Transport for the future

WoollyRedHat

I was reading something online and somebody mentioned about the potential impact Brexit might have on transit routes for goods routed from Ireland to U.K to get to Mainland Europe. In the event that these are closed off, it has been pointed out that this will have a major affect on the transit time of getting our goods from here to mainland Europe as we would have to divert from U.K ( or absorb tariffs and levy's inevitably).

Is it time to start considering an underground train system that connects here to somewhere in mainland Europe for the purpose of transporting cargo?

The idea would be to start building the foundations for a line which would involve tunneling underneath the ocean and then veering towards France. At least if foundations were in place we could then hope to take advantage of upcoming; down the line technologies I.E. the hyper loop and similar conceptions ala Elon Musk. Of course this would take huge investment and ring fencing funds for further development past the initial preparatory stages.

But it would be economically beneficial down the line and would avoid potential trade war with Britain by bypassing tariffs they would impose on our products heading to Europe ( and vice versa)
Of course it's all a pipe dream because we are still talking about building a metro to connect the airport to the city and it's nearly 2020.

What other future developments in transport would you like to see; would be beneficial to country and its development?

Cee-Jay-Cee

A tunnel under the sea? Sure that’s just crazy talk, next you’ll be telling us about cargo shipss with wings that can fly in the sky.

WoollyRedHat

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

A tunnel under the sea? Sure that’s just crazy talk, next you’ll be telling us about cargo shipss with wings that can fly in the sky.

It is envisaged that technologies such as the hyper loop would be faster than air travel. Plus would be more environmentally sound than flying freight and would be able to transport more per journey than a plane could.

Synthol

Do you really think that Ireland is that relevant? It only has a population of 4.7 million which is much smaller than tiny mainland countries like Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. It won't be done because Ireland does not have a high enough population to make it worthwhile, blame the Irish for only eating potatoes because before the famine the population was much higher than other similar sized countries.

The_Valeyard

Hurry up transporter technology!!!

Ubbquittious

Twould be great if teleportation got invented. I'd laugh for a month at governments trying to ban them and all the fearmongering that would go along with it.

Dr Crayfish

Buy a bicycle and live near town, works for me

gramar

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

Is it time to start considering an underground train system that connects here to somewhere in mainland Europe for the purpose of transporting cargo?

Why not build it all the way to China? Better yet, move to China and save them having to send it.

WesternZulu

We can't even build an underground DART, never mind an underground tunnel to continental Europe.

donegaLroad

I think it would be much less hassle if we waited for the next Scottish independence referendum :-)

bear1

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

I was reading something online and somebody mentioned about the potential impact Brexit might have on transit routes for goods routed from Ireland to U.K to get to Mainland Europe. In the event that these are closed off, it has been pointed out that this will have a major affect on the transit time of getting our goods from here to mainland Europe as we would have to divert from U.K ( or absorb tariffs and levy's inevitably).

Is it time to start considering an underground train system that connects here to somewhere in mainland Europe for the purpose of transporting cargo?

The idea would be to start building the foundations for a line which would involve tunneling underneath the ocean and then veering towards France. At least if foundations were in place we could then hope to take advantage of upcoming; down the line technologies I.E. the hyper loop and similar conceptions ala Elon Musk. Of course this would take huge investment and ring fencing funds for further development past the initial preparatory stages.

But it would be economically beneficial down the line and would avoid potential trade war with Britain by bypassing tariffs they would impose on our products heading to Europe ( and vice versa)
Of course it's all a pipe dream because we are still talking about building a metro to connect the airport to the city and it's nearly 2020.

What other future developments in transport would you like to see; would be beneficial to country and its development?

So.. build an underground tunnel under a sea which is usually rough which would be a minimum of 500km long and would need to be built by 2 countries I'd imagine and would have a cost of hundreds of billions.
Yeah I can't see any issue with that.

Beta Ray Bill

A tunnel from Ireland to mainland Europe would be the biggest endeavour of it's kind ever attempted by man.

You'd be talking about building 600km tunnel under the seabed in very deep water.
The end would never justify the means.

To put it in perspective, the longest tunnel in the world (Gotthard Base Tunnel, 151km) took nearly 20 years to build, it only opened last year.
It was built by the Swiss, who are mega rich, at a cost of CHF 9.560 billion (€8.17 Billion)

It would take over 80 years to build a tunnel to 4 times that length and at least 4 times that price.
Now factor in the challenges of tunneling under the seabed and you could be talking near €50 billion and over 100 years to complete.

It would be great to have one, but it's never going to happen

ohnonotgmail

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

It is envisaged that technologies such as the hyper loop would be faster than air travel. Plus would be more environmentally sound than flying freight and would be able to transport more per journey than a plane could.

how fast is air then?

The_Valeyard

Should build a hyper rail loop

bear1

grahambo wrote: »

A tunnel from Ireland to mainland Europe would be the biggest endeavour of it's kind ever attempted by man.

You'd be talking about building 600km tunnel under the seabed in very deep water.
The end would never justify the means.

To put it in perspective, the longest tunnel in the world (Gotthard Base Tunnel, 151km) took nearly 20 years to build, it only opened last year.
It was built by the Swiss, who are mega rich, at a cost of CHF 9.560 billion (€8.17 Billion)

It would take over 80 years to build a tunnel to 4 times that length and at least 4 times that price.
Now factor in the challenges of tunneling under the seabed and you could be talking near €50 billion and over 100 years to complete.

It would be great to have one, but it's never going to happen

Think it would make more sense to build a tunnel linking Ireland to the UK. Either have Dublin to Wales or larne to Scotland but the latter option isn't as attractive as the former.

seamus

There are already international conventions which cover the movement of goods across jurisdictions, and the procedures required of same. Brexit wouldn't actually affect us that much.

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Twould be great if teleportation got invented. I'd laugh for a month at governments trying to ban them and all the fearmongering that would go along with it.

Teleportation will never exist. Not in the way that you think anyway.

At is base, teleportation involves scanning an object, taking a "snapshot" of its atomic structure, converting the object to energy (e=mc^2 after all), transmitting that energy to the new location, and then using the snapshot to reconstruct the energy back the way it was previously.

Of course transmitting energy, requires energy. There's energy loss in doing so. It's very wasteful. So why transmit the energy at all? Why not just use energy that's already at the destination to reconstruct the atomic pattern?

That of course means that you only need to scan an object once to reproduce it as many times as you like. Which renders "teleportation" moot. You don't need to create something and "send" it at all. You just need to obtain the pattern of the object that you want, and then create one. Awesome.

But then you come to people. You get scanned, and converted to energy. You are now dead. Gone. Cremated, just in a fancier, more instant manner.
Your pattern is used to reconstitute your atomic pattern on the other side. But it's not you. You're dead. What appears at the other side, is a clone of you. And since they have your pattern, they can reproduce you as many times as the available energy allows.

That's not teleportation. That's murder-cloning.

Teleportation will never exist.

bear1

seamus wrote: »

There are already international conventions which cover the movement of goods across jurisdictions, and the procedures required of same. Brexit wouldn't actually affect us that much.
Teleportation will never exist. Not in the way that you think anyway.

At is base, teleportation involves scanning an object, taking a "snapshot" of its atomic structure, converting the object to energy (e=mc^2 after all), transmitting that energy to the new location, and then using the snapshot to reconstruct the energy back the way it was previously.

Of course transmitting energy, requires energy. There's energy loss in doing so. It's very wasteful. So why transmit the energy at all? Why not just use energy that's already at the destination to reconstruct the atomic pattern?

That of course means that you only need to scan an object once to reproduce it as many times as you like. Which renders "teleportation" moot. You don't need to create something and "send" it at all. You just need to obtain the pattern of the object that you want, and then create one. Awesome.

But then you come to people. You get scanned, and converted to energy. You are now dead. Gone. Cremated, just in a fancier, more instant manner.
Your pattern is used to reconstitute your atomic pattern on the other side. But it's not you. You're dead. What appears at the other side, is a clone of you. And since they have your pattern, they can reproduce you as many times as the available energy allows.

That's not teleportation. That's murder-cloning.

Teleportation will never exist.

Fcukin hell
Your posts are always interesting and/or logical to me.
Reminds me of my old biology teacher, no matter what you said the bastard always had the counter argument that left you thinking "balls I hadn't thought of that"

Cee-Jay-Cee

grahambo wrote: »

A tunnel from Ireland to mainland Europe would be the biggest endeavour of it's kind ever attempted by man.

You'd be talking about building 600km tunnel under the seabed in very deep water.
The end would never justify the means.

To put it in perspective, the longest tunnel in the world (Gotthard Base Tunnel, 151km) took nearly 20 years to build, it only opened last year.
It was built by the Swiss, who are mega rich, at a cost of CHF 9.560 billion (€8.17 Billion)

It would take over 80 years to build a tunnel to 4 times that length and at least 4 times that price.
Now factor in the challenges of tunneling under the seabed and you could be talking near €50 billion and over 100 years to complete.

It would be great to have one, but it's never going to happen

And to put that in perspective, the Port Tunnel which is 4.5km cost €800m+ and took 6 years to complete so if the same math were applied, a 600km tunnel would end up costing €100 Billion and take 450 years to complete...so yeah that's going to happen in the next 1000 years, not.

topper75

Synthol wrote: »

Ireland does not have a high enough population to make it worthwhile, blame the Irish for only eating potatoes because before the famine the population was much higher than other similar sized countries.

I know you jest, but people ought to be aware: we are only 1.5m short of that pre-famine peak right now.

Beta Ray Bill

bear1 wrote: »

Think it would make more sense to build a tunnel linking Ireland to the UK. Either have Dublin to Wales or larne to Scotland but the latter option isn't as attractive as the former.

Bangor to Portpatrick could work in terms of being "Possible" given the tech we have today.
However it's a big loop up through Scotland and down though the UK.
If you were in the South of Ireland this would be useless to you.

Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford to Wales still 70 miles (At least) under deep water.
Would take over 20 years to build and we've still not direct link to Europe

Unless they develop some sort of Tunnel that rests on the Sea bed floor (As far as I know this tech is in development, you basically feed the tunnel out to sea on floats, sink it and then pump the water out)

This will never be financially viable.

Mint Sauce

grahambo wrote: »

Bangor to Portpatrick could work in terms of being "Possible" given the tech we have today.
However it's a big loop up through Scotland and down though the UK.
If you were in the South of Ireland this would be useless to you.

Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford to Wales still 70 miles (At least) under deep water.
Would take over 20 years to build and we've still not direct link to Europe

Unless they develop some sort of Tunnel that rests on the Sea bed floor (As far as I know this tech is in development, you basically feed the tunnel out to sea on floats, sink it and then pump the water out)

This will never be financially viable.

Even if you build the tunnel, you still have to electrify the line from Holyhead to Crewe/Chester, possibly Quad Line the track through North Wales (2 tracks for Dublin Trains, and 2 for local/GB Intercity Service), then sort out the difference in gauge issue on this side, unless it ran on a dedicated line (in ireland) using the same guage as GB, and terminated in Dublin. Having a sinkable tunnel will probably be the easiest part when you take all the other approach infrastructure into account.

Ubbquittious

seamus wrote: »

There are already international conventions which cover the movement of goods across jurisdictions, and the procedures required of same. Brexit wouldn't actually affect us that much.
Teleportation will never exist. Not in the way that you think anyway.

At is base, teleportation involves scanning an object, taking a "snapshot" of its atomic structure, converting the object to energy (e=mc^2 after all), transmitting that energy to the new location, and then using the snapshot to reconstruct the energy back the way it was previously.

Of course transmitting energy, requires energy. There's energy loss in doing so. It's very wasteful. So why transmit the energy at all? Why not just use energy that's already at the destination to reconstruct the atomic pattern?

That of course means that you only need to scan an object once to reproduce it as many times as you like. Which renders "teleportation" moot. You don't need to create something and "send" it at all. You just need to obtain the pattern of the object that you want, and then create one. Awesome.

But then you come to people. You get scanned, and converted to energy. You are now dead. Gone. Cremated, just in a fancier, more instant manner.
Your pattern is used to reconstitute your atomic pattern on the other side. But it's not you. You're dead. What appears at the other side, is a clone of you. And since they have your pattern, they can reproduce you as many times as the available energy allows.

That's not teleportation. That's murder-cloning.

Teleportation will never exist.

Unless someone finds an as yet undiscovered method of teleportation that doesn't involve tearing someone down atom by atom and rebuilding them. There's hope for us yet

One could build a tunnel from Ballycastle to the mull of Kintyre. There might be feck all there now but the area will tiger as a result of the tunnel being built

Blazer

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Hurry up transporter technology!!!

I say this all the time to the missus.
Go on holidays and at night beam myself back to the bedroom in my own bed, watching my large screen tv and using the internet.
Following morning beam myself back to the beach..after the Irish brekkie of course...


And I'd be all for the cloning teleportation as well. Since I don't believe in God I'd be all for it as long as there was some improvements such as losing a few lbs during the "teleportation " process

Mint Sauce

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Unless someone finds an as yet undiscovered method of teleportation that doesn't involve tearing someone down atom by atom and rebuilding them. There's hope for us yet

One could build a tunnel from Ballycastle to the mull of Kintyre. There might be feck all there now but the area will tiger as a result of the tunnel being built

Mull of Kintyre was once a suggested route, but as well as feck all there (any worse than Holyhead?), its a long fecking way from everywhere as well.

Beta Ray Bill

Mint Sauce wrote: »

Even if you build the tunnel, you still have to electrify the line from Holyhead to Crewe/Chester, possibly Quad Line the track through North Wales (2 tracks for Dublin Trains, and 2 for local/GB Intercity Service), then sort out the difference in gauge issue on this side, unless it ran on a dedicated line (in ireland) using the same guage as GB, and terminated in Dublin. Having a sinkable tunnel will probably be the easiest part when you take all the other approach infrastructure into account.

The Gauges!!!!!!!:eek::eek::eek:
Completely forgot about that!

They'll need a train that can change its Gauge from 1,435 mm to 1,600 mm....

This is getting simpler and simpler!

jamesbere

They didn't even do a great job building the jack lynch tunnel, I'd hate to think what they'd do with a tunnel to France

jamesbere

seamus wrote: »

That's not teleportation. That's murder-cloning.

Teleportation will never exist.

Well I'll never look at star trek the same again

Beta Ray Bill

seamus wrote: »

There are already international conventions which cover the movement of goods across jurisdictions, and the procedures required of same. Brexit wouldn't actually affect us that much.
Teleportation will never exist. Not in the way that you think anyway.

At is base, teleportation involves scanning an object, taking a "snapshot" of its atomic structure, converting the object to energy (e=mc^2 after all), transmitting that energy to the new location, and then using the snapshot to reconstruct the energy back the way it was previously.

Of course transmitting energy, requires energy. There's energy loss in doing so. It's very wasteful. So why transmit the energy at all? Why not just use energy that's already at the destination to reconstruct the atomic pattern?

That of course means that you only need to scan an object once to reproduce it as many times as you like. Which renders "teleportation" moot. You don't need to create something and "send" it at all. You just need to obtain the pattern of the object that you want, and then create one. Awesome.

But then you come to people. You get scanned, and converted to energy. You are now dead. Gone. Cremated, just in a fancier, more instant manner.
Your pattern is used to reconstitute your atomic pattern on the other side. But it's not you. You're dead. What appears at the other side, is a clone of you. And since they have your pattern, they can reproduce you as many times as the available energy allows.

That's not teleportation. That's murder-cloning.

Teleportation will never exist.

Doesn't Quantum Teleportation happen all the time at a subatomic level over tiny distances? like a billionth of a MM?

WoollyRedHat

So lads, are you saying you're not going to give me money for my underground tunnels. I musk say, I'm disappointed by the pessimism.

What if we recruited lots and lots of moles to do the digging?

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

how fast is air then?

Ah it's fast enough there.

seamus

grahambo wrote: »

Doesn't Quantum Teleportation happen all the time at a subatomic level over tiny distances? like a billionth of a MM?

Perhaps, but then you get into philosophical questions about identity and sense of self. Our cells replace themselves all the time, piece by piece. You are not the same bundle of cells that you were when you were five years old, yet as far as you're aware there's continuity between then and now. "You" have always been "you".

Maybe when you go asleep at night, you actually die, and someone else wakes up with all your memories. How would you know the difference?

Of course if a couple of atoms were to move tiny fractions of distances at a time, it would make no difference overall. You could remove your arm, send it around the world and reattach it, and "you" would still remain (though you might have trouble with your septic arm).

Clearly the sense of self is somewhere in the brain , but even then there are philosophical questions; Imagine it was possible to replace certain parts of the brain with circuitry - you attach the circuitry, it takes over that function and the part of the brain that used to do it, shuts down.

You do this progressively, and eventually the entire brain has been replaced with circuitry, but without you experiencing any "outage". But are you still "you"? Or is it a machine that thinks its you, and you've actually died?

Ipso

grahambo wrote: »

A tunnel from Ireland to mainland Europe would be the biggest endeavour of it's kind ever attempted by man.

You'd be talking about building 600km tunnel under the seabed in very deep water.
The end would never justify the means.

To put it in perspective, the longest tunnel in the world (Gotthard Base Tunnel, 151km) took nearly 20 years to build, it only opened last year.
It was built by the Swiss, who are mega rich, at a cost of CHF 9.560 billion (€8.17 Billion)

It would take over 80 years to build a tunnel to 4 times that length and at least 4 times that price.
Now factor in the challenges of tunneling under the seabed and you could be talking near €50 billion and over 100 years to complete.

It would be great to have one, but it's never going to happen

And who better to do it than a country that can't implement a payroll system for the HSE.

Ewan Hoosarmi

A monorail is what we need.

Ipso

Ewan Hoosarmi wrote: »

A monorail is what we need.

That's more of a Shelbyville idea.

server down

bear1 wrote: »

Fcukin hell
Your posts are always interesting and/or logical to me.
Reminds me of my old biology teacher, no matter what you said the bastard always had the counter argument that left you thinking "balls I hadn't thought of that"

He’s been wrong before. He’s very definite though.

That said he’s right about this. Teleportation kills people and clones them.

Ipso

server down wrote: »

He’s been wrong before. He’s very definite though.

That said he’s right about this. Teleportation kills people and clones them.

It's not a very prestigious method.

gctest50

Mint Sauce wrote: »

..............then sort out the difference in gauge issue on this side, unless it ran on a dedicated line (in ireland) using the same guage as GB,........

Just use a train that can change it's gauge

Atoms for Peace

Get the scientists working on the tube technology, immediately. Chop, chop, let's go.

server down

seamus wrote: »

Perhaps, but then you get into philosophical questions about identity and sense of self. Our cells replace themselves all the time, piece by piece. You are not the same bundle of cells that you were when you were five years old, yet as far as you're aware there's continuity between then and now. "You" have always been "you".

Maybe when you go asleep at night, you actually die, and someone else wakes up with all your memories. How would you know the difference?

Of course if a couple of atoms were to move tiny fractions of distances at a time, it would make no difference overall. You could remove your arm, send it around the world and reattach it, and "you" would still remain (though you might have trouble with your septic arm).

Clearly the sense of self is somewhere in the brain , but even then there are philosophical questions; Imagine it was possible to replace certain parts of the brain with circuitry - you attach the circuitry, it takes over that function and the part of the brain that used to do it, shuts down.

You do this progressively, and eventually the entire brain has been replaced with circuitry, but without you experiencing any "outage". But are you still "you"? Or is it a machine that thinks its you, and you've actually died?

Pretty easy to answer that one if you see the self as software running on brain hardware.

server down

But back to the op. I’d love to see Ireland or Dublin talk to Elon musk about something. Driverless cars on certain routes. However even though we have a lot of technologists we don’t elect them.

defrule

I liked to see big infrastructure development in Ireland but then I realise we probably incapable of doing them.