Navan Rail Line

This thread is 13 years old and not even a sign of anything. Will it be lucky 13? I doubt it.

that's your opinion sure.

but it's not a realistic one given both projects are very different and the poster gave the timeline from the route being cleared (as in land purchased ETC and any demolition ETC) to the opening.

that timeline including the legal stuff and construction would, at a minimum be a realistic timeline given it's only a very basic timeline which as i said is not thee timeline.

Its like being in a time warp with it all. But I have learned to realise that new generations come through and have no idea of the history. Therefore we go around the same stuff over and over. I have a very detailed knowledge of the Navan alignment. Not from Google maps/Earth but from actual site visits and walks well before they even existed. I watched the alignment get butchered over 20 years ago while a Government were still talking about reopening it. Kilmessan was always an issue going back many years but the M3 and then the Dunsany sewer main only added to the potential costs and yet again during a period when Government policy was to reopen the line. Lies were told.

The box built under the M3 to "apparently" facilitate the line was a complete fudge. It was built after locals attempted to protect the alignment despite the M3 already being under construction. This box is much lower that the original alignment which approaches the M3 on an embankment. That would require even more extensive engineering to make it workable. The current status of this box is flooded. Meath COCO were even involved in a legal dispute with the station house hotel in Kilmessan. The approach to Navan would require a bridge across an M3 access road. There are many other obstructions and I could type for ages about them.

Tom Finn of Irish Rail got removed from the project years ago when he said that under a cost benefit scenario you wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. I was at that meeting. He was right. The latest talk about routing via Ashbourne and Dunshaughlin is baloney. Asbourne takes it miles off course and if you know the area and line, Dunshaughlin could easily be served with a Park and Ride in the Drumree. Adding more cost this project buries it even further.

The Navan line reopening has been a political football for years. Houses were sold on the promise of it as far back as the late 1990s. It sounded very simple back then, but Meath COCO in particular failed to develop a plan to make it work. I'd love to see it done, but Its not a runner now and your politicians know this. But like Noel Dempsey they will spin and spin, talk the talk and never ever make a plan that can walk the walk.

I'm gonna play a tune on the banjo now.

I got roasted on here for daring to suggest that Drumree would serve Dunshaughlin. On that issue alone every serial objector will make hay, but I predict that the project will be undermined by that, Kilmessan and the M3 box. If the political will was there to do this project, it would have been completed fifteen years ago. Our pols love railways when they can posture about them being 'delivered'. It is an entirely other matter to actually deliver them.

Ah, you were in the Transport 21 heyday.... of the 3 you mentioned, there has been numerous others scrapped, amalgamated, or re-launched as some other project.

M3 parkway and Cork Middleton were re-enabling of old lines.. (good oul Middleton, wasn't that meant to be an easy win election stunt?)

Luas B1 was the only substantial project of the 3, in terms of new infrastructure to be built (even if it was only a 7.5km extension), and the only reason it was pushed through was because it was holding up developments in Leopardstown, Sandyford and Cherrywood. It still took 10 years from concept to delivery.

Luas_Cherrywood_Construction_Update_29.pdf

edit: concept is not the best word, as the concept was there before 2000 (B1 was initially looked at potentially going to Bray). F&O / Project definition in the early 2000's better describes the timeline)

Two stations planned. Navan central on the site of the original MGWR station and Navan north in the vicinity of the former Kings Court line.

The approach to Navan passes close to St Columbus estate and crosses bothe the trim road and carriage road. It has been preserved to a degree in fairness.

I made a comparison to the timeline for a rail reopening project which is ongoing right now. You are right that both projects are very different, Navan would require a hell of a lot more work, building from scratch, so would undoubtedly take longer. If you don't want to believe me, Grandeeod has described how light there is to work with and some of the difficulties involved.

Now that you are adding additional things which would take more time, you are essentially agreeing that the timeline as outlined isn't realistic. The original claim was that "From a standing start you are looking at 7 years to go from concept to open for service", that isn't realistic.

the poster was talking about a standing start from after the route was chosen and cleared of everything in the way.

they never claimed it was the whole timeline of absolutely every single thing because that wasn't what was asked.

So route chosen and cleared of everything in the way before any consultation or even preparation of the RO application (nevermind submitting the application or it being granted, which was included in the timeline outlined)? CPOs will be necessary which requires approval from ABP and you certainly can't clear anything before that. Keep dig if you want.

The government loves rail advocates like you. You do their propaganda work, insisting that projects like this and WRC are viable and going to happen which takes the focus off meaningful rail investment projects. Decades later and very little delivered in that time but lots of reports and announcements. Still rehashing old tropes about a culvert under the M3 as evidence that the project will happen eventually, just wait a little longer.

If we were serious about connecting Navan to the rail network, we'd forget about the old alignment entirely. It has been gone for a long time so of no use at all. A new alignment isn't going to be any more difficult/expensive to deliver (have to build from scratch either way) but could actually sever other passengers on the 30km journey to Navan.

Thanks for that. No one should face any fines or jail for it, absolutely not. I wonder if any of those people have applied, successfully or not, to transfer ownership into their deed. I'd wager no. Based on this, CPOing these sections shouldn't be an issue at all - they built on an old rail line, what argument could they possibly stand on?!

They CPO land and houses all the time for motorway construction and that happens very quickly. I don't see why that can't or won't happen here, now that the government have shifted their focus to public transport.

Do CIE even still own the land? This was a fairly early abandonment so it could have been sold on. The only early exception I know of was the Harcourt Street line, which was probably an admission that it could be needed again in future.

It was closed in 1963, five years after the Harcourt Street line. The line to M3 Parkway doesn't appear to have had much or any issues around its reopening.

That's what I was thinking, the only two I knew that were kept were Harcourt Street and the North Kerry.