out of Heuston, and not just Cork. Trains to/from Galway, Mayo, Limerick, Kerry and Waterford will all see journey time reductions when this work is finished.

BoatMad wrote: »

It makes no sense to increase running speeds on the Dublin to cork. Firstly you have fixed station dwell times. You create pathing difficulties for slower trains and you exacerbate the congestion on approaches to Hueston.

Simply seeking faster running times over comparatively short sections is a issuing of declining returns. Today the commute times to reach door to door using public transport at each end drawfs any potential of shorter running times.

IE would be better to attract passangers by emphasising the difference, extra comfort , on board dining , the travelling experience etc. In that regard the ICRs were a huge step backward over the best carriage arguably produced, the BR MK3.

Seeking minute decreases in the passangers total journey time by enhancing at considerable cost , a small section of the time delay is just nonsensical

The current rail strategy is simply wrong IMHO

I have to say that this is nonsense. There is ample room for accelerating journey times on the route out of Heuston - there is a four track section from Hazelhatch to Inchicore that is nowhere near capacity, and has more than enough room for increased use of the overtaking facilities that it allows.

The timetable would need a recast, but there is plenty of scope for accelerating longer distance trains, while not impacting on the commuter services on the inner sections. These services are operated by ICRs which can also avail of line speed increases.

The current modest investment will see cuts of up to 15 minutes when the work is completed either later this year or early 2017 - that is a significant improvement from a low cost.

marmurr1916 wrote: »

I doubt that most people who can't afford to own and run a car would be able to afford regular train journeys from Cork to Dublin, unless they're pensioners or disabled, in which case IE gets peanuts.

While the walk-up fares are high, and reflect government policy of shifting more of the cost of the railways onto the user, there are advance fares available online from €14.99 each way - that's hardly expensive surely?

Stephen15

A more economical option would be to electrify the dublin to Cork and dublin to Belfast line and run pendolinos (high speed train can run on ordinary electrified lines) on it. Still wouldnt be cheap mind you.

[Deleted User]

Tilting trains don't have to be powered by overhead lines, they could use the same type of diesel-electric drive that all the other trains use.

Carawaystick

Maybe if the intercity services from Mallow to Cork didn't take 20% longer than commuter services, it might help too

LXFlyer

Carawaystick wrote: »

Maybe if the intercity services from Mallow to Cork didn't take 20% longer than commuter services, it might help too

The local services take 25 minutes to travel from Mallow to Cork.

The Intercity services are timed to take 28-30 minutes. Any Intercity train operator in the world will build some resilience into their timetable to allow for unexpected delays en route.

I don't think 3-5 minutes recovery time is particularly excessive over the distance between Dublin & Cork.

Without it you risk having a timetable with no resilience whatsoever, and that is not a good idea.

Carawaystick

Why not build in catchup time between the arrival at the destination station, and the return departure?

Building the time into each train running time is like (but not as bad as ) Ryanair's timetable padding;

It's 21 mins IC to Mallow from Cork, so it's more like 9 mins padding

LXFlyer

Carawaystick wrote: »

Why not build in catchup time between the arrival at the destination station, and the return departure?

Building the time into each train running time is like (but not as bad as ) Ryanair's timetable padding;

It's 21 mins IC to Mallow from Cork, so it's more like 9 mins padding

Ok to put it in simple English - it is far better to offer passengers a timetabled arrival time that is likely to be achieved than one that could be missed on a regular basis.

That's the whole point of recovery time. Offer a reliable schedule that can be achieved, while allowing for both unforeseen delays and temporary speed restrictions that may be encountered en route.

Building it into the dwell time at the destination station is pointless from a passenger perspective - all they would see is late trains any time that temporary speed restrictions have to be implemented.

Building recovery time into schedules is standard practice across all transport operators.

funnyname

Is the 4 tracking the last of the big wins for timetable reductions until major money is required to be spent to bring down journey times even further?

KCAccidental

diesel pendolinos would be great in the future alright!

funnyname

KCAccidental wrote: »

diesel pendolinos would be great in the future alright!

How much faster would these be compared to the existing diesel trains?

[Deleted User]

The Pendolino tilting trains used on the west coast line in the UK have a top speed of 140mph but is limited to 125 by track conditions.

LXFlyer

funnyname wrote: »

Is the 4 tracking the last of the big wins for timetable reductions until major money is required to be spent to bring down journey times even further?

The ballast cleaning work will shave up to 15 minutes off the journey times, bringing the fastest train down to 2 hours, and others typically 2 hours 15-20 minutes depending upon the number of stops.

Further work involving renewing level crossings and bridges and other signalling works will result in other journey time improvements which might get it down another 5-10 minutes to 1 hour 50 / 1 hour 55 mins.

That's about as fast as it's going to get.

monument

KCAccidental wrote: »

diesel pendolinos would be great in the future alright!

No they would not. Using trains powered by overhead wires (and/or batteries) is a great potential area to reduce carbon emissions in transport and not get fined so much. Fines for breaking EU targets could be in the billions.

[Deleted User]

monument wrote: »

No they would not. Using trains powered by overhead wires (and/or batteries) is a great potential area to reduce carbon emissions in transport and not get fined so much. Fines for breaking EU targets could be in the billions.

Emissions from trains is but a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things.

BonkeyDonker

monument wrote: »

No they would not. Using trains powered by overhead wires (and/or batteries) is a great potential area to reduce carbon emissions in transport and not get fined so much. Fines for breaking EU targets could be in the billions.

Deleted User wrote: »

Emissions from trains is but a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things.

the cost to electrify the whole line and buy a new fleet would be far greater than any fine, especially if you look at the emissions saving from the the switch, which in the greater scheme of things would be minimal.

Sam Russell

BonkeyDonker wrote: »

the cost to electrify the whole line and buy a new fleet would be far greater than any fine,.

But we would have a nice shiny train set and fast Cork/Dublin transit.

KCAccidental

Sam Russell wrote: »

But we would have a nice shiny train set and fast Cork/Dublin transit.

which would be achieved with diesel Pendolinos though