[Article] €3bn rail network for Dublin 'ready in six years'

Genghis

In addition, your comments assume that the current realities rail face (which ironically are the result of thinking similar to your own that predominated the 50s) are projectable forward, and scaleable in a way that leads one to conclude that rail subsidies are directly proportonate to ail usage. There is no reason to believe that if Dublin had an integrated and widespread rail service with adequate capacity for peak travel that it would continue to be inefficient and reliant on Government subs.

The reality is that rail demand outstrips supply / capacity by a huge factor - as I heard Barry Kenny comment on radio yesterday that the 40%+ additional capacity introduced on Arrow and Dart lines as late as last December has already been filled. People will use rail as an alternative to road (car, or bus) when there is a service available to meet their needs.

Finally, I would point to the success of QBCs as examples of how properly run, reliable, and available public transport can successfully curb motorist inertia.

ishmael whale

Undoubtably rail closures from the fifties to the seventies did release resources for other purposes. If those services had been kept open, then we would have had less of something else. Given our political culture, and extent that local pride seems wrapped up in these things, I think we can take it that the governments of the day had little option, and just could not find the money to keep them going.
I have already dealt with roads being financed essentially by private motorists, (if not in this thread, then in the thread below on the Western Rail Corridor.) Firstly, this shows the inherent flexibility of roads in that they can be used by both public and private traffic, second, to the extent that private traffic is something we seek to limit on environmental grounds, we would probably always expect a tax burden to be placed on it. However even if we take your suggested figure of €500 million and assign it all to Bus Eireann and forget about private operators and road freight this would still leave bus carrying 45 million passengers for €535 million and 7 million passengers for €350 million. Put in other words, using the most unfavourable interpretation of your point still means that train services require a subsidy of €40 a head, but bus only requires €12 a head.
Turning to Finland, I can quite happily say I don’t know enough about the place to comment in detail. But if they are willing to pay this level of subsidy and if, like Ireland, they have a cheaper alternative available they’re just potty. Anyway, as I think I said when Finland was mentioned earlier, they have land borders and presumably links to other countries. We don’t. (Pause for someone to raised irrelevant point about Northern Ireland as if this means we can take the train to the continent of Europe)
I have no problem with development of rail services in Dublin were there is clearly a need and a demand. I have clearly stated that it’s the so-called inter-city services that I have a problem with. I don’t doubt that Arrow and Dart has a future. The Westport and Sligo lines, on the other hand, need justifications.

maxheadroom

The only international train you can take from Helsinki is one to either St. Petersburg or Moscow. The rest of their international connections take place by ferry.

If you really want to be convinced that rail can work well in a low / awkward population density environment, go and visit Helsinki, take the pendilino to Turku, a nice double decker intercity to Tampere (for your cheap Ryanair flight). Stay out at night until 4am and get a night commuter train back to where you're staying. In fact, I've got a copy of Helsinki's public transport map here somewhere, I'll try and scan it and post it.

ishmael whale

Fine, but I think two things are missing here. Firstly, the question of cost. How much does it cost them to run these services? We know how much rail services need to be subsidised here – how much are Finland spending?

Next, and again I’m not claiming any special knowledge of Finland, but their population seems to be grouped into larger towns. From what I can gather Helsinki has a population of 550,000, Tampere about 200,000, Turku 170,000. In all there seems to be half a dozen cities of over 100,000, and quite a few with populations of over 50,000. That strongly suggests that we can’t just click and drag their experience onto ours.

In Ireland the equivalent of a service from Helsinki to Tampere or Turku would be Dublin to Cork, not Dublin to Westport. The Finns seem to be linking up towns of a reasonable size, which we don’t have. Recall that Swords, Bray, Drogheda and Dundalk with populations of 30,000 to 20,000 make it onto the list of largest ten Irish towns. Its not just the crude population density, it’s the population distribution that’s the issue. By comparison the tenth largest Finnish town is a place called Pori with a population of 76,000. Their population seems to be less scattered than ours – we have a lot of small towns to serve, which seem better and cheaper to serve by bus.

maxheadroom

I'll give you a detailed reply on the population arguments when I get a chance to talk to my GF about it.

On the Financial side, VR group reported a net profit of € 21.7 million in 2002. I couldn't find figures for 2003.

EDIT: I found the annual report for the Finnish Rail Administration (linky) but I'm no accountant so I can't make any sense of it. It seems that infrastructural development is subsidised, but not the passanger services.

jesus_thats_gre

http://www.rhk.fi/english/network/electrification.html

The number of lines is quite impressive!

Andrew Duffy

From http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=185&si=1138310&issue_id=10533 (an interesting read, btw):

"Losses aren't incurred because railways are biblically cursed . . . it's because they're poorly managed"

uberwolf

the british are subsidising railtrack by more than they were originally costing the government publically and with a far worse service... (AFAIK) so this is is the model they want to serve the union?

ishmael whale

In looking up Finland’s railways I came across an extract from the Congressional Record, debating Amtrak, which includes a table showing Ireland’s per capita expenditure on rail right up in the top ten, sandwiched in between Holland and Sweden. Finland comes well down the list. If there’s something wrong with Irish rail, its not through lack of money.

http://gopher.quux.org:70/Government/USA/Amtrak/house-support-20020611.txt

The annual report of their rail service operator is here.

http://www.vr.fi/yhtyma/vuosikertomus/vske_2002.pdf

The first point about Finnish railways is the importance of freight, its 55% of income, 40% of which relates to Russia. Forestry, metal and chemicals are the industries that sustain a need for it, but the need seems to be falling off. Passenger services are growing.

The rail network is run by a different organisation at a deficit of 430 million. http://www.rhk.fi/2002/vskE02.pdf

The extent to which the rail service operator is subsidised is not clear. Its annual report states it to be making a profit, but its not clear if this includes any PSO lines. For example, this sample story from the link below suggests that its not beyond the bounds that the government there might subsidise a route.

http://www.saunalahti.fi/rautatie/news/v2003.htm

“VR discusses State funding for sleeper services Fri Oct 31 09:55:48 EET 2003
VR hopes to reach a long-term agreement with the State to buy Lapland sleeper services, to enable procurement of twenty new sleeping-cars now the subject of a tendering competition. At present VR has 110 sleeper cars of which 36 will be withdrawn 2006-8 and the remaining 74 refurbished to allow use for a few more years. Sleeper services carried 400.000 passengers in 2002.”

dmeehan

some irish rail services are so ridiculous they could do with sleeper services:rolleyes: