Officials to bypass Stormont deadlock to publish review of island's rail network

[StevieB]

That is quite some report that Ove Arup has produced, including some completely new lengths of railway. There are some interesting omissions, the obvious one being Enniskillen and it’s hinterland.

Stephen

[Galteemore]

Interesting painting posted on BBC news of how Enniskillen could look - complete with an SLNC service !!

[Horsetan]

On 18/7/2023 at 11:21 PM, jhb171achill said:

Call me an oul cynic; but I'll believe ANY reopening when I see it. They've been prattling on about all manner of reopenings, and freight hubs and the like for decades.

Successive governments, of ALL political parties north and south have not looked forward to plan anything for their grandchildren probably ever. It's all about what gets them the next election; and idle talk and soundbites do that just fine.

One thing they're all good at is kicking the can down the road....

[jhb171achill]

10 minutes ago, Horsetan said:

One thing they're all good at is kicking the can down the road....

Very much so; and I will stake whatever's left of any reputation I ever had by saying that if 10% of this ever sees the light of day, that'll be a good result........!

[airfixfan]

They missed out on reopening the Swilly to Burtonport!

[Darrman]

"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...

4 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

Very much so; and I will stake whatever's left of any reputation I ever had by saying that if 10% of this ever sees the light of day, that'll be a good result........!

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...

[Horsetan]

5 hours ago, Darrman said:

..... I'd list Mullingar-Athlone too, but good luck kicking the cyclists out...

I thought the whole point of a greenway was to ensure the railway never came back.

[GSR 800]

31 minutes ago, Horsetan said:

I thought the whole point of a greenway was to ensure the railway never came back.

I'll get out my shovel and do it myself if they wont...madness it was ever closed in the first place.

An interesting one is the 'Maynooth loop'. It seems to be to allow Sligo-bound trains to utilise the quad track from Heuston to get around Dart + services as far as Maynooth.

[DoctorPan]

10 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

Very much so; and I will stake whatever's left of any reputation I ever had by saying that if 10% of this ever sees the light of day, that'll be a good result........!

I mean since the report was written by my former colleagues, I will point out that Foynes has started work so its already starting to see the light of day

[Niles]

7 hours ago, Darrman said:

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.

^ This. The need to change at Greystones won't make it attractive to daily commuters either. As it stands there's two bus operators running direct to the city centre, I commuted the route for years and an additional hassle like that wouldn't win me over to rail...

[Westcorkrailway]

8 hours ago, Darrman said:

"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.

...

The problem with these areas mentioned. Bandon, skibbereen, Clonakilty, bantry, dunmanway. It’s that it’s very hard to make a line including every one of them without branchlines. 
 

Also. It seems this rail review would have easily knocked youghal out but because youghal and west cork have greenway projects currently in development. It’s hard to say weather that played a factor.

 

greenways are the future for the west cork until at least 2050/60 by which stage I will be nearing retirement!

[Mayner]

2 hours ago, GSR 800 said:

An interesting one is the 'Maynooth loop'. It seems to be to allow Sligo-bound trains to utilise the quad track from Heuston to get around Dart + services as far as Maynooth.

The "Maynooth Loop" is a very old proposal, I have a sneaking suspicion the the Dublin and Meath was originally planned to connect with the GSWR near Clondalkin before falling under MGWR control, more recently the GSR planned to connect the ex-GSWR and MGWR lines in the Lucan-Maynooth area and divert ex-MGWR line trains to run to and from Kingsbridge. 

While its encouraging to see Arup recommending building lines on new alignments to reduce congestion increase speed, its difficult to see the Irish or UK Governments approving investment in new lines because of the level of borrowing required to construct the lines and the level of operating subsidy.

Its much simpler to fund road-schemes on a users-pay basis, through road tolls, road taxes, vehicle registration fees, and excise on fuel, these taxes can be adjusted to minimise the level of Government funding required to build and maintain the roads, pay carbon taxes due and the road user both private motorists, and commercial operators take on the risk of buying and financing the vehicles/rolling stock. "Fines" for Ireland failing to stay within its emission targets are simply recovered through higher carbon taxes (fuel duty) on the road user.

It will be interesting to see how governments recover from the loss in fuel excise duty with the switch to electric, bio-powered and hydrogen vehicles, increased VAT on electricity?

 

[DoctorPan]

 

Well that was nice to have a few hours to believe that it might be followed...

 

[skinner75]

How long would it take to get to Letterkenny at any rate - 4 hours? 

Mad for their cars up there anyway - especially the ones with the yellow rear plates on them...

[flange lubricator]

25 minutes ago, skinner75 said:

How long would it take to get to Letterkenny at any rate - 4 hours? 

Mad for their cars up there anyway - especially the ones with the yellow rear plates on them...

I think we are  looking at a time when petrol / diesel cars will be very much restricted and the only cars with yellow number plates on them or not will be electric ones .

[GSR 800]

2 hours ago, Mayner said:

The "Maynooth Loop" is a very old proposal, I have a sneaking suspicion the the Dublin and Meath was originally planned to connect with the GSWR near Clondalkin before falling under MGWR control, more recently the GSR planned to connect the ex-GSWR and MGWR lines in the Lucan-Maynooth area and divert ex-MGWR line trains to run to and from Kingsbridge. 

While its encouraging to see Arup recommending building lines on new alignments to reduce congestion increase speed, its difficult to see the Irish or UK Governments approving investment in new lines because of the level of borrowing required to construct the lines and the level of operating subsidy.

Its much simpler to fund road-schemes on a users-pay basis, through road tolls, road taxes, vehicle registration fees, and excise on fuel, these taxes can be adjusted to minimise the level of Government funding required to build and maintain the roads, pay carbon taxes due and the road user both private motorists, and commercial operators take on the risk of buying and financing the vehicles/rolling stock. "Fines" for Ireland failing to stay within its emission targets are simply recovered through higher carbon taxes (fuel duty) on the road user.

It will be interesting to see how governments recover from the loss in fuel excise duty with the switch to electric, bio-powered and hydrogen vehicles, increased VAT on electricity?

 

road usage tolls are being considered (Though I'm sure they would be quite unpopular)

more reasonable proposals include replacing the tax system based on emissions with one based on the weight of the car. (Bad news for those who have bought some of the massive electric cars!)

Increasingly, however, there's admission Evs aren't the be-all and end-all, so it's very possible for rail to make inroads (no pun intended).

[Branchline121]

2 hours ago, Mayner said:

The "Maynooth Loop" is a very old proposal, I have a sneaking suspicion the the Dublin and Meath was originally planned to connect with the GSWR near Clondalkin before falling under MGWR control, more recently the GSR planned to connect the ex-GSWR and MGWR lines in the Lucan-Maynooth area and divert ex-MGWR line trains to run to and from Kingsbridge. 

While its encouraging to see Arup recommending building lines on new alignments to reduce congestion increase speed, its difficult to see the Irish or UK Governments approving investment in new lines because of the level of borrowing required to construct the lines and the level of operating subsidy.

Its much simpler to fund road-schemes on a users-pay basis, through road tolls, road taxes, vehicle registration fees, and excise on fuel, these taxes can be adjusted to minimise the level of Government funding required to build and maintain the roads, pay carbon taxes due and the road user both private motorists, and commercial operators take on the risk of buying and financing the vehicles/rolling stock. "Fines" for Ireland failing to stay within its emission targets are simply recovered through higher carbon taxes (fuel duty) on the road user.

It will be interesting to see how governments recover from the loss in fuel excise duty with the switch to electric, bio-powered and hydrogen vehicles, increased VAT on electricity?

 

Would I be right in saying the Dublin & Lucan tramway was the closest we got to the Maynooth loop, even if it only had interchanges on its east side and was a narrow gauge tramway?

Also, it seems that the DART Interconnector may be back on track, it seems if the whole plan goes through Dublin will have a network similar to that of an S-Bahn.

[Kevin Sweeney]

15 hours ago, Darrman said:

 

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...

Mullingar Athlone still has one derelict track in place, if they want to go double track they will have to kick the cyclists off. This is the one I'm really interested in as this would give me quick easy access from Edgeworthstown to Galway and Mayo, where I visit family, and holiday.

The plan looks great and it certainly changes the debate about Irish transport policy. It is also a long overdue admission that the roads dominated transport policy of the last 70 years was a mistake.

As a Cavan person who often argued with my friends and neighbours that we Cavan people should stop lamenting the destruction of our railway and start demanding its restoration, this report is manna from heaven. Up to now the idea would be dismissed as a hopeless dream, with this report that is no longer the case. It is only a line on a map so far but at last the idea is now out there, that there is nothing unreasonable or impossible about the idea of restoring Cavan's railway. This report will strengthen the hand of all us railway advocates in the border counties.

The problem of course is delivery, if they are projecting 13 years to plan and build the Navan Dublin line, this plan will take at least a century to complete. My children, or grandchildren might eventually catch a train from Cavan, but I doubt I will.

The one oddity is that it will leave Fermanagh as the only county with no railway. Why no line from Omagh to Claremorris, that would give us a west coast mainline.

[Mayner]

8 hours ago, Branchline121 said:

Would I be right in saying the Dublin & Lucan tramway was the closest we got to the Maynooth loop, even if it only had interchanges on its east side and was a narrow gauge tramway?

Also, it seems that the DART Interconnector may be back on track, it seems if the whole plan goes through Dublin will have a network similar to that of an S-Bahn.

The main draw back with Lucan North and South stations was their distance from Lucan and its attractions an important destination for day trips from the city during the late 1800 early 1900s. The narrow gauge tramway had the disadvantage that it did not run through to Dublin City Centre passengers had to change trams at Cunningham Road.

A short lived extension of the Dublin and Lucan reached Leixlip (Salmon Weir Inn) but was abandoned when the line was re-gauged from 3' to 3'6" and electrified, there were also plans at one stage for a Lucan Spa to Celbridge Line. The DUTC took over re-gauged to 5'3  and electrified and integrated the Dublin and Lucan into its tramway system during the 1920s with a through service from "The Pillar to Lucan' which were discontinued in 1940

The Dublin and Lucan was the nearest thing in Ireland to a US style Interurban Railway 

[jhb171achill]

11 hours ago, DoctorPan said:

 

Well that was nice to have a few hours to believe that it might be followed...

 

Exactly! Tis a case of "And here we go".....................   Typical finnagayl.

[StevieB]

We need all modes of transport but working together than against each other.

Stephen

[226 Abhann na Suire]

I thought the full final draft was supposed to be published at the end of last year… any word on when that’s coming out..?

[226 Abhann na Suire]

It’s nearly a year at this stage since the draft came out, I wonder what’s taking the final report so long…

[Barl]

On 11/5/2024 at 1:22 PM, 226 Abhann na Suire said:

It’s nearly a year at this stage since the draft came out, I wonder what’s taking the final report so long…

Apparently it has been under environmental review with minor changes taking place also, based on comments received on the Draft version. It has gone for government approval now with the intention to release the final version at the end of summer according to DoT. 

[226 Abhann na Suire]

@Barl thanks a million!! Hopefully the powers that be take as much of it onboard (pun very much intended) as possible and we might have a halfway decent rail network on our hands soon enough…!