Darrman

Will the suburb Woodbrook is being built to serve come about or will we end up with another Kishogue situation? Certainly I see a whole lot of fields, but there is evidence of construction close enough. The station will roughly be where I drew a red circle (source: the planning permission page and documents within). Let's hope we don't end up with every single Dart stopping for a graveyard and golf course, and that the relevant construction doesn't have something stupid end up happening. Knowing this country, stupidity is inevitable. In Cork, they keep trotting out the "events centre" of non-existence every so often...

I was only in Downpatrick the other day for the Halloween trains, and it was a great day. Such a shame to see the place flooded.

EDIT: Double post, ignore.

Train was 40 minutes late into Belfast, but it was a full Enterprise service. It took ten minutes to get to Clontarf Road and it was held outside Drogheda to let another train pass. I returned on the 12:35 today. I intended to travel first class but I was greeted with a bus substitution until Dundalk with an ICR the rest of the way due to flooding on the line between Portadown and Newry. The train was ultimately about 40 minutes late into Dublin. Combined with a lack of Luas transfers (I heard there was a crash on Abbey Street from the taxi driver), the transfer to Heuston was more eventful than I'd like, but it did work out.

The Echo reports construction on Platform 6 at Kent has begun. The article includes a map illustrating where the platform will be: next to Platform 5, east of the train shed. https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/arid-41254498.html The printed article and online article are a bit different: the print version has politicians suggest Cork might get "all-electric trains, which are currently in storage in Dublin" - wires? 8200s? Wikipedia says there's five 8200s: with eight 2600s that doesn't add up, let alone once you add Mallow into the mix.

It's definitely black. Do I see two pixels of a chimney? What's the yellow pixel? I'll guess the whole new range is steam - it's definitely not a Dart. As for which steam engine this would be, I'm going to predict No. 90. It's preserved, and I'm definitely not biased because it travelled down to West Cork at all.

The 16:50.

I'm going on a holiday to the North next Friday and I have Enterprise tickets booked. Is the Enterprise always this unreliable? The way this thread is going, breakdowns seem to be concerningly frequent.

Once the Taras stop (if they haven't already), what will the fate of the Navan branch be? I can't see Irish Rail introducing Drogheda-Navan shuttles, nor any replacement rail freight. Is this the end?

It seems to have been delayed: the journey time section says "Kishoge Station will open in 2024 with local Heuston & Phoenix Park Tunnel services serving this station. This timetable has made provision in train timings for the future opening of this station at Kishogue." Leaving aside the fact they spelt it two different ways in two different sentences.

Nothing too dramatic, but seeing four-five minutes come off most Cork-Dublin times is good. An extra run from Mallow to Cork in the mornings will be nice; hopefully the big commuter plans come through soon. Pre-9am arrivals are always important, and it's good to see Dublin-Cork get that along with the pre-existing Cork-Dublin. Speaking of, the early morning express only takes 2:15 now: could we see sub-2:00 in the future? I can't help but note Kishogue is mentioned for a 2024 opening: will it happen? Sunday service for Portlaoise is a lot better too. The extra Drogheda services bring frequency to every 30 minutes for most of the day: part of the Dart+ preperations, I'd say. The new train from Westport fills a five-hour gap between departures, and its return means another 1:20 before the last train of the night. The service to Carlow fills in a three-hour departure gap on the Waterford line, which is quite sizeable. Nothing new for Nenagh or South Tipperary: still at two trains a day with a six and a half and five hour gap respectively between any movements at all. There's still a five hour gap betwen departures from Limerick to Galway too. Overall, the timetable improvements are welcome. The timetable once the new Darts hit will be the one to watch; Irish Rail themselves say the plan is to start regularising departure patterns next year.

The Examiner reports Alstom has been awarded the signal upgrade contract for Cork. Value given as €78.5 million. Works to start this year, finish mid-2026. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41207674.html

I haven't; I'll have to come up with some excuse to fix that. Forum round of golf, winner gets a Bandon tank?

A while ago I set a goal for myself: travel down every railway line in all of Ireland that I can possibly travel down. Yesterday I reached a major milestone: completing the passenger Irish Rail network in the Republic by covering the Phoenix Park Tunnel. My task isn't complete - most obviously, the North, need to do everything beyond Belfast - but there's also the various narrow gauge operations dotted across the country and I'm not sure which ones are actually open and operational. Below I'll list out each railway line so I haven't forgotten anything: if I did forget something, please let me know. Irish Rail - GSWR Dublin - Cork Islandbridge Junction - North Strand Junction Cherryville Junction - Kilkenny Lavistown Loop Line Kilkenny - Waterford Portarlington - Athlone Ballybrophy - Killonan Junction Limerick Junction bypass Limerick - Waterford Limerick - Athenry Mallow - Tralee Cork - Cobh Glounthaune - Midelton MGWR: Dublin - Mullingar Liffey Junction/Broombridge - Docklands Newcomen Curve Clonsilla - M3 Parkway Mullingar - Sligo Athlone - Galway Athlone - Westport Manulla Junction - Ballina DSER+GNR: Dublin - Rosslare Dublin Loop Line Dublin - Belfast Howth Branch NIR: Belfast Central Railway Blythefield Curve Belfast - Bangor Belfast - Derry Bleach Green Junction - Larne Coleraine - Portrush Trams: Luas Red Luas Green Heritage/tourist railways: Downpatrick and County Down Waterford and Suir Valley Giant's Causeway and Bushmills Fintown Cavan and Leitrim Stradbally Lartigue Monorail West Clare No passenger service: Drogheda - Navan Waterford - Belview Conniberry Yards North Strand Junction - Dublin Port East Wall Junction - Church Road Junction Disused: Belview - Rosslare Strand Athenry - Claremorris Lisburn - Antrim My source for the heritage lines is S. K. Baker's Rail Atlas of Britain and Ireland, 15th Edition - to my understanding the West Clare hasn't reopened for the season, for example. The many Bord na Mona lines aren't otherwise mentioned as they don't take passengers and are in the process of shutting down. Aside from them, I've been told on this forum the last railtour down the Navan branch was in the 90s. I assume no railtour has been down the remnants of the Waterford-Rosslare line since closure and have almost no idea whatsoever on how many rail tours journey to North Wall, with a quick google suggesting there was an RPSI tour there in the 70s. I'd be surprised if they (or any other tour) reached Alexandra Road. Lisburn - Antrim has had the occasional train across it, but again I have no idea when the last time that happened.

"Targeting corridors or towns with very low demand potential. Interventions that aimed to connect towns with populations of 10,000 or more that passed through sparsely populated areas (e.g., Letterkenny–Sligo) were considered, whereas interventions that did not extend to towns of a similar population and only served sparsely populated areas (e.g., West Cork) were deemed to be unviable for rail." - page 92 This makes this West Cork man sad, even if it is true - Bandon is at 8,000 and that's below 10,000. After that, Kinsale is at 6,000, Clonakilty is at 5,000, and Bantry and Skibbereen are both at around 3,000. But this is a strategic rail review, not a pipe dream rail review. Cork as a whole doesn't get too much - Youghal isn't so much as mentioned but the suburban lines are indicated as properly electrified as opposed to "other decarbonised" which I assume means batteries. The rest of the country has interesting things: electric Derry Road with Letterkenny branch and Portadown-Mullingar being the most ambitious. Of lower ambition but still important include connecting Dublin and Shannon airports. Of the "higher-speed" lines, cutting from Newry straight to Lisburn makes the most sense to me as the speed increase is large and it would cut a reasonable amount of mileage off. Electrification to Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Galway, and Waterford along with doubling to Athlone, Kilkenny, and Mullingar all makes sense to me. My only actual concern is diverting Wexford intercities to Waterford and across a reinstated South Wexford and leaving shuttles between Greystones and Rosslare for the DSER: I can't imagine that being faster. Building a brand-new parallel line to Dublin-Cork for 25 mph feels a bit pointless to me, but that's just nitpicking at this point. Overall if this report was followed to the letter I'd be quite happy. However... I'm in agreement here. If they just do the relatively easier tasks listed (Foynes, WRC to Claremorris, South Wexford, Lisburn-Antrim) this would be a respectable turnout. I'd list Mullingar-Athlone too, but good luck kicking the cyclists out...

Certainly I'd like to see it happen, but knowing this country, I won't hold my breath. I do wonder what the idea for Cavan and Monaghan is though. Since they didn't give hint as to what towns the line might pass through I can only speculate. Legend: Yellow: Electrified/proposed to be under Dart+ Orange: Operational Brown: Navan Branch - goods only Blue: Proposed Navan railway/my guess on the Cavan/Monaghan railway Green: Greenwayed Black: Closed Red dot: Operational station Green dot: Projected locations (Navan) / my guesses (Cavan/Monaghan) White dot: Closed station I based my crayon-drawing speculation on the 1906 railway map. I can't think of any other route that covers both Cavan and Monaghan but the GNR from Dundalk to Clones, before turning south to Cavan town and then the MGWR on to Mullingar. Realignments to avoid town centres and the six border crossings in a handful of miles would be necessary - I placed stations in villages with at least 1,000 population on the new line. I do wonder what the fate of the Navan Branch will be - with Tara Mines "temporarily" closed and passenger plans using the MGWR line to Navan, it doesn't appear to have any further use currently. I can't see Irish Rail deciding to introduce Navan-Drogheda shuttles - nobody would go from Navan to Dublin via Drogheda if the new railway is built, but on the other side of the coin, I can't see the new railway being built any time soon. Hopefully they at least release the draft soon - politics means the final report probably won't be released for a long time, if ever.

There's an Irish Enterprise North (Belfast-Dundalk) and an Irish Enterprise South (Dundalk-Dublin): both are needed for the full Dublin-Belfast. I've played a bit of this myself using Open Rails: it covers from York Road to Tara Street. The Navan and Howth branches are present as well, along with North Wall. On a side note - I haven't played it personally but there's also a route that covers GSR-era Kerry available for MSTS: https://tsforum.forumotion.net/t107-the-kerry-railways The same author (Moranb) has also made several Irish routes for Train Simulator Classic - it takes a very long time to download everything and finding all the assets is a large task that I still haven't completed, but I very much enjoy the Dublin to Limerick, Cork, and Tralee route - also featuring Cork suburban lines, the Nenagh branch, and all manner of sidings dotted across the line. I'll link the first part of the download (https://www.uktrainsim.com/filelib-info.php?form_fileid=35529), but there's six in total. Other available routes include the Edenderry branch, Newmarket branch, Valentia line, and Dublin-Rosslare - which I only discovered today as I was writing this post. All of them are available on UKTS. https://www.uktrainsim.com/filelib-search.php?form_exact_author=Moranb

Today's Echo reports plans to apply for Blackpool and Blarney planning permission within 12 months and for construction to begin in 2026. However, as far as I can tell all quotes are from politicians, so take things with a pinch of salt. https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/arid-41169556.html

How often are there railtours down to Navan anyway? I would like to travel down the Navan branch at least once...

If I had to guess the Die Dietrichs are going to be replaced if this comes to pass. I don't think I've ever been on a 29k, actually, but it doesn't sound like I'm missing out on much. I'll probably ride on them at some point when checking off Dublin commuter tracks. Regarding quadrupling the line, the current Dart+ plans suggest 36 trains from Clongriffin to Connolly during the am peak (presumably 12 per hour, with the peak lasting three hours). 12 trains use the four-track section eastbound from Hazelhatch between 8 and 9am, for comparison. Another six travel in the opposite direction. Enterprise journey times certainly shouldn't be slower than steam: 2:30 is comparable with Cork trains yet those have another 50-odd miles to travel. But no rolling stock can solve getting stuck behind a Dart. Only extra tracks can - whether by four-tracking everything south of Malahide or putting in passing loops every so often to allow Enterprises to overtake. However, the Dart plan isn't really bothered about causing Enterprise congestion: the only extra track it could benefit from is a loop on the up line at Clongriffin. Four-tracking is briefly mentioned as out-of-scope in the Public Consultation No. 1 Findings Report: Or to put it more concisely, "we don't need more tracks for Darts". The few mentions of "Enterprise" in that document, including concern about journey time, are given similarly rambling non-answers. The bolding is mine: this is the closest Irish Rail get to admitting that Enterprises could be slowed down. For what should be the most prestigious service connecting Ireland's largest cities, it potentially being slower than in steam times is embarrassing. I do see a logic in only focusing on the Dart in a Dart upgrade plan, but there's more to the railway than Darts.

https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Supplier/PublicPurchase/241025/0/0?returnUrl=ctm/Supplier/publictenders&b=ETENDERS_SIMPLE Found this tender. Most of the documents aren't available to the public, but in the periodic indicative notice an estimated value of €480 million is mentioned.

https://wicklownews.net/2023/05/procurement-underway-as-consultant-sought-for-avoca-train-station-pre-feasibility-study/ It appears that Irish Rail have funding for a "pre-feasibility study", which is presumably different from a feasibility study. Avoca had 771 residents according to the 2016 census, which isn't very large, but stations serve smaller villages.

The railway enthusiast in me is naturally in favour: last time I took a train to Westport from Cork involved changing from an intercity to a commuter train at Portlaoise before waiting quite a while at Portarlington for a connecting train, plus it's that bit more track to cover. But Cork-Westport isn't really a journey that would be made often, so time to take a look at things more rationally. Galway-Westport appears to be the most sensible service for this section, in my (rather uneducated, admittedly) opinion. I can't see the current Limerick-Galway trains being adjusted to skip Galway and head straight for Claremorris, but maybe one or two trains might run from Limerick to Westport. Tuam is the only town of note. Milltown and Ballindine are smaller than Ardrahan and Ballyglunin doesn't even have a Wikipedia article, meaning those stations probably won't reopen. According to Google Tuam is about a 40 minute drive from Galway, so the railway would have to be at least that fast to have any real chance. Timings vary: the 6:25 Galway-Dublin reaches Athenry in 16 minutes, while on the other extreme the 17:50 Galway-Limerick is allowed 29 minutes (with a stop at Oranmore). About 20 minutes is the usual, with a minute or two off whenever Oranmore is skipped. Athenry is 13 miles distant from Galway, while Tuam is about 16 1/4 miles further away. Reaching Tuam in 40 minutes doesn't seem impossible, but doubling Galway-Athenry would be a must to improve frequency and cut journey times. Easing congestion here would also help Limerick- and Dublin-Galway services. (I've heard talk about a loop being built in Oranmore, which is a start.) Beyond Tuam, Claremorris is 1:05 by road and another 17 miles by rail: if Tuam is doable in 40 Claremorris should be doable in an hour, but as far as I know beyond Tuam the line's littered with level crossings, which would pose a problem. If continuing to Westport, the 26 1/4 miles are scheduled to be done in 37 minutes: an overall time of ~1:40 is well behind the 1:20 Google quotes when driving from Westport to Galway. I won't factor Ballina timings in here but if Manulla is to be called at a Ballina shuttle should be waiting: if the frequency requires it a passing loop should be built on the line at Foxford. These rough estimates assume a service pattern of Galway - Athenry - Tuam - Claremorris - Manulla J - Castlebar - Westport. A useful point of comparison would be the historical WTT and/or service pattern: if anyone knows, I'd be interested.

Pre-ordered two of the green ones the other day: be nice to have them in a model West Cork at some point. I could take them down to the Model Village for a few photos too: I do live very close to it. Being the West Cork man I am, a Bandon tank would be my steam of choice. In more practical terms I think a preserved steam engine would be sensible.

The railway lines from Dublin to Cork and Belfast are double-track all the way (the Boyne Viaduct excepted), as are significant parts of the three cities' suburban lines. Dublin has the Sligo line as far as Maynooth, the Rosslare line as far as Bray, and the Howth and M3 Parkway branches double. Cork has the Cobh line double, with plans to extend that to Midelton. Belfast has the Bangor line and the Larne line up to some point past Carrickfergus double. In addition, the approach to Limerick from Killonan Junction is double track, with extending that to Limerick Junction at least under consideration. But there used to be a lot more double track in Ireland, and there was even more railway with some degree of accommodation for future doubling that never came. I know the GSR did a lot of singling, but I don't know of any comprehensive list of former double-track railway. I'm under the impression that most/all of the MGWR main line was double at some point, and some of the Sligo line was too. I also think that some part of the Waterford line was double, up to around Carlow? Limerick to Limerick Junction was double too, I believe. But I might be wrong about some of those, and I'm probably forgetting/don't know about some segments. Is there a comprehensive list of railway lines that were double-track at some point in history in Ireland?