DART+ (DART Expansion)

murphaph

Victor wrote: »

Apologies, how do you think it would work routing wise - would you see Kildare trains turning back there? What other routes?.

Initially I'd like to see the section from Hazelhatch to Spencer dock operating at 5 min frequency at peak time and 10 min off peak. To achieve the 5 min frequency I'd like to see trains depart at the following times past the hour (peak) or something similar (and the reverse runnings of course)

Hazelhatch for Balbriggan:
0:00, 0:20, 0:40

Hazelhatch for Clongriffin
0:05, 0:25, 0:45

Hazelhatch for Spencer dock
0:10, 0:30, 0:50

Hazelhatch for Howth
0:15, 0:35, 0:55

Hazelhatch itself probably doesnt'have the patronage to warrant a 5 min frequency initially so it might be preferable to run the Spencer dock shuttles from somewhere closer to the tunnel, Inchicore perhaps.

Jack Noble

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I am sorry. I have to call it. This is a Celtic Tiger fantasy.

Call it spectacularly wrong - on so many levels.

HP is a significant walk away from the line. These populations and employment centres are already served with train services.

HP can be served by shuttle buses. Not really a problem given the road links in the area.

I notice you ignore Intel - which is a short walk away from the station at Leixlip Louisa Bridge station.

It is ridiculous to waste a hundred million euros on carriages and electrification and tens of millions of euros a year on wages and electricity to serve villages and fields with 4 tph twice a day.

Maynooth and Leixlip have a combined population of nearly 30,000 today - with two massive industrial plants and a university. They more than justify rail links given the current demand. What do you think they will be like in 2025 or 2030 is a recovered, growing economy? What do you think the populations of both will be in 2025 or 2030 given the rates they - and the rest of the GDA - have grown over the last 20 years?

People need to stop viewing DartU and Metro North and similar projects through the prism of today and start thinking in terms of what the city and surrounding towns, and the economy, will look like when these projects have been built and are operational 10, 15, 20 years from now.

Why not use these trains to provide a luas-level high frequency service to the densely populated suburbs of Fairview/North Strand, Phibsboro, Druncondra, Navan Road, Castleknock and Blanchardstown?

Fairview and North Strand are currently served by the Dart and will have enhanced services post DartU.

Drumcondra and Phibsboro will be served by Dart and Metro.

Navan Road, Castleknock and Blanchardstown are served by Commuter trains today and will be served by Dart.

The accepted international standard is living/working within 1km of a rail station. How many people live within 1km of existing and planned Dart/Metro/Luas stations in Dublin and the GDA?

I live 600m from a Luas stop and a similar distance on the other side to a main bus route - it takes less than 10 mins to walk to either. That's perfectly acceptable for most people.

Just how close do you expect a rail/metro/Luas station to be before you consider an area 'served' by it?

Surely this would be better than serving non-existent ghost housing estates and the expansion plans of now extinct Fianna Fáil cumanns?

That line says more about your attitude to - and ignorance of - the planned rail projects than anything else you have posted.

The answer is unpalatable but has to be faced up to.

Nonsense. The plans that exist make sense if you understand transportation and planning for the future.

Zebra3

Jack Noble wrote: »

HP can be served by shuttle buses. Not really a problem given the road links in the area.

It already is served by shuttle buses organised by the company itself.

Jack Noble

Zebra3 wrote: »

It already is served by shuttle buses organised by the company itself.

QED

strassenwo!f

These posts have now become so long that they are probably being read by nobody bar the poster or the person being quoted. Thus, I will only answer the questions which you have directed at me.

Jack Noble wrote: »

There is no need for a turnback at Docklands/Spencer Dock because it serves no purpose. Also the Docklands/Spencer Dock station is in the tunnel - the portals are about 400m north of the station - care to tell us where you will actually put such turnback facilities? And how?

But if a turnback is so essential, it can be done at the next station, Clontarf, where the infrastructure already exists. Why duplicate that 1km or so down the line?

I think the most sensible place to put them in is in the Spencer Dock station itself, though there might be a case for putting them in in the proposed underground station at Pearse. Make the station a station with three (or better, as Murphaph suggested above, four) platforms. This would allow trains to either terminate there or continue onto the northern DART line, if capacity allows. Not difficult.

And, as I seem to have said on numerous occasions, it would serve a purpose. It would allow the tunnel to operate efficiently in a way which is independent of the capacity constraints on the northern DART line.

Jack Noble wrote: »

What is the point of building a €4 billion system that we plan to run at near capacity from Day 1? Have we learned no lessons from Luas? This infrastructure will last many decades - the lines DU will link up and integrate were laid down 150 years ago. That's what people should be thinking in terms of.

To answer that question - while internet experts clearly haven't, IE/RPA/NTA have.

As far as I'm aware, nobody has suggested that the interconnector should be run at or near capacity from day one. But it is currently planned to have it delivering 8 (eight) trains per hour, at peak times, to or from west Dublin. That is around a quarter of the potential which it could be delivering, based on what other cities are achieving, or around a half of what it is planned to achieve with the IE arrangement.

You don't want it working at 100% from day one. But you also don't want it working at just 25-30% of what other cities are achieving from day one either, which is the current plan.

That's why I think spurs from the Hazelhatch line, to big locations like Tallaght, make a lot of sense

Jack Noble wrote: »

Ok, you've suggested this - please show us where you would put a Dart spur from the Kildare line to Tallaght given that the alignment reserved under DRRTS is long gone and the area between the line and Tallaght has been massively developed over the last 40 years.

Show us an alignment? Where would it serve to maximise the investment? Would it be surface, tunnel or elevated? How much would it cost?

Also, have we learned no lessons with the Red Luas line and wanderly wagon routes? How long would a Tallaght to SSG journey take on this magical Dart spur you dream of?

No Jack. Coming up with an alignment and calculating costs is not my job, and I am not going to spend any time on it. That is the job of people in the NTA or IE or the Department of Transport, the people who allegedly plan this stuff. If they, or even you, cannot see the value of a rapid connection between the centres of the two biggest populations in Dublin county, then I don't see the point of me spending a lot of time trying to work out a route and the associated costs. But, off the top of my head there are: (i) the route of the LUAS red line, which could be rerouted if a direct DART spur were to be built, rendering the LUAS useless as a way of getting into and out of the city and more suited just for getting to and from other parts of west Dublin; and (ii) the metrowest route south of the Hazelhatch line, which wouldn't be needed if DART spurs are included in the interconnector plan.

Jack Noble wrote: »

So, essentially, you have come up with an idea but have given absolutely no thought to how you would implement that idea? Maybe you should develop your 'idea' a tad more before telling the world about it.

I did not come up with the idea. It was mentioned in the DRRTS plan way back in the seventies, and it still seems a rather good one, particularly given the way Tallaght has developed over the last two decades or so. I think it would make considerable sense to link the two biggest population centres in county Dublin by rapid rail using the interconnector. It's not really my fault if that can't happen because of planning failure. The planners are, I suggest, the people who didn't give it enough thought.

Jack Noble

strassenwo!f wrote: »

These posts have now become so long that they are probably being read by nobody bar the poster or the person being quoted. Thus, I will only answer the questions which you have directed at me.



I think the most sensible place to put them in is in the Spencer Dock station itself, though there might be a case for putting them in in the proposed underground station at Pearse. Make the station a station with three (or better, as Murphaph suggested above, four) platforms. This would allow trains to either terminate there or continue onto the northern DART line, if capacity allows. Not difficult.

There is no need for a turnback in the tunnel when they will exist on the surface at either end.

Secondly, how exactly will turnback and cross-over tracks be put in at Pearse or Docklands when we have twin bore tunnels some 20m apart?

And, as I seem to have said on numerous occasions, it would serve a purpose. It would allow the tunnel to operate efficiently in a way which is independent of the capacity constraints on the northern DART line.

And the same purpose, if more trains are needed than every 3.75mins at peak times can be served by running extra Darts from Clontarf to Inchicore and back. Simple solution to a problem only you appear to see.

As far as I'm aware, nobody has suggested that the interconnector should be run at or near capacity from day one. But it is currently planned to have it delivering 8 (eight) trains per hour, at peak times, to or from west Dublin. That is around a quarter of the potential which it could be delivering, based on what other cities are achieving, or around a half of what it is planned to achieve with the IE arrangement.

And has has already been pointed out to you more trains can be run to and from west Dublin if necessary.

You don't want it working at 100% from day one. But you also don't want it working at just 25-30% of what other cities are achieving from day one either, which is the current plan.

16tph is well beyond 30 per cent capacity. Are you really suggesting that peak time headways greater than every 4 mins for 8-car trains (capacity 1,400) will be needed from the day the tunnel opens?

That's why I think spurs from the Hazelhatch line, to big locations like Tallaght, make a lot of sense

They may make sense to you but the engineering difficulties and the massive costs do not make sense.

No Jack. Coming up with an alignment and calculating costs is not my job, and I am not going to spend any time on it. That is the job of people in the NTA or IE or the Department of Transport, the people who allegedly plan this stuff. If they, or even you, cannot see the value of a rapid connection between the centres of the two biggest populations in Dublin county, then I don't see the point of me spending a lot of time trying to work out a route and the associated costs. But, off the top of my head there are: (i) the route of the LUAS red line, which could be rerouted if a direct DART spur were to be built, rendering the LUAS useless as a way of getting into and out of the city and more suited just for getting to and from other parts of west Dublin; and (ii) the metrowest route south of the Hazelhatch line, which wouldn't be needed if DART spurs are included in the interconnector plan.

YOU are the person who doesn't agree with IE/NTA and their consultants so if YOU want an alternative route then it is very much up to YOU to come up with a workable, affordable alternative.

YOU want a spur from the Kildare line to Tallaght so it is up to YOU to suggest an alternative alignment, how it will be done, where the line will serve, suggest stations and give us an idea of how it will be done - surface, tunnel, elevated, in cuttings - and give us an idea of cost.

If you can't or won't then I will consider it a copout.

I did not come up with the idea. It was mentioned in the DRRTS plan way back in the seventies, and it still seems a rather good one, particularly given the way Tallaght has developed over the last two decades or so.

It was a good idea then but the time to do it was in the 1980s and early-1990s BEFORE the area built upon and the alignment lost/passed to Luas.

But those days and opportunities are gone and planners and politicians have to deal with the realities we face now - both physical and financial.

I think it would make considerable sense to link the two biggest population centres in county Dublin by rapid rail using the interconnector.

Not given the costs involved in putting in such a line that would serve the maximum population centres.

It's not really my fault if that can't happen because of planning failure. The planners are, I suggest, the people who didn't give it enough thought.

The planning failures are those that allowed mass development across the west Dublin without also building the necessary transport infrastructure. And those were caused my massive political failings from the mid-1970s through to the present day.

strassenwo!f

Jack Noble wrote: »

There is no need for a turnback in the tunnel when they will exist on the surface at either end.

Secondly, how exactly will turnback and cross-over tracks be put in at Pearse or Docklands when we have twin bore tunnels some 20m apart?

A couple of the things which were missing from your schedule above were the Enterprise to/from Belfast and the Dundalk arrow services. Could you talk us through how there are going to be sixteen trains per hour through the interconnector while those Enterptise/Arrow services are going in an out of Dublin, crossing services which are tunnel-bound or coming out of the tunnel?

With regard to the tunnel and turnback platforms, it is my understanding that the construction of the tunnel and the construction of the stations are quite separate operations. There could be construction of a four-platform station without this having any impact on the construction of the tunnel itself.

Jack Noble wrote: »

And the same purpose, if more trains are needed than every 3.75mins at peak times can be served by running extra Darts from Clontarf to Inchicore and back. Simple solution to a problem only you appear to see.

Jack, it's not a problem which I see. It is an opprtunity. An opportunity to connect the second-biggest urban population in the county with the biggest one. And, if we plan it well, an opportunity to also connect other western suburbs to a rapid connection to Dublin centre.

Jack Noble wrote: »

YOU are the person who doesn't agree with IE/NTA and their consultants so if YOU want an alternative route then it is very much up to YOU to come up with a workable, affordable alternative.

YOU want a spur from the Kildare line to Tallaght so it is up to YOU to suggest an alternative alignment, how it will be done, where the line will serve, suggest stations and give us an idea of how it will be done - surface, tunnel, elevated, in cuttings - and give us an idea of cost.

If you can't or won't then I will consider it a copout

.

Sorry Jack, but if the national transport authority need to get consultants in to get them to do their job properly then I don't think it's me who's the one copping out. It's not my job to figure out how to link major population centres in Dublin. I'm merely chipping in with my bit about how it has been done in other cities which I've seen and how it might be done in Dublin.

I've given you a couple of ideas about how the Tallaght connection might be done, and it's free. It's not going to cost you 400 Euro an hour, or whatever the NTA's consultants are charging.

cabrasnake

Your consultancy is not free at all. Because you're dreaming your ideas up after a little bit of a think it's certain your projects would fall foul of many snags that would cost the sun and the moon and the stars to put right.

strassenwo!f

cabrasnake wrote: »

Your consultancy is not free at all. Because you're dreaming your ideas up after a little bit of a think it's certain your projects would fall foul of many snags that would cost the sun and the moon and the stars to put right.

With the greatest respect, cabrasnake, nobody is going to be building a railway line to Tallaght based on what they read on an internet board.

To summarise, I think it would make sense for the country if there were a rapid connection between the biggest population centre in Dublin and the second biggest. And I think the four-tracked Hazelhatch line and the proposed interconnector, with the considerable capacity which it will have, would be the best way to do it.

I appear to have screwed up by thinking that.

antoinolachtnai

This is all fine. It is finally becoming clear from the discussion what DART Underground is actually for.

It is a system for linking outlying towns like Maynooth, Leixlip, Laytown and Drogheda with Dublin. It is not urban rail. It will never provide high frequency services. It will make very little difference to public transport for people within Dublin, other than perhaps displacing a few cars from the road. The ideas presented above for turning it into urban rail (such as turnback at Clontarf) will not work because the junctions between the tunnel and Clontarf are not grade-separated. You cannot expect to run such high-frequency services on lines that are not grade separated.

To be fair, Irish Rail never claimed DART Underground was anything else but outer suburban rail. See the business case. According to the modelling that was done, DU will generate very few new public transport trips at peak time (1-1.5 percent). (see business case, 2.5.4) It will only increase public transport use by a few thousand journeys a day by 2030 (see business case, 2.5.6) (http://www.irishrail.ie/media/dart_underground_business_case1.pdf).

My point here is that the basic idea of joining Docklands to Heuston is a good one, and a few small but significant alterations would make DART Underground the heart of a high-frequency urban transport system. This would serve the region's needs far better than a regional rail system.

Cool Mo D

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

This is all fine. It is finally becoming clear from the discussion what DART Underground is actually for.

It is a system for linking outlying towns like Maynooth, Leixlip, Laytown and Drogheda with Dublin. It is not urban rail. It will never provide high frequency services. It will make very little difference to public transport for people within Dublin, other than perhaps displacing a few cars from the road. The ideas presented above for turning it into urban rail (such as turnback at Clontarf) will not work because the junctions between the tunnel and Clontarf are not grade-separated. You cannot expect to run such high-frequency services on lines that are not grade separated.

To be fair, Irish Rail never claimed DART Underground was anything else but outer suburban rail. See the business case. According to the modelling that was done, DU will generate very few new public transport trips at peak time (1-1.5 percent). (see business case, 2.5.4) It will only increase public transport use by a few thousand journeys a day by 2030 (see business case, 2.5.6) (http://www.irishrail.ie/media/dart_underground_business_case1.pdf).

My point here is that the basic idea of joining Docklands to Heuston is a good one, and a few small but significant alterations would make DART Underground the heart of a high-frequency urban transport system. This would serve the region's needs far better than a regional rail system.

The two are not mutually exclusive. Lower frequency trains on multiple outer branches combine closer to the city centre to give a rapid high-frequency service on the dense core route. For the DART, the two core routes will be Howth Junction to Inchicore and Clonsilla to Dun Laoighaire.
Just like S-Bahn and RER systems on the continent.

And lack of grade seperation will not necessarily prevent high frequency: see the London Underground District line for a good example.

Jack Noble

strassenwo!f wrote: »

A couple of the things which were missing from your schedule above were the Enterprise to/from Belfast and the Dundalk arrow services. Could you talk us through how there are going to be sixteen trains per hour through the interconnector while those Enterptise/Arrow services are going in an out of Dublin, crossing services which are tunnel-bound or coming out of the tunnel?

At peak times, the number of non-Dart trains (Belfast and Dundalk) per hour will be four or five, it really won't conflict with a turnback facility at Clontarf offering additional peak time trains.

With regard to the tunnel and turnback platforms, it is my understanding that the construction of the tunnel and the construction of the stations are quite separate operations. There could be construction of a four-platform station without this having any impact on the construction of the tunnel itself.

No, the construction of the tunnels and station boxes go hand in hand. You still haven't explained how you will put in crossovers between twin bore tunnels on average 20m apart with island platforms in the stations.

Twin bore tunnels were chosen for safety reasons and to comply with modern standards. Linking those separate tunnels by crossovers goes completely against both. Never mind the massive safety, engineering and cost implications.

Again, there is absolutely no logic to your suggestion when safe turnback facilities exist on the surface either end of the tunnel section.

Jack, it's not a problem which I see. It is an opprtunity. An opportunity to connect the second-biggest urban population in the county with the biggest one. And, if we plan it well, an opportunity to also connect other western suburbs to a rapid connection to Dublin centre.

It is not an opportunity without enormous engineering challenges and financial costs - which simply cannot be justified.
.

Sorry Jack, but if the national transport authority need to get consultants in to get them to do their job properly then I don't think it's me who's the one copping out. It's not my job to figure out how to link major population centres in Dublin. I'm merely chipping in with my bit about how it has been done in other cities which I've seen and how it might be done in Dublin.

External consultants and experts are brought in because IE/RPA/NTA/DoT simply do not keep that level of expertise in house. Nor should they. It's not an Irish phenomenon either, it happens worldwide.

It makes much more sense to bring in external expertise and experience when it is needed.

Such external consultants and experts who have worked on similar projects worldwide have been brought in on every major study and plan over the last 50 years - DRRTS, Light Rail Study, Strategic Rail Review, Platform for Change, Transport 21, the Luas, Metro and Dart projects. And the Port Tunnel and the motorways. And T2 at DUB and the new terminal in Cork. And pretty much every other major engineering project over the last 20 years.

The DRRTS of 1975 was carried out by Alan M Voorhees, one of the pre-eminent urban rail planners of the second half of the 20th century. Before DRRTS he had worked on the Washington and Hong Kong metros, to name just two. CIE simply did not have that level of expertise in 1970s - nor should they be expected to.

The current Dart Underground tunnel line has been planned and designed by IE in conjunction with Arup, one of the biggest global engineering firms which has experience of designing and building similar projects worldwide. Again, IE simply would not have that experience in house.

The other advantage of external experts - apart from their knowledge and experience built up working on similar schemes - is that they bring fresh eyes to a problem, untainted by local personalities, prejudices, politics and fixed ideas.

I've given you a couple of ideas about how the Tallaght connection might be done, and it's free. It's not going to cost you 400 Euro an hour, or whatever the NTA's consultants are charging.

Have you ever considered that, given the level of study and revision that has gone into these plans over the last number of decades, and taking into account developments over recent decades, that your suggestions and many others have been considered and ruled out for various reasons, including the two obvious reasons I have listed?

Seriously, when I read some of the posts and suggestions on internet fora like this or reports in the media, I'm convinced some people are convinced these projects have been planned and designed by some junior office boy in Heuston Station with a map and a box of Crayola - or in recent years, a PC with Google Maps and Paintshop Pro.

You have suggested the Tallaght spur off the Kildare line - you come up with the alignment. If you can't or won't, then maybe you might then accept that the people who have come up with the plans we have actually know what they are doing.

Jack Noble

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

This is all fine. It is finally becoming clear from the discussion what DART Underground is actually for.

It is a system for linking outlying towns like Maynooth, Leixlip, Laytown and Drogheda with Dublin. It is not urban rail. It will never provide high frequency services. It will make very little difference to public transport for people within Dublin, other than perhaps displacing a few cars from the road. The ideas presented above for turning it into urban rail (such as turnback at Clontarf) will not work because the junctions between the tunnel and Clontarf are not grade-separated. You cannot expect to run such high-frequency services on lines that are not grade separated.

To be fair, Irish Rail never claimed DART Underground was anything else but outer suburban rail. See the business case. According to the modelling that was done, DU will generate very few new public transport trips at peak time (1-1.5 percent). (see business case, 2.5.4) It will only increase public transport use by a few thousand journeys a day by 2030 (see business case, 2.5.6) (http://www.irishrail.ie/media/dart_underground_business_case1.pdf).

My point here is that the basic idea of joining Docklands to Heuston is a good one, and a few small but significant alterations would make DART Underground the heart of a high-frequency urban transport system. This would serve the region's needs far better than a regional rail system.

It's to link the suburbs and commuter towns around Dublin AND provide a high frequency, high capacity service on the core routes withing the city - as Cool Mo D points out. The two complement each other and are not mutually exclusive.

I'm really at a loss as how some people can't see that providing 16 trains an hour at peak between Clongriffin and Inchicore (that's one every 3 mins, 45 seconds) and every 5-6mins between Clonsilla and Grand Canal Dock (8 Maynooth-Bray Darts, 3 Longford-GCD Commuter trains - coupled with 6 services an hour between Pace and Docklands - is not a high frequency service. The Darts will be 6- and 8-car trains each capable of carrying 1,050 and 1,400 people respectively. That's an awful lot of capacity per hour into and through the city centre.

It's exactly how it's done in other cities across Europe.

Munich has already been mentioned. The majority of the S-Bahn lines have frequencies of every 20 mins from their outer terminii - but provide but the way these are staggered it provided peak frequencies of around every 2-3 minutes in the core tunnel section through the city centre.

Something similar applies in Oslo on both the metro and communter lines through the Common and Oslo tunnels respectively.

In Stockholm the 8 metro lines are actually made up spurs that go through common sections under the city centre. The new tunnel being built for commuter lines - similar to Dart Underground - will do the same for the Pendeltog with outer lines sharing the common section under the city where there will be a higher frequency service.

Similar systems operate in several German cities with outer lines sharing common city centre tunnels on U-Bahn, S-Bahn and Stadtbahn services.

With Dart Underground, IE and NTA are simply learning the lessons and best practice from other cities where these concepts work and are proven and are applying them to Dublin.

strassenwo!f

Jack, it is well known to all of the board that IE and the RPA need to get in consultants to plan the fine details of the projects which they are delivering. Quite normal.

What is not clear is why the Department of Transport, and the various offshoots, should need to get in outside consultants to help them work out an overall plan for the city.

But, anyway, the DOT got in the consultants, and between them all they decided that a 45-minute tram connection (or a journey along the metro west and change onto the Hazelhatch line) between the two biggest population centres in the county is just dandy, and no need to upgrade it to, let's say a 20-minute direct rail journey.

I believe they're wrong. And I've shown you a way how it might be done. What more do you want?

Jack Noble

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Jack, it is well known to all of the board that IE and the RPA need to get in consultants to plan the fine details of the projects which they are delivering. Quite normal.

What is not clear is why the Department of Transport, and the various offshoots, should need to get in outside consultants to help them work out an overall plan for the city.

To gain expertise and experience from other cities that have planned, built and operate similar systems - and to learn the lessons from those cities of what works and doesn't work, why it works and why it doesn't work, and how these lessons can be applied to Dublin and the GDA.

But, anyway, the DOT got in the consultants, and between them all they decided that a 45-minute tram connection (or a journey along the metro west and change onto the Hazelhatch line) between the two biggest population centres in the county is just dandy, and no need to upgrade it to, let's say a 20-minute direct rail journey.

And I have explained to you the enormous obstacles to your suggestion - both engineering and financial. And that's before you even get into the planning and politics of it all.

I believe they're wrong. And I've shown you a way how it might be done. What more do you want?

No, you have not shown anything. You have suggested a 'spur' from the Kildare line to Tallaght. That's it.

You have not suggested an alignment. You have not suggested where it should meet the Kildare line, where it will end in Tallaght, or where it will serve in between.

After answering the 'where' questions, then you need to get into the 'how'. Will any line be on surface, in a cutting, in tunnel, elevated on embankments or viaducts - or combination of some or all of those methods.

And you need to consider and answer all those questions before you get to the most important questions of all - how much will it cost? Can it be justified? How will it be 'sold' to the public - both locally and nationally? How will it be funded?

So if you think your idea is so great, then quit spoofing and let's see the detail.

antoinolachtnai

Jack,

I completely agree with your idea of having multiple corridors feeding into one central tunnel to provide a dense timetable in the central area.

I completely agree that urban and regional services are not mutually exclusive.

Unfortunately that is not what is being proposed, going by the business case (which requires significant works to be completed over and above the Dart Underground works):

Look at the schedule:

Table A 7: Drogheda - Hazelhatch Line service frequency – Do Something
Route Trains Per Peak Hour Peak Frequency
Drogheda/Inchicore 8 7.5 minutes
Balbriggan/Hazelhatch* 4 15 minutes
Grange Rd/Hazelhatch* 4 15 minutes
Dundalk/Connolly** 3 20 minutes
Howth/Howth Junction 6 10 minutes

There is only one corridor there feeding into the tunnel, Drogheda/Hazelhatch.

As you rightly point out, the outer corridors in Munich only have one train every 20 minutes. This is the sort of level of service that somewhere like Balbriggan or Drogheda needs, not a service ever 7.5 minutes.

The peak services might conceiveably run every 7.5 minutes for a short time each morning, some day. But that isn't the same as 'high frequency'. To make the route high-frequency, you need a catchment sufficiently large to attract off-peak passengers. The DART Underground Tunnel's catchment just won't attract that many passengers. There just aren't that many people living along it.

If the Dart Underground junctions were redesigned, it could certainly allow the sort of arrangement you are describing. Services could be staggered into the centre city tunnel from both the north and the west and this would greatly increase utilisation.

But as it is currently designed, it doesn't allow for a link with either the PPT or the Maynooth line, so DU won't bring the advantages you hope for.

In fact, DU as currently designed will make it almost impossible to do what you hope for, ever.

strassenwo!f

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Jack,

I completely agree with your idea of having multiple corridors feeding into one central tunnel to provide a dense timetable in the central area.

I think you may be mixing us up.

Jack is the chap who believes in piling more and more trains at the Hazelhatch line in the event of increases in demand in all of west Dublin.

I'm the one who believes in the multiple corridors.:)

Jack Noble

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Jack,

I completely agree with your idea of having multiple routes feeding into one central tunnel.

Unfortunately that is not what is being proposed in the business case (which requires significant works to be completed over and above the Dart Underground works):

Look at the schedule:

Table A 7: Drogheda - Hazelhatch Line service frequency – Do Something
Route Trains Per Peak Hour Peak Frequency
Drogheda/Inchicore 8 7.5 minutes
Balbriggan/Hazelhatch* 4 15 minutes
Grange Rd/Hazelhatch* 4 15 minutes
Dundalk/Connolly** 3 20 minutes
Howth/Howth Junction 6 10 minutes

There is only one corridor there feeding into the tunnel, Drogheda/Hazelhatch.

As you rightly point out, the outer corridors in Munich only have one train every 20 minutes. This is the sort of level of service that somewhere like Balbriggan or Drogheda needs, not a service ever 7.5 minutes.

If the Dart Underground junctions were redesigned, it could certainly allow the sort of arrangement you are describing. Services could be staggered into the centre city tunnel from both the north and the west and this would greatly increase utilisation. But as it is currently designed, it doesn't allow for a link with either the PPT or the Maynooth line, so what you describe isn't really possible.

(In fairness, CIE don't claim it is possible and that is why the number of new peak time public transport passengers that are forecast to be attracted by Dart Underground is so abysmally low - a few thousand a day -.)

And those spur lines using common tunnels in the city centre were once planned for Dublin under DRRTS - but they were never built because of the political failures and financial crisis of the 1980s. Then they were superceded by Luas and Metro plans, except for the single Dart tunnel that will link up the existing heavy rail lines.

Alongside DartU, Metro and Luas will form the backbone of the future integrated Dublin system.

As I am pointing out Strassenwolf, there is nowhere to put spur lines off the Kildare line or the Maynooth line to serve big population centres that will not have enourmous engineering difficulties and this costs. The volume of current demand on the Kildare, Maynooth and Drogheda lines today justifies their upgrade to Dart - future demand once upgraded will only enhance that justification.

The time to put in spurs off those lines to serve Blanch, Lucan, Clondalkin, Tallaght, Ballymun, etc, was 30 years ago - before they were all built upon. But the realities of today need to be considered when planning for the future. If €2-3bn is to be spent on a Tallaght rail link in the future, then it makes much more sense to spend it on a metro line from Tallaght via Templeogue, Kimmage, Harold X and SSG where it can link with Metro North and run a Tallaght to Swords line via the airport. But that is way down the track. Under current plans, Tallaght will have three rail links into the system - Luas Red, Metro West and above alignment as either Luas or BRT.

As I have pointed out, once Dart Underground is built and the rail lines upgraded to Dart out to Kildare (which is where it will eventually go beyond Hazelhatch), Maynooth and Drogheda, then all future development over the coming decades will be concentrated along those corridors. For example, there is a huge swathe of land between Parkwest and Adamstown that can be developed over the next 50 years. There are similar large tracts between Portmarnock and Malahide, around Donabate and Lusk, etc.

The lines chosen for development are not simply about serving today's needs but also putting in the infrastructure which will serve future development rather than repeating the mistakes of the past where development came before infrastucture.

And I'm not sure what you mean about 'if the Dart Underground junctions were redesigned'.

The PPT is not suitable for high capacity, rapid services - never mind the enourmous engineering challenges and the costs involved in linking it into DartU.

And the Maynooth line does not need to use the tunnel - people can change trains at Pearse. It's what's been done in other cities for a century - I don't see why it won't work in Dublin.

And I'm not sure why you think daily passenger numbers forecast for Dart Underground are 'abysmally low'. The revised Business Case for Dart U puts daily usage of the Dart system in 2030 at 146,000 - from a base of 30,000 in 2007. That's a near 400 per cent increase. Abysmal indeed.

Jack Noble

strassenwo!f wrote: »

I think you may be mixing us up.

Jack is the chap who believes in piling more and more trains at the Hazelhatch line in the event of increases in demand in all of west Dublin.

I'm the one who believes in the multiple corridors.:)

No, I don't.

What I said was it would have been ideal to do things that way when it could be done - ie, via the DRRTS plan through the 1980s and early-1990s BEFORE the areas to be served were built upon and reserved alignments lost.

Now we have to deal with the realities we face - physical and financial - and what was a great plan in 1975 is simply not feasible nor affordable today.

Taking Munich as an example again, the lines that run through the tunnel today existed either side of before the tunnel was built. The only new lines were the two extenstions to the airport. That is precisely what is planned for Dublin via DartU.

You are the poster coming up with ideas you simply cannot provide detail or justification for.

You should perhaps concentrate on that rather than making disengenuous posts about other posters who are simply calling you on your BS crayonomics.

strassenwo!f

Jack Noble wrote: »

And I have explained to you the enormous obstacles to your suggestion - both engineering and financial. And that's before you even get into the planning and politics of it all.

We don't know whether there are engineering obstacles to this. There does not seem to be an obstacle to building the metrowest to Tallaght, so it is not obvious why it would be so difficult to build a DART line broadly along the same alignment, if that's the way it is to be done. Can't see any major financial obstacles either: it'd probably be a bit more expensive than building that section of the metrowest, but we're surely not talking about it being prohibitively more.

No, I can't see financial or engineering obstacles which would rule this out.

Jack Noble wrote: »

No, you have not shown anything. You have suggested a 'spur' from the Kildare line to Tallaght. That's it.

You have not suggested an alignment. You have not suggested where it should meet the Kildare line, where it will end in Tallaght, or where it will serve in between.

After answering the 'where' questions, then you need to get into the 'how'. Will any line be on surface, in a cutting, in tunnel, elevated on embankments or viaducts - or combination of some or all of those methods.

I think I already have posted that a good place to start looking for an alignment might be the alignments of the proposed metrowest and of the LUAS red line. The metrowest alignment wouldn't be needed if there were a direct route into town and the LUAS could be rerouted given that its status would be seriously downgraded.

That's as far as I'm going to go. You cannot seriously expect a private individual to do a lot of investigation into a proposed rail route and work out all the details, when the Department of Transport have not even decided to build such a route. You really can't. You may have a lot of time on your hands, Jack, I don't.

No, the Department of Transport need to be persuaded that such a rail route would be a good thing, and then the work on designing the route can begin. I am simply here to point out that it would eventually be desirable for Dublin to have a rapid connection between the two largest urban centres in the county, rather than a trundly 45-minute one. That's my function here.

Jack Noble wrote: »

And you need to consider and answer all those questions before you get to the most important questions of all - how much will it cost? Can it be justified? How will it be 'sold' to the public - both locally and nationally? How will it be funded?

How much will it cost? No idea, but I would expect it would be more expensive than the section of metrowest between Tallaght and the Hazelhatch line.

Can it be justified? That would, I think, depend on the state of the country's finances at the time it is going to be built. Very hard to answer that one now, given that the interconnector itself won't be built for a long time, I feel sure.

How will it be sold to the public? Well you should have absolutely no trouble selling it to people living in locations along the route, e.g. in Clondalkin and Tallaght. Also an easy enough sell to citizens in the rest of Dublin because it would be a more effective use of the expensive tunnel infrastructure. You would like to think that nationally people would feel the same way, but the "Dublin gets everything" brigade are strong, so I would doubt it would be easy to sell it to them.

How will it be funded? No idea. There are a number of ways of funding infrastructure and there may be others by the time this thing is being built. Very hard to say, at this remove, what would be the best way to fund this.

Jack Noble wrote: »

So if you think your idea is so great, then quit spoofing and let's see the detail.

No Jack, as I said above, working out the specific detail is not my role. My role here is to try and persuade people that it makes sense to better utilise the capacity in the interconnector by feeding it with trains from a group of spurs, including one to Tallaght. This would create a rapid link between the two biggest urban centres in the county.

If it is decided that this would be a good thing, then the detailed work can begin. It's not really the job of a private individual to work out the details before it has even been decided that it would be a desirable project.

antoinolachtnai

I never used the word 'spur lines'. I said corridor. If you could feed the western line towards Maynooth into DART Underground tunnel, things would begin to make sense.

There are no big engineering challenges in linking DU into the PPT. You just have to design it so that it fits.

Why is the PPT not suitable for high capacity, rapid services? Can you document this?

The problem with the change at Pearse is that it is a long change, it will require a long escalator ride and it will link two medium-frequency services, resulting in long waiting times. Taken altogether, that will mean that journeys will be much longer and less attractive than if western services went straight into the tunnel.

It is not true to say that this is what is done in other cities. In Munich, for instance, all the city centre services are funnelled into the same tunnel.

Unfortunately you have misread the Business Case. The comparable figure is 94,000 for the 'do minimum' in 2030, not 30,000. Going further down the column you will see that the difference between 146,000 with DU and 94,000 if DU is not built, is mainly accounted for by displacement from suburban rail, Luas and buses. This is what makes the increase in passengers as a result of DU abysmally low. These abysmally low numbers are themselves based on celtic tiger forecasts of growth in places like Drogheda and Adamstown.

There is a perfectly good place to put a railway from the Maynooth line up to Blanchardstown, just west of the R121.

If you are talking about running railways to Ballymun and the Airport, the obvious way to do this is by running a railway from Glasnevin junction to the airport and on to the Northern line.

Zebra3

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

There is a perfectly good place to put a railway from the Maynooth line up to Blanchardstown, just west of the R121.

Where exactly?

antoinolachtnai

Sorry, I meant just east of it. A spur off the railway just before it meets Porterstown Road/Clonsilla Road going west. There is a reservation running north. Would need to be elevated above the three roundabouts.

Jack Noble

strassenwo!f wrote: »

We don't know whether there are engineering obstacles to this. There does not seem to be an obstacle to building the metrowest to Tallaght, so it is not obvious why it would be so difficult to build a DART line broadly along the same alignment, if that's the way it is to be done. Can't see any major financial obstacles either: it'd probably be a bit more expensive than building that section of the metrowest, but we're surely not talking about it being prohibitively more.

Light rail and heavy rail lines are different beasts, with different engineering requirements and safety restrictions for both. For example, when crossing roads on surface - light rail (MetroW) can cross at grade, while heavy rail require level crossings, and I would question whether installing them on new lines in heavily populated urban areas would even be allowed under modern safety standards.

The biggest obstacle to a Dart spur to Tallaght is called Clondalkin. One of the reasons MW takes the zigzag route it does through Clondalkin is to avoid the need to tunnel under the area, with all the heavy engineering work and costs involved. A tunnel line under Clondalkin was recommended under PFC in 2000 and was one of the route options looked at for MW and ruled out.

The exact same problem applies in parts of Tallaght - namely at Kilnamanagh-Kingswood-Belgard where MW cross the existing Red Luas, and at The Square which would be the terminus.

The Luas/MW crossing as planned is a major problem that will probably have to be reworked when MW comes back on the agenda and returns to An Bord Pleanala. Currently, it is planned to put it on a viaduct above the Luas line and Belgard Road. Local residents are dead set against this and have the support of all local politicians - who all want it in a tunnel under Luas and Belgard Road. I would just point to what happened to the Metro North routing through Ballymun as an example of what will probably happen in Tallaght.

Now, if there is that level of opposition to what is essentially a Luas Mór, how do you think the locals will react to a bloody great Dart line overhead?

As for costs, MW is costed at €1.5bn for the entire line, while the Dart U tunnel and stations costs €2.5bn. Putting a circa 8km Dart line, with a number of separate sections in tunnel and at least three underground stations, possibly four, the rest on viaducts and embankments over existing roads or in cuttings under them will easily cost somewhere in the €2-3bn ballpark.

No, I can't see financial or engineering obstacles which would rule this out.

See above.

I think I already have posted that a good place to start looking for an alignment might be the alignments of the proposed metrowest and of the LUAS red line. The metrowest alignment wouldn't be needed if there were a direct route into town and the LUAS could be rerouted given that its status would be seriously downgraded.

As I have explained, Metrowest has a defined purpose based on the reality of west Dublin today and where many of the people who live there work, shop and spend leisure time. It is also designed to distribute people across west Dublin who do need to access the city centre or areas to the west across the multiple radial lines which serve those locations. It is based detailed study of the living and working patterns of the circa 300,000 people living in and tens of thousands working in Tallaght, Clondalkin-Lucan and Blanchardstown. It is also based on the lessons learned in other cities with radial only rail/metro lines.

That's as far as I'm going to go. You cannot seriously expect a private individual to do a lot of investigation into a proposed rail route and work out all the details, when the Department of Transport have not even decided to build such a route. You really can't. You may have a lot of time on your hands, Jack, I don't.

Why not? Cormac Rabbitt has and presented them to CIE and govt on at least three separate occasions. And those behind the Gluas plan for Luas-style light rail in Galway are private citizens. As are West on Track who convinced the govt to build the current Limerick-Galway line and are lobbying for the extension to Tuam, Claremorris and eventually Sligo.

Honestly, your excuse above sounds like a cop out. You either believe in what you are saying and can back it up with sound ideas and plans - or you are spoofing, have been called out on your spoofing but can't bring yourself to admit you are wrong.

No, the Department of Transport need to be persuaded that such a rail route would be a good thing, and then the work on designing the route can begin. I am simply here to point out that it would eventually be desirable for Dublin to have a rapid connection between the two largest urban centres in the county, rather than a trundly 45-minute one. That's my function here.

How do you expect to persuade the DOT and NTA they are wrong when you can't produce a viable alternative beyond 'I think there should be a Dart spur from the Kildare line to Tallaght - so there!'?

How much will it cost? No idea, but I would expect it would be more expensive than the section of metrowest between Tallaght and the Hazelhatch line.

Given how much we know the various other projects have been costed at, it's relatively easy to come up with a ballpark estimate. I have above.

Can it be justified? That would, I think, depend on the state of the country's finances at the time it is going to be built. Very hard to answer that one now, given that the interconnector itself won't be built for a long time, I feel sure.

At least you are now starting to think it through a bit more.

How will it be sold to the public? Well you should have absolutely no trouble selling it to people living in locations along the route, e.g. in Clondalkin and Tallaght. Also an easy enough sell to citizens in the rest of Dublin because it would be a more effective use of the expensive tunnel infrastructure. You would like to think that nationally people would feel the same way, but the "Dublin gets everything" brigade are strong, so I would doubt it would be easy to sell it to them.

Two words - Metro North. Most people along the line think it's a great idea - but the rest of the country has fallen in behind the simplistic media and populist oppostion without even considering the benefits. And that's before you even consider the 'Dublin gets everything' line.

How will it be funded? No idea. There are a number of ways of funding infrastructure and there may be others by the time this thing is being built. Very hard to say, at this remove, what would be the best way to fund this.

Again, you are at least starting to think about it.

No Jack, as I said above, working out the specific detail is not my role. My role here is to try and persuade people that it makes sense to better utilise the capacity in the interconnector by feeding it with trains from a group of spurs, including one to Tallaght. This would create a rapid link between the two biggest urban centres in the county.

Your idea so it's up to you to back it up with detail. No one else will.

If it is decided that this would be a good thing, then the detailed work can begin. It's not really the job of a private individual to work out the details before it has even been decided that it would be a desirable project.

And no one can begin to consider whether it is a viable option or not until they have detail. And seeing as the NTA (and their predecessor, the DTO), RPA and IE have all considered this and other options and ruled them out for various reasons, they are not going to revisit them when they have planning permission nailed down for DU and MN - so it is up to people who propose alternatives to lay them out in detail and justify them.

And from everything you have posted here, you are unwilling and unable to do that - beyond shout 'Spur from Kildare line to Tallaght'.

Jack Noble

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Sorry, I meant just east of it. A spur off the railway just before it meets Porterstown Road/Clonsilla Road going west. There is a reservation running north. Would need to be elevated above the three roundabouts.

That's the Metrowest alignment and I've already explained this in detail to Strassenwolf re a Tallaght spur so I'm not going to repeat it re Blanchardstown.

I really don't see the difficulty for people in the D15 area - or D24 and D22 areas, for that matter, wrt Fonthill - getting a Metro tram to Porterstown to catch a city or Maynooth bound Dart. MW offers people across the B-L-C-T corridor far travel more options that separate Dart spurs would.

Jack Noble

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I never used the word 'spur lines'. I said corridor. If you could feed the western line towards Maynooth into DART Underground tunnel, things would begin to make sense.

The 'corridor' has to come off the main line - that's called a 'spur'.

There are no big engineering challenges in linking DU into the PPT. You just have to design it so that it fits.

Yes there are - several major ones. If you can't spot them with a quick glance at the satellite image of the PPT-Heuston area, then you don't undertand that putting in rail line involves more than drawing a line on a map.

Why is the PPT not suitable for high capacity, rapid services? Can you document this?

Every major rail study from DRRTS in 1975 through PFC and Strategic Rail Review, both in 2000, up to 2030Vision in 2011. Go check them for yourself.

The problem with the change at Pearse is that it is a long change, it will require a long escalator ride and it will link two medium-frequency services, resulting in long waiting times. Taken altogether, that will mean that journeys will be much longer and less attractive than if western services went straight into the tunnel.

That's the norm in pretty much every city with an urban rail system. A couple of minutes walk and an escalator ride will not kill people.

It is not true to say that this is what is done in other cities. In Munich, for instance, all the city centre services are funnelled into the same tunnel.

And the lines that they use were all there before the tunnel was built. Only two extensions were built since the tunnel, both to the airport. Also, Munich as a much larger and more densely populated urban area than Dublin so has greater need for more lines.

Unfortunately you have misread the Business Case. The comparable figure is 94,000 for the 'do minimum' in 2030, not 30,000. Going further down the column you will see that the difference between 146,000 with DU and 94,000 if DU is not built, is mainly accounted for by displacement from suburban rail, Luas and buses. This is what makes the increase in passengers as a result of DU abysmally low. These abysmally low numbers are themselves based on celtic tiger forecasts of growth in places like Drogheda and Adamstown.

I didn't misread the Business Case. The 30,000 figure relates to the numbers using the existing Dart line in 2007. The 'do minimum' relates to the upgrade of the Maynooth line to Dart and the Dart extension to Drogheda based on the existing infrastructure. The 'do something' is the DartU tunnel. The difference between the two is 52,000. That's 52,000 people on the Dart because it runs under the city centre in the peak morning period between 7am and 9.30am. That's around 20,000 per hour. And it's more than use the current Dart line today. I would suggest that more than justifies the DartU project because that figure will only grow.

As for Celtic Tiger growth rates, Dublin grew 8% and the GDA grew by 11% in the period 2006-11 - most of which was AFTER the crash of 2007-8. And Dublin will continue to grow, even with a moderately growing economy, because in times of recession, people are come to the cities looking for work, and it is the cities that recover first. Look at the growth of Dublin from 1960 to 2001 - much of that growth was in bad times, long before we every heard of that cursed Celtic Tiger.

There is a perfectly good place to put a railway from the Maynooth line up to Blanchardstown, just west of the R121.

See my earlier post to you on this point.

If you are talking about running railways to Ballymun and the Airport, the obvious way to do this is by running a railway from Glasnevin junction to the airport and on to the Northern line.

Before you even get into the detailed planning, engineering and costings of such a project, I would love to see how high that kite will fly before it's torn to pieces when it's pointed out you would have to tunnel under Glasnevin Cemetery and the Botanic Gardens.

theGEM

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

There is a perfectly good place to put a railway from the Maynooth line up to Blanchardstown, just west of the R121.

Zebra3 wrote: »

Where exactly?

There (metro west line):
https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zWWoEiJ1GCKY.kScJpZ_i0c5I

I have also added the land which had been reserved in early local area plans.

The Maynooth line should be converted to light rail.

murphaph

theGEM wrote: »

The Maynooth line should be converted to light rail.

...because we have too much money and need shot of some or what?

markpb

murphaph wrote: »

...because we have too much money and need shot of some or what?

For people living (roughly) inside the M50, the level of service offered by Luas is vastly superior to the level of service offered by suburban trains and quite superior to that offered by Dart. It also wouldn't suffer from the limitations of short platforms or at-grade crossings like Luas does.

theGEM

murphaph wrote: »

...because we have too much money and need shot of some or what?

The thread is about a €4billion project that will never get built. Converting the Maynooth line to Light Rail is a better, cheaper alternative.

Light Rail is cheaper to operate, more reliable & will allow for future expansion of the line (extension into the city centre from Docklands Station & to Blanchardstown S/C).