Old rail plans for Dublin: How far did they get.

Cool Mo D

Back in the 80's there were ambitious plans for Dublin's rail network, with DART to Tallaght, and an underground station at temple bar, I believe. How far along the road did this get before the plug was pulled? Was it just a concept in someone's mind, or had planning permission been got and lands bought?

And other ambitious transport plans, how far have they usually gotten before officially getting the chop? I'd be interested in details of this sort of thing, if it exists.

road_high

Dejavu :rolleyes:

mysterious

History aint repeating, Whoa this is bizarre, Actually no wait, it's not.


10 years time, I'd be avoiding reading the T21 plans:rolleyes: Soooo ambitious, at least these paperbacks would be good as toilet paper so not all is wasted. geee.

mysterious

Cool Mo D wrote: »

Back in the 80's there were ambitious plans for Dublin's rail network, with DART to Tallaght, and an underground station at temple bar, I believe. How far along the road did this get before the plug was pulled? Was it just a concept in someone's mind, or had planning permission been got and lands bought?

And other ambitious transport plans, how far have they usually gotten before officially getting the chop? I'd be interested in details of this sort of thing, if it exists.

They claimed to build the dart lines and glorified it.

But we the people knew the lines were always there:rolleyes: They just brought new trains and put up electric cables. Some engineering feats, it's just crackling I tell ya. The japanese must of been amazed at what we did in the 80s.

I'm nearly wetting myself with pride. So much so, that the english actually didn't put up the cables, they just built the tracks 200 years ago. I'm just so impressed with our INTEGRATED ONE LINE DART SYSTEM.

God I could go on, but I won't sadly.

L1011

Dargan was from Laois, not England

DWCommuter

The plans were drawn up by CIE in the early 70s. CIE owned most of Temple Bar at the time.

A DART tunnel was to be built from Sandymount under Fitzwilliam Sq, Stephens Green and into Temple Bar, where a new Bus depot was to be built for city and provincial services. From Temple Bar a line diverged to Heuston Station and onwards to Clondalkin where it branched off to Tallaght. Another line left Temple Bar and also headed underground to Broadstone and used the old alignment up towards Cabra and on out to Blanchardstown where a branch was to be built to an area near the existing Blanchardstown shopping centre. Yet another branch came off this line near Cabra to serve Griffith Ave, Walnut Grove and Ballymun.

On the Northern line, a tunnel started north of Connolly and ran to Temple Bar to connect up with the other lines.

The entire system was to be DART and Temple Bar was the hub as it was in CIE ownership and slap bang in the city centre. The only downside to the plan was the fact that the Harcourt street line was to be converted to a dedicated busway. Critics at the time claimed that CIE did this in an effort to justify the lines closure and not accept the mistake it made in 1959. Theres merit in that criticism.

Phase one of the plan was the electrification of Howth - Bray and it received approval in 1979. European Union money was drawn down for the project but rediverted into exchequer funds for something else at the last minute forcing CIE to borrow for the project. (a debt they carried for a very long time)

The rest of the plan was eventually scuppered by disinterest and C.J. Haugheys plans to build a left bank type development in Temple Bar. By the late 80s Temple Bar properties had been formed and the area was redeveloped for leisure and residential use. A state owned potential transport site had been sold out to development. Fast forward 10 years and this was repeated in Spencer Dock.

The DTO eventually picked up the CIE plan and redesigned it for Metro. CIE themselves proposed Luas as a cheap solution and we all know how that panned out.

Todays metro, luas and interconnector plans can, in part, be traced back to the original CIE plan. Things have changed slightly, due to changes in the city. One interesting thing is the fact that the plan was drafted in anticipation of the social housing developments in Blanchardstown, Clondalkin and Tallaght. Somebody was trying to forward plan.

Judgement Day

rapid transit leaflet 006.JPG

This is a copy of the map from the CIE proposal for a Rapid Transit System for Dublin. The busway to Tallaght and Dundrum says it all - not surprising the DART was the only part of it built.

www.irishrailways.blogspot.com

Nostradamus

There was also a plan around 1910 to build an elevated line along the north Quays between Connolly and Hueston and a cross city connecting line between Harcourt Street and Broadstone.

This never happened in part due to William Murphy who was chairman of the Dublin United Tramway buying up property in the parts of the city were the proposed eh Victorian Connectors were to run. He also was owner of the Irish Independent and used his newspaper to whip up scare stories about the projects.

Not much has changed eh...:rolleyes:

DWCommuter

MYOB wrote: »

Dargan was from Laois, not England

Dargan was from Carlow, not Laois.;)

Nostradamus

Judgement Day wrote: »

rapid transit leaflet 006.JPG

This is a copy of the map from the CIE proposal for a Rapid Transit System for Dublin. The busway to Tallaght and Dundrum says it all - not surprising the DART was the only part of it built.

www.irishrailways.blogspot.com

The busway along the Harcourt Route was a completely stupid element within that proposal and was sheer propaganda. CIE simply did not want to admit in any way, shape, or form that they made a collossal screw-up closing and then trying to destroy the Harcourt Street line. It kinda backfired on them and was one of the reasons this plan never really excited the public. It's a miracle the coastal DART was even built. But that was due to the fact the terrible commuter system of the time was amazingly very popular even though it was falling apart. The Government had no choice funding it to keep their middle class voters happy.

Right up until 1999 CIE was still trying to build a busway along the Harcourt Street line. Their cultural inability to come to terms with their own visionary paralysis concerning the Harcourt line was still, even at that stage, deeply rooted in their collective psyche.

I also feel this is the reason they will never open the Phoenix Park Tunnel line to passengers for no other reason that Platform11 had the idea and they didn't.

Propellerhead

There were plans in the late 80s to promote the busway and diesel rail elements of the DART plan, after Garret's lukewarm enthusiasm for the Howth-Bray project and the FF 1987-89 government scuppering the full implementation of the DART project and the then Dublin Transport Authority.

As an alternative, the then missing stations on the Maynooth line were to be opened, so Confey, Coolmine, Castleknock and Broombridge opened in 1990 (the original Maynooth line service was a very limited and unattractive service, covering only Ashtown, Clonsilla, Louisa Bridge and Maynooth and operated for years by decrepit push-pull sets with plastic seats).

The proposal that was then on the cards for the south western line was that a frequent diesel service was to be run from Clondalkin to Pearse, stopping at Cherry Orchard, Ballyfermot, Inchicore, "Heuston Suburban" - presumably what's now Platform 10 - Cabra, Drumcondra (which wasn't rebuilt until 1998 in the end) and onto Connolly and Tara Street to Pearse. Note that the infamous Phoenix Park Tunnel was part of this. Eventually this plan mutated somewhat until the "Arrow" service serving Heuston, Cherry Orchard, Clondalkin, Hazelhatch, Sallins, Newbridge and Kildare came to light eventually in 1994.

From Clondalkin it was proposed to serve Tallaght by a bus link and that the busway from Tallaght to Mount Argus was put back on the agenda, along with the proposal to run a busway from Harcourt Road to Dundrum. The Mount Argus busway ran into some major snags, not least of which was the construction of a housing estate right across the path of the busway at Mount Argus itself.

The Dundrum Busway then mutated over a relatively short period of time in to a CIE promoted "Light Rail" proposal, which was on the drawing board from 1990 to 1994, seriously promoted from 1994 to 1997, then all sorts of vested interests came crawling out of the woodwork to scupper the whole thing from 1997 right through to 2004.

No one should hold their breath in this country, whether in good times or bad, for any transport project, because they just don't happen overnight and even the best ones get held up by gobdaws.

Nostradamus

Propellerhead wrote: »

The proposal that was then on the cards for the south western line was that a frequent diesel service was to be run from Clondalkin to Pearse, stopping at Cherry Orchard, Ballyfermot, Inchicore, "Heuston Suburban" - presumably what's now Platform 10 - Cabra, Drumcondra (which wasn't rebuilt until 1998 in the end) and onto Connolly and Tara Street to Pearse. Note that the infamous Phoenix Park Tunnel was part of this.

Charlie McCreevy killed that off IIRC?

DWCommuter

Thanks for that add on P. Its all indeed true.

Nostradamus wrote: »

Charlie McCreevy killed that off IIRC?

He didn't really kill it off per say. He wanted it extended to Kildare town. When it eventually happened, similar political interference had occured on the Maynooth and northern lines with additional services being squeezed in. As we all know they went through the famous Connolly/loop line bottleneck and Kildare trains settled for Heuston with the planned light rail offered up as the solution.

Since then CIE have steadfastly used the "non-usability" of the PPT to lobby for other things. After years of being closely linked with that damn tunnel, Im now convinced that the fear of god exists in CIE/IE in relation to the PPT route. They nearly walked into it a few years back when the clearly told the Oireachtas Transport Committee, that the new Docklands station would cater for trains on the Kildare line. A few swift moves of a pencil on a drawing board and it was business as usual.

There may be some merit in the thinking that IE are afraid to use the PPT in case it jeopardises the IC. They certainly thought that way when they started to promote the Luas. If this is how we plan public transport, then god help each and every one of us.

Brian CivilEng

DWCommuter wrote: »

Dargan was from Carlow, not Laois.;)

I thought he was from Killeshin, which is in Laois. Come on DW, we don't have much to boast about in the way of famous Laois people, don't take Dargan away from me.:D

DWCommuter

abitofacomedian wrote: »

I thought he was from Killeshin, which is in Laois. Come on DW, we don't have much to boast about in the way of famous Laois people, don't take Dargan away from me.:D

Im just quoting from books which say he's from Carlow. But you can have him if you wish.:D

DWCommuter

Looks like two counties are claiming the Daddy of Irish Railways.

The books "Ironing the land" and "150 years of Irish Railways" say Dargan was born in Carlow.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlcar2/dargan.htm This site also says Carlow.

Wikipedia says Laois and this site also says Laois.

http://www.irishmidlandsancestry.com/content/laois/people/dargan_william.htm

Discover Ireland say Carlow!

http://www.discoverireland.com/us/ireland-things-to-see-and-do/listings/product/?fid=FI_49774

Many other sites say he was born "near" Kileshin Co. Laois, so he may have been born within the County of Carlow as Kileshin is very close to the Laois/Carlow border.

I was bored.:D

L1011

The alignment for the spur to the Blanchardstown Centre is still free, leaving just beyond Coolmine ("Blanchardstown South" I would take it). I've been told the Fingal County Development Plan mentioned this in the early/mid 1990s.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=clonsilla&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=12.896204,39.550781&ie=UTF8&ll=53.379617,-6.394687&spn=0.006349,0.019312&t=h&z=16 shows the alignment gap.

Brian CivilEng

DWCommuter wrote: »

Looks like two counties are claiming the Daddy of Irish Railways.

The books "Ironing the land" and "150 years of Irish Railways" say Dargan was born in Carlow.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlcar2/dargan.htm This site also says Carlow.

Wikipedia says Laois and this site also says Laois.

http://www.irishmidlandsancestry.com/content/laois/people/dargan_william.htm

Discover Ireland say Carlow!

http://www.discoverireland.com/us/ireland-things-to-see-and-do/listings/product/?fid=FI_49774

Many other sites say he was born "near" Kileshin Co. Laois, so he may have been born within the County of Carlow as Kileshin is very close to the Laois/Carlow border.

I was bored.:D

Portlaoise train station says Laois. We know that Irish Rail are infallible so QED