[Article] Luas in test run on Dundrum bridge

Victor

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/0211/luas.html

Luas in test run on Dundrum bridge
February 11, 2004

(16:55) The first Luas tram crossed the new bridge at Taney Cross in Dundrum in Dublin today. It is the first test run of the Luas on the new suspension bridge.

The new line is scheduled to go into service in June and the level of activity on the line between Sandyford and St Stephen's Green will increase dramatically as the roll-out of the Luas approaches.

The line follows the path of the historic Harcourt Street Line which closed in 1958. The running time between Sandyford and St Stephen's Green is 22 minutes. Trams will travel in both directions every five minutes at peak times.

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/breaking/2517166?view=Eircomnet

Harcourt line sees train for first time in 50 years
From:ireland.com
Wednesday, 11th February, 2004

Testing of the new Luas system in Dublin this morning saw trains on a section of rail which has been idle for more than 50 years.

Safety and engineering tests are being conducted on the Sandyford-Beechwood section of the Sandyford to St Stephen's Green Luas line. The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, inspected the first of the "live" tests in Dundrum this morning.

The testing involves bringing a Luas tram along a section of what was the old Harcourt Street route including the new cable-stayed Taney bridge in Dundrum and the historic Nine Arches Viaduct at Milltown.

Steam trains were a common sight along this section of track before the famous route was controversially closed in December 1958. The 9-kilometre long Sandyford to St. Stephen's Green line is due to open in June.

Mr Brennan said there was a great "sense of anticipation and excitement" ahead of the launch of the service and predicted it would be an "undoubted success" which would "further enhance Dublin's reputation as one of Europe's most progressive and cosmopolitan cities."

The route will have 13 stops and the full journey will take 22 minutes. Each tram has a capacity of 310 people and a train is planned for every 5 minutes during peak times.

Mr Brennan called on the public to participate in a competition that will be held over the coming months to name the bridge at Taney, Dundrum. The competition to name the award winning bridge will be overseen by the Railway Procurement Agency and details will shortly be announced.

Victor

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2004/02/11/story133740.html

Brennan labels Luas an undoubted success
11/02/2004 - 1:22:00 pm

Transport Minister Seamus Brennan has predicted that the Dublin light railway system Luas will be an undoubted success.

He was speaking at the during a visit to Dundrum to inspect the first of the "live" safety and engineering tests of Luas trams on the Sandyford-Beechwood (Dunville Avenue) section of the Sandyford to St Stephen's Green line.

"Today, I have no hesitation in predicting that the Luas will be an undoubted success," he said.

"It will be enormously beneficial in meeting commuter needs and in reducing the number of cars coming into Dublin city.

"The modern trams and efficient system will also further enhance Dublin's reputation as one of Europe's most progressive and cosmopolitan cities," he concluded.

The nine-kilometre Sandyford to St Stephen's Green line is due to open in June.

It will include 13 stops en route to allow a full service for commuters.

The journey by Luas from Sandyford to St Stephen's Green will take 22 minutes.

At peak times there will be a tram every five minutes in both directions. Each 40-metre tram has a capacity of 310 people.

P11 Comms

The Todd Andrews Bridge
Date: 15 February, 2004
Issued by: Platform11 Press Office (www.platform11.org)

Platform11 would like to make a formal submission to the Department of Transport requesting that the LUAS bridge at Taney Road in Dundrum be named the "Todd Andrews Bridge" as an everlasting memorial to the late CIE chairman who closed the Harcourt Street line in 1959. Todd Andrews at the time claimed that the Harcourt Street rail line "went from nowhere to nowhere, and served nothing in between" which ironically sums up successive Irish Government's attitudes towards rail transport. So Minster Brennan, Platform11 looks forward to seeing the first LUAS trams cross over the Todd Andrews Bridge in Summer 2004.

ENDS 15/02/04

Tommy Vercetti

uhhhh

Tom Dunne

Originally posted by P11 Comms

Platform11 would like to make a formal submission to the Department of Transport requesting that the LUAS bridge at Taney Road in Dundrum be named the "Todd Andrews Bridge" as an everlasting memorial to the late CIE chairman who closed the Harcourt Street line in 1959.

That's in very poor taste.

You clowns are not going to get any support for your cause with idiotic "press releases" like that.

Tommy Vercetti

De Rebel

Originally posted by tom dunne
That's in very poor taste.

You clowns are not going to get any support for your cause with idiotic "press releases" like that.

/me seconds that. Todd Andrews inherited a CIE that was in truly desperate shape. Loosing money on the operational side and no capital to speak of. Over 40 years of minimal investment. It really was a mess at that stage. And there was no hope of finding the money to simply pay for everything. Tough and long overdue decisions were called for and he made them. I'm not saying that there wasn't another way, but the rot started long before his term. With hindsight, we might change some of his decisions, but after all 40 years have elapsed and that’s a lot of hindsight.

CIE then was an unsustainable mess. Some would say that it still is. By reducing the financial haemorrhage and giving the company focus on its sustainable routes Todd Andrews probably did more to get it back on course than anybody else before or afterwards.

BuffyBot

Originally posted by P11 Comms
So Minster Brennan, Platform11 looks forward to seeing the first LUAS trams cross over the Todd Andrews Bridge in Summer 2004.

Oh. I forgot to laugh.

Platform11 have some serious issues if this is the best they can do. Apart from the site being so editorially biased to give "The Sun" a run for it's money, releases like this do P11 no favours, nor the issues they are trying to raise.

BrianD

mMind you their article entitled 'FACT: Dublin already has a metro, it's called DART' is spot on. When will our politicians stop proposing a white elephant metro system as the solution to our gridlock problems.

DUBLIN DOES NOT NEED NOR CAN IT AFFORD A METRO!

With a modest investment we can have three metro style lines including:

Malahide - Greystones (exsting DART)
Maynooth - city centre (existing but requires electrification)
Naas? - Houston - city centre (existing but requires electrification)

All the above are integrated!!!

The airport could be served by either an extension of the Sandyford Luas or a spur off one of the existing rail lines.

Park and ride facilities can be built at suitable stations.

Problem is that the politicians don't want to invest and by wasting time on expert reports on an underground system.

Let's get on with it!

Andrew Duffy

This isn't the best they can do. Have you presented to a Dail committee?

Oh, apologising for the behaviour of CIE from the 50s onwards is not going to wash with most people. Railways all over the world were in bad shape then, seen as rusted relics of an age where private profiteering could drive a track through your house or land with no recourse, but most countries kept them open and they have become invaluable state assets.

BuffyBot

This isn't the best they can do. Have you presented to a Dail committee?

No, but I haven't made tasteless jokes about dead people. Makes us about even in my book.

I'd have no problem with P11 if they kept themselves fair and neutral, but stunts like that above show them in a less than flattering light.

BrianD

I agree that the proposed name of Todd Andrews Bridge is tasteless.

Todd andrews repeatedly stuck by his decision to close the line in the 50s. Even it was hard times for railways during this era it is hard to understand why a line passing through suburban Dublin could be lifted. It, with hindsight, would have been wiser to mothball it.

P11 Comms

Before we present Todd Andrews’ beatification credentials to the Pope for possible sainthood, I think a history lesson is in order.

Todd Andrews closed down the Harcourt Street route at a time when it was public knowledge that hundreds of houses were to be built along it course in towns such as Dundrum. Closing the railway may have been a result of government policy at the time regarding the covering of running cost, but Andrews covertly had the all the bridges removed over the Christmas period in order to destroy the line forever because there was a growing movement to have the line retained and a lobby group had even been formed. He spitefully had the bridges removed as a statement as his word was final. He made a comment that he “CIE was not the business of running trains to keep protestants solicitors in South Dublin happy”. The rail line was replaced with a worthless bus service and congested roads and the rest is history to say the least. Todd Andrews lived next Dundrum station and was driven by private limo into work everyday.

He also closed the Waterford-Tramore branch even though the line had always made a profit and also all the West Cork lines even though some of them like Bantry were covering their costs. So his closing policy was not always according to government policy.

The people of West Cork travelled up to Dublin to fight for their railways with the infamous Andrew’s quote “so you drove up” to greet them and what is not reported is that they had to drive up because they would have missed the meeting with Andrews had they used the train. The point was CIE was providing a worthless service and nothing connected with nothing which is the history of that company.

As the lines in West Cork were being ripped up, they burned effigies of Andrews dressed as Hitler which was apt as Andrews himself till his dying day expressed great admiration for the Third Reich. I know this has nothing to do with the argument, but Andrews is no more deserved of great respect as a noble human just for being in the after life. I honestly can’t agree based on his performance while here on earth. Being dead does not absolve you of your behaviour here on earth.

As for the press release it is an ironic commentary and is a part of what Platform11 does amongst many other things. As for being biased, that’s our business. I suggest people also give up reading SIPTU’s Liberty newspaper or Busrage.com if some find having a highly-biased opinion a problem for a lobby group. We are all entitled to our opinions and nobody has to agree. It’s a free country and the TA press release has been well received as lobby groups do not exsists to be objective and we need to get attention to highlight issues. This is game we are in and we didn’t make up the rules or have the power to open rail lines on a personal whim, the way Todd Andrews had closed many of them…on a personal whim. You are living with the results today.

Platform11 is about making sure this never happens again this is why we made a huge issue out of Spencer Dock and the Phoenix Park tunnel which as late as November 2002, the current CIE chairman was begrudgingly admitting even existed or could play a part in transport at all – "it’s only a works tunnel”.

All that has changed now thanks to Platform11, the politicians from all parties who supported us, a new more enlightened management structure at Irish Rail and the residents groups along the course of the line we spoke and told them they had a potential DART on their doorstep. We are not trainsportters, and we are also not habitual union bashers either – we only want the railways maximised to their full potential, a culture of excellence in rail transport, a railway network that the Irish people can be proud of and rail works can be proud to be a part of, and more importantly, never allow the likes of a Todd Andrews to run the railways of this country like his private train set ever again.

I would invite those of you who questioned Platform11's motives and credibility (and you are entitled to) to come along to our next public speaking and meet us and say hello and see what we are all about. We are just rail passengers who have had enough of our railways being forgotten or discarded, or badly maintained/run and know that it can all be fixed a lot easier than some would have you believe. Reliable integrated transport across all modes is not that hard to make work. Most other countries in Europe can do it, Platform11 is just pointing out the reasons why we have not got it here in Ireland – yet. Irony and humour is part of the equation as well.

Cheers,

P11 Comms

Oh, apologising for the behaviour of CIE from the 50s onwards is not going to wash with most people.
[end quote]

In the 1970’s a very popular train from Connelly to Dundalk, which served people working late, or theatre go-ers was taken off the timetable (arrived at Dundalk at midnight) without notice by the stationmaster and staff at Dundalk because “they got fed up working late”. All the management did in response was remove the service from the national timetable.

This is how CIE operated railways for decades it was about what the staff wanted and to hell with the customer. It was seen as a life-long job creating mechanism and not a public service. They know that once LUAS is up and running the days of shutting down the country over “Letters of Comfort” will be a thing of the past. It’s all over now and they should really be looking at what they can do to win back the public with real public transport plans of their own. Of all the groups they are on the frontline and would know best and some of them have already done this on an individual level. They have no other way out of the quagmire really.

What we saw yesterday was the dying screams of this CIE dinosaur along with a (public relations catastrophe for the CIE Unions) in the guise of some spoofery about the horrors of privatisation when it is not even on the cards for most of them and at a time when the Government is pouring billions of state monies into rail transport.

It’s not about the personal needs of NBRU unions and calling a vindictive stoppage when the government and LRC had given them what they wanted, it’s about getting people who pay taxes and buy bus and train tickets to work and back.

Cheers

BuffyBot

Why is P11 so concerned with what has happened in the past?

A consistant tactic seems to be "In the 70's..", "In the 50's...". Let it go, deal with the here and now.

Nobody is saying anyone be beatified. However, there is a time and place for making jokes about dead people. Press releases from a pressure group trying to organise a serious campaign isn't one of them.

We are just rail passengers who have had enough of our railways being forgotten or discarded,

Yes, and your not the only people either. The problem I have with your style is that rhetoric and exaggeration will get nowhere. There is no reason that P11 can't become a really credible pressure group for change, but I can't see this happening until P11 manages to apply some decent editorial standards to the content on the website, and their press releases. At the moment P11 seems to me to be the textual equivelant of an over enthusiastic puppy.

P11 Comms

The problem I have with your style is that rhetoric and exaggeration will get nowhere. There is no reason that P11 can't become a really credible pressure group for change, but I can't see this happening until P11 manages to apply some decent editorial standards to the content on the website, and their press releases.
[end quote]

Setting up of a website that receives over 30,000 hits per month

On-going TV, Radio and Press coverage nationwide

A historic live radio debate with IE Management. Which generated a huge response from callers. (Marianne Finnucane, RTE Radio 1)

The first organisation to bring to the public a review of the Strategic Rail Review, before the Minister had even launched it. (RTE Radio 1)

Lobbied actively for Irish Rail to follow standard European rail practice of constantly leasing, rather than purchasing new carriages every 20 years. The Minister has now ordered IE to lease trains from now on and this will now deliver more modern trains into Ireland, much sooner and at far lower up-front cost to the Department of Finance. CIE/Irish Rail had no intention of doing this until Platform11 highlighted the issue in the media and to the Government

Presentation on the d-Connector solution for Dublin to the Oireachtas Committee on Transport in April 2003 which was described in the Chamber as "the first piece of common sense spoken in this room" and Platform11 have been invited to return and have a formal debate with Irish Rail management

Many public meetings nationwide

Addressed the National Transport Conference in September 2003 and other major transport seminars nationwide.

Platform11's ideas and strategy have heralded a new era of railway lobbying in Ireland which other groups have since tapped into, and this "taking back our railways" approach has captured the imagination of the media both here in Ireland and in the UK. Groups such as West=on=Track now utilise this concept of community and regional ownership in the railways at a local level and are demanding railways be restored and existing services upgraded. For the first time ever, Irish people and communities are developing a sense of personal ownership in their railways previously denied to them by the disinterested, unaccountable and unelected management of CIE/Irish Rail

We have won the attention of the media and the decision makers in Ireland who at last are understanding the real value of rail transport solutions for Irish society and economy. We are the point of contact now on rail issues. It's not all Barry Kenny anymore.

we only started in Jan 2003 because some of us realise that internet pundits on transport posting to groups and doing nothing else were getting us nowhere.

BuffyBot

Publicity does not equate to being effective, or good.

[Edit]
Actually, I'm digressing from the point of this thread anyway. P11's choice of editorial stylings doesn't really have much to do with Luas testing in Dundrum.
[/edit]

sceptre

I may be asking a simplistic question but what does Todd Andrews being dead have to do with the price of cabbage? Is it just because he can't answer back any more?

(if so, should we stop criticising the likes of de Valera, Churchill or Haughey[1] (soon, my precious, soon)?)


[1]I was going to say Reagan but I may as well be hanged for a pound instead of a penny