New Rail system in UK

irishcarbomb2k

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Network-Rail-Unveils-High-Speed-Rail-Link-Between-London-And-Edinburgh/Article/200908415368830?lpos=Home_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_2&lid=ARTICLE_15368830_Network_Rail_Unveils_High_Speed_Rail_Link_Between_London_And_Edinburgh

For obvious reasons, our population would not support the set up and running of this however how nice it would be to go from Dublin to Cork in less than 50 minutes. It would become commutable to live in cork and work in Dublin. It's unfortunately the kind of expensive solution if utilised correctly and focused to go through sustainable towns, would make the rest of Ireland as attractive (to the point you can call it that) as Dublin's transport system. (And I know Dublin's transport system is not the best but at least there is one compared to other areas)

corktina

that would serve a huge slice of the UK population....but finding a route for it will be a nightmare. (34 miles of tunnels would presumably mean it going under Burmingham and Manchester...

markpb

irishcarbomb2k wrote: »

however how nice it would be to go from Dublin to Cork in less than 50 minutes. It would become commutable to live in cork and work in Dublin.

Why on earth would that be a good thing?

irishcarbomb2k

Why on earth would that be a good thing?

haha, It was just an example. Ireland is quite a small country so you could link Galway, Cork, Shannon (for the airport and possible port opportunities) and Belfast all could be reached within the hour. It would require 1 long line down the east of the country and one short line starting at Galway, going through Shannon and across to Dublin.

kippy

We could build the English one and one for ourselves for less than the cost of NAMA and still have some change left over.
I dont actually believe Ireland needs anything like it to be honest, public transport within cities should be improved before this should ever get done.

I doubt that line is actually ever going to happen to be honest. Nice talk though.

Chris_533976

They havent got £34 billion to spend on it, plus ironically the green lobby (who hate roads and love trains) will probably be up in arms about it for whatever reason.

westtip

Chris wouldn't it be a great idea for the Western Rail Corridor:D:eek:

Chris_533976

You could put Maglev between Limerick and Claremorris.

Robbo

Chris_533976 wrote: »

You could put Maglev between Limerick and Claremorris.

With a loop-de-loop around the existing line at Athenry? I'll get my parish priest on it straight away!

Judgement Day

What about a hybrid-railbus for everyone in the country instead?

corktina

kippy wrote: »

We could build the English one and one for ourselves for less than the cost of NAMA and still have some change left over.
I dont actually believe Ireland needs anything like it to be honest, public transport within cities should be improved before this should ever get done.

I doubt that line is actually ever going to happen to be honest. Nice talk though.

thats a great idea....tender to build the English one and build one for ourselves out of the offcuts....;)

GerardKeating

corktina wrote: »

that would serve a huge slice of the UK population....but finding a route for it will be a nightmare. (34 miles of tunnels would presumably mean it going under Burmingham and Manchester...

I assume that plan to tie it to the chunnel and allow Glasgow / Edinburgh / Liverpool / Birmingham / Manchester direct to Paris/Brussels..

irishguy

irishcarbomb2k wrote: »

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Network-Rail-Unveils-High-Speed-Rail-Link-Between-London-And-Edinburgh/Article/200908415368830?lpos=Home_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_2&lid=ARTICLE_15368830_Network_Rail_Unveils_High_Speed_Rail_Link_Between_London_And_Edinburgh

For obvious reasons, our population would not support the set up and running of this however how nice it would be to go from Dublin to Cork in less than 50 minutes. It would become commutable to live in cork and work in Dublin. It's unfortunately the kind of expensive solution if utilised correctly and focused to go through sustainable towns, would make the rest of Ireland as attractive (to the point you can call it that) as Dublin's transport system. (And I know Dublin's transport system is not the best but at least there is one compared to other areas)

Well it would appear that a link from Dublin to London (Via Liverpool) would be viable, as Dublin - London/Heathrow is the 5th busiest route in Europe with over 1.9M passengers py. It would take less than 1.30. Not sure where we would find the money for it though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_passenger_air_routes

corktina

GerardKeating wrote: »

I assume that plan to tie it to the chunnel and allow Glasgow / Edinburgh / Liverpool / Birmingham / Manchester direct to Paris/Brussels..

High speed route already in use from St Pancras London to the Channel Tunnel....

westtip

NBB Bohs wrote: »

This reminds me of something John Waters said at some event in the Burlington Hotel(or might have been Jurys) a good while back. His idea was to build high speed trains like in Japan linking the bustling metropolis of sligo with the mega city dublin.

Bet he had been at the bar for several hours before suggesting that one!

Carawaystick

JW ses he gave up drink many years ago.

westtip

Must have been hullucinatory herbs then!

Zoney

The project to aim for here in the future (i.e. when there is some money again - hopefully medium rather than long term) would be higher speed rail between Belfast and Cork - i.e. do somelike like the Kildare Route project on the Northern line, upgrade the line to at least allow more of the current 90 mph top speed, but ideally even more than that (as top speed at least). Electification isn't even necessarily an immediate requirement (i.e. long rather than medium term) and the current Dublin-Cork carriages could be used (Enterprise would I guess need new stock).

The current regional railcars to Limerick/Galway would be able to make use of an upgraded Dublin-Cork mainline too (and for Limerick, given the short section of the journey that is Limerick-Limk Jctn - this would make a difference).

loyatemu

don't IE already have a plan to upgrade Dublin-Cork to 125mph? - that's about as much as we can hope for really (Cork is about the size of the 20th biggest city in the UK btw).

Chris_533976

I reckon that Dublin to Belfast, Cork and possibly Galway should be 200 or 225kmh. Dublin to Waterford possibly 150?

In my dreamworld Dublin - Cork trains would go via Limerick and remove the stupidity of Limerick Junction All current Dublin - Cork and Limerick trains could then go both to Limerick and Cork and even with the slightly longer distance you could still get a decent time decrease.

Of course thats all mad thinking

Empire o de Sun

It is a bit mad the the uk has been so slow off the mark when it comes to high speed lines.

In Ireland, humm , Cork to Dublin to Belfast. is the only route that there could ever be. But as said before 200 km/h is the best we can hope for, which is pretty fast.

Irish rail should really have long term plans to remove cráppy geometry from the network, and separate platforms tracks from through tracks in all stations. So there'd be 4 track at stations. Provide plenty of opportunities for high speed trains to pass slower local (or freight if cie don't manage to kill that themselves)

liamog

I definately like the idea of a long term plan that involves hooking into the line at Liverpool and then going from Dublin to Cork and Belfast. Obviousley this is crazy talk but for the right price in a Post Oil community would be great.

Vic_08

loyatemu wrote: »

(Cork is about the size of the 20th biggest city in the UK btw).

It would be closer to the size of the 40th biggest city in the UK, I seem to recall Belfast being listed as the 15th largest city some time ago.

Zoney

Empire o de Sun wrote: »

Irish rail should really have long term plans to remove cráppy geometry from the network, and separate platforms tracks from through tracks in all stations. So there'd be 4 track at stations. Provide plenty of opportunities for high speed trains to pass slower local (or freight if cie don't manage to kill that themselves)

I'd focus first on providing two tracks on more of the network first!

corktina

Vic_08 wrote: »

It would be closer to the size of the 40th biggest city in the UK, I seem to recall Belfast being listed as the 15th largest city some time ago.

and dont forget that many of the UK towns listed as smaller are in fact part of conurbations many many times bigger than Cork...My own home town would be small in terms of population within the Borough but if you include the suburbs which form parts of other administrations (but would still look at the town stattion as THEIR local Inter City stattion) it would be much bigger than Cork

Kalashnikov_Kid

Thats right. Reading, which is considered nothing more than a commuter town here, nevermind a city, would be Ireland's second largest conurbation, which really puts things in perspective

corktina

and it was Reading I was referring to...you a spy or what?

monument

Kalashnikov_Kid wrote: »

Thats right. Reading, which is considered nothing more than a commuter town here, nevermind a city, would be Ireland's second largest conurbation, which really puts things in perspective

It's "nothing more than a commuter town", yeah a London commuter town. And, yes, please do put things in context. You do mean the Reading which has a motorway link and has on the Great Western Main Line which is to be electrifed from London to Swansea? The Reading which is currently 30mins by rail to London Paddington?

Context, indeed.

Noffles

Ireland has the worst rail system I've ever seen... and the plan to get the Navan line up... to be completed 2016.... haha and there's mention of high speed trains... aggggh please my sides are hurting with laughter...no more!!!

Kalashnikov_Kid

monument wrote: »

It's "nothing more than a commuter town", yeah a London commuter town. And, yes, please do put things in context. You do mean the Reading which has a motorway link and has on the Great Western Main Line which is to be electrifed from London to Swansea? The Reading which is currently 30mins by rail to London Paddington?

Context, indeed.

Just saw this now. Im sorry but I dont know what you're getting at? I was merely making the point that Cork in terms of size and population would not be seen as anything execptional by UK standards, nevermind other smaller Irish cities, which probably wouldn't be considered as 'proper' cities...so basically putting the UK's rail system on a pedestal as something for Ireland to aim for is a bit laughable, because demand, population density and passenger numbers are incomparable.

Im not saying dont invest in Dublin-Cork rail. What Im saying is that in broad planning terms (Im not an expert in rail technology), it is a fait-accompli comparing it to UK lines such as Reading-Swansea - which incidentally also serves London, Bristol and Cardiff, all of which are significantly larger than Cork. Name me the list of sprawling metropolises on the Dublin to Cork line.

And sorry to dissapoint Corktina I am not a spy, pure coincidence - I live less than an hour from Reading.

corktina

i was at a loss to understand his post either...