Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

Pete_Cavan

We will get a proper Swords - Sandyford Metro eventually, we just need to make a load of nonsensical decisions and generally make a dogs mickey of it before we get there. Overcrowding on the Green Line and the most impractical interchange ever at Charlemont we see a huge outcry for a proper continuous Metro. Doing things right will have majority public support and the media won't be pandering to the vocal minority. People will complain that things weren't done right from the start and that more money has to be spent to rectify the situation, totally oblivious to the fact that public opinion was in favour of the horse designed by committee approach which gave us an inadequate camel.

Sam Russell

jd wrote: »

One other thing, when I talked to some engineers at one of the presentations they indicated the TBM would tunnel at about 80 meters a week.

That would suggest about 6 years of tunnelling. They cannot start fitting rails until the TBM is out of the tunnel because the spoil goes back to the start. That would suggest a decade before we see a train.

jd

Sam Russell wrote: »

That would suggest about 6 years of tunnelling. They cannot start fitting rails until the TBM is out of the tunnel because the spoil goes back to the start. That would suggest a decade before we see a train.

The tunnel is about 2500 meters under the airport - that is about 30 weeks.

Then they would have to bring it back to site at Northwood and reassemble.

I make it about 9000 meters from Northwood to Charlemont.

That is 9000/80 = 112 weeks or so, which is about 2 years and 2 months.

You are looking at the guts of 3 years (including moving the TBM back to Northwood and reassembling)

Sam Russell

jd wrote: »

The tunnel is about 2500 meters under the airport - that is about 30 weeks.

Then they would have to bring it back to site at Northwood and reassemble.

I make it about 9000 meters from Northwood to Charlemont.

That is 9000/80 = 112 weeks or so, which is about 2 years and 2 months.

You are looking at the guts of 3 years (including moving the TBM back to Northwood and reassembling)

Not as bad as I thought. Still it is a lot of spoil.

jd

Out of interest, I measured Eamon Ryan's suggested route ("keeping the TBM going") of continuing on via UCD and then on to Sandyford. It's about 7.5 k. That would be another 90 weeks or so of tunelling (ie pushing the time out when services could start ruinning by nearly 2 years)

Qrt

Where is the spoil going to?

salmocab

Qrt wrote: »

Where is the spoil going to?

They’re digging another tunnel and using that to keep the spoil in

bk

Sam Russell wrote: »

That would suggest about 6 years of tunnelling. They cannot start fitting rails until the TBM is out of the tunnel because the spoil goes back to the start. That would suggest a decade before we see a train.

They mention one of the pros of going with a single larger tunnel bore option, is that they have space to start fit out work on the tunnel behind the boring machine. I wouldn't expect laying of track, but it sounds like they could get a lot done in parallel.

Pete_Cavan

Qrt wrote: »

Where is the spoil going to?

I remember someone saying it could be dumped in a cut away bog to fill up the land and make use of it, no idea if that is genuinely being considered.

Sam Russell

Qrt wrote: »

Where is the spoil going to?

Dublin Port is one option, Rosslare Port is another. There have not finalised anything yet.

prunudo

jd wrote: »

Out of interest, I measured Eamon Ryan's suggested route ("keeping the TBM going") of continuing on via UCD and then on to Sandyford. It's about 7.5 k. That would be another 90 weeks or so of tunelling (ie pushing the time out when services could start ruinning by nearly 2 years)

Depending on what direction it goes I presume they could route it via open ground which would allow a new opening to remove spoil and not have to send it all back to Northwood.

jd

jvan wrote: »

Depending on what direction it goes I presume they could route it via open ground which would allow a new opening to remove spoil and not have to send it all back to Northwood.

They could, maybe use Donnybrook Bus Garage (which at least has access to a good road for trucks of spoil). I doubt the locals would be happy with that either!

citizen6

CatInABox wrote: »

Doesn't look like it from that angle, but they've already acknowledged that Charlemont is the station most likely to change, so hopefully the final design isn't as bad there.

There's a Luas turnback facility to be added at Charlemont - I'm guessing one extra platform. Maybe that extra platform could be closer to the Metro station, instead of alongside the existing platforms. Possibly on the alignment of the defunct EPR tie-in.

Ideally you'd get off a terminating Luas and get on an escalator that led straight down into the Metro station.

prunudo

jd wrote: »

They could, maybe use Donnybrook Bus Garage (which at least has access to a good road for trucks of spoil). I doubt the locals would be happy with that either!

Seems to be that locals are never happy when it comes to new infrastructure or housing in their area these days.

ted1

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

It would also be great if the OCS station was also accessible from Parnell Street which would make it easier to get to the Rotunda, DIT Bolton Street, future city library, etc. This can easily be facilitated by having a pedestrian route through the new development to Moore Lane.

Won’t DIT Bolton street be be long closed as it’ll be moved to GrangeGornan

L1011

Bolton Street hasn't got a moving date yet - the only current campus without one - and based on being "relatively" nearby Grangegorman I could easily see it not moving at all; or otherwise being reused.

blanch152

L1011 wrote: »

Bolton Street hasn't got a moving date yet - the only current campus without one - and based on being "relatively" nearby Grangegorman I could easily see it not moving at all; or otherwise being reused.

I understand that current plans see Bolton St being retained indefinitely.

L1011

blanch152 wrote: »

I understand that current plans see Bolton St being retained indefinitely.

Was absolute guesswork on my part; if its actually the plans I may see if Mystic Meg needs an understudy for her newspaper 'column' :pac:

blanch152

blanch152 wrote: »

I understand that current plans see Bolton St being retained indefinitely.

Yeah, rumour was that it was a protected structure so any redevelopment plans for potential buyers were limited by what they can/can't do....meaning interest in the site was a lot smaller than the other city centre locations.

Edit: Number 836 on the list of protected structures

http://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/content/Planning/HeritageConservation/Conservation/Documents/RPS_for_web.pdf

blanch152

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah, rumour was that it was a protected structure so any redevelopment plans for potential buyers were limited by what they can/can't do....meaning interest in the site was a lot smaller than the other city centre locations.

Edit: Number 836 on the list of protected structures

http://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/content/Planning/HeritageConservation/Conservation/Documents/RPS_for_web.pdf

8,691 protected structures :eek::eek:

I knew Dublin City Council was anti-development but that is ridiculous.

MJohnston

You can have lots of protected structures and still be pro-development.

Qrt

MJohnston wrote: »

You can have lots of protected structures and still be pro-development.

Exactly. Development isn’t just demolishing everything in sight, it’s changing the use of existing buildings too.

cgcsb

blanch152 wrote: »

8,691 protected structures :eek::eek:

I knew Dublin City Council was anti-development but that is ridiculous.

Seems excessive in a City with only a handful of neo classic buildings and rows of Georgian houses. I'm not even sure why georgian houses are considered to be of such merit anyway. but I suppose that's subjective.

Anyway we can keep Georgian Dublin intact and build modernity in parallel, the notion that modernity should be visible at all needs to be firmly binned, we have to live and work somewhere in 2019 and there'll be 3 million people + visitors in the later half of the century.

gjim

The more I read of the new emerging preferred route, the more uneasy I'm getting. Any future link-up south of Beechwood is going to be massively disruptive and hugely expensive - getting a TBM into the ground for 2 or 3km of tunnel + cost of mining out a station in Ranelagh. The entire CBA is going to struggle.

I've looked again at the suggestions for the tunnel to emerge _north_ of Charlemont and actually I'm not sure it's impossible. Here are two options:

If the underground section emerges to street level _just_ south of Adelaide road and terminates there for the moment, then the future link can occur without any further tunnelling and the existing Charlemont and Ranelagh stations can be upgraded relatively cheaply - no more expensively than other stations - and with fairly minimal disruption. No TBM and no digging out underground stations would knock 300 to 500m off the overall bill.

The gradients will be steep but within range of metro systems globally (4-5% gradient) and operationally having the gradient descending from the future metro stop at Charlemont metro bridge is a good thing as it provides braking for southbound metros coming to a stop at Charlemont and free acceleration for northbound metros leaving Charlemont.

It would require some CPOs to buy out some of the buildings there but that's about it - even being generous you're talking about 10m or so max.

CatInABox

gjim wrote: »

The more I read of the new emerging preferred route, the more uneasy I'm getting. Any future link-up south of Beechwood is going to be massively disruptive and hugely expensive - getting a TBM into the ground for 2 or 3km of tunnel + cost of mining out a station in Ranelagh. The entire CBA is going to struggle.

The Church on Adelaide Road is on the protected structures list, not much chance of that changing either.

They're also not going to do any further digging when it comes time to do the tie in. They'll commission a report to look at all the options, and the one that'll come out on top will be to do the tie in right where the tunnel currently ends.

Sam Russell

Irish times article


Luas closure would have lasted 2½ years
Luas green line closures could have been staged over four years to facilitate Metrolink

This 14-week saving could be achieved because the tunnel boring machine would be left in the ground from the first phase, the entire works phase would be shorter and the commissioning and running of trials would take less time, the report said.

How do you restart the TBM that has been left in the ground for twenty years? Where does the spoil go? Has anyone thought this stuff through?

The Metrolink will run on 1500 v instead of 750 v, so the O/H wires and power stations will need reworking. The platforms will need raising and probably passenger doors installed because of the high floor units and the automated trains. Yea, but not taking two and a half years.

I got a leaflet in from Jim O'Callaghan TD about Metrolink. He favours the ML going SW Rathgar, Terenure, Templeogue, and Firhouse to reduce the impact of BusConnects. Obviously trying to gather a few more NIMBY voters to his cause. He does not say where the extra billions will come from.

I think the NTA need a few submissions to draw the attention to some of this stuff.

gjim

CatInABox wrote: »

The Church on Adelaide Road is on the protected structures list, not much chance of that changing either.

They're also not going to do any further digging when it comes time to do the tie in. They'll commission a report to look at all the options, and the one that'll come out on top will be to do the tie in right where the tunnel currently ends.

Yes the church could be problematic but not insurmountable. That's why the more westerly route which would only require getting rid of a currently derelict house should be also considered although the required cut 'n cover might be tricky in that narrowish alley.

Your suggestion was part of the original emerging preferred route but I believe it is no longer considered feasible because the tunnel will be quite deep on the south side of the canal to avoid the sewer. I don't know how deep exactly but even optimistically, given gradient limits, you'll need at least 300m to get to the level of the existing line which will mean severing Dartmouth Road and probably Northbrook road - and the loss of a lot of back gardens and CPO of some newer houses on Northbrook Av.

If your suggestion is possible then I think it'd also be a reasonable solution. Certainly better than the idea of doing a tie-in south of Beechwood.

marno21

TII have tendered for utility investigation along the planned route

https://irl.eu-supply.com/app/rfq/publicpurchase_frameset.asp?PID=145913&B=ETENDERS_SIMPLE&PS=1&PP=ctm/Supplier/publictenders

Dats me

marno21 wrote: »

TII have tendered for utility investigation along the planned route

https://irl.eu-supply.com/app/rfq/publicpurchase_frameset.asp?PID=145913&B=ETENDERS_SIMPLE&PS=1&PP=ctm/Supplier/publictenders

They're only investigating to Ranelagh Luas stop.


It's very frustrating that they would "postpone" the Green Line upgrade and not have whether it happens or not subject to this public consultation. I'm going to putting in that an "off-line" solution that would reduce disruption to the Green Line should be put forward, not this tunnel portal under the Green Line tracks shenanigans.

LongboardPro

Dats me wrote: »

marno21 wrote: »

TII have tendered for utility investigation along the planned route

https://irl.eu-supply.com/app/rfq/publicpurchase_frameset.asp?PID=145913&B=ETENDERS_SIMPLE&PS=1&PP=ctm/Supplier/publictenders

They're only investigating to Ranelagh Luas stop.


It's very frustrating that they would "postpone" the Green Line upgrade and not have whether it happens or not subject to this public consultation. I'm going to putting in that an "off-line" solution that would reduce disruption to the Green Line should be put forward, not this tunnel portal under the Green Line tracks shenanigans.

A guy from TII said to me that it was either just do the northern section or risk sinking the whole project. So I suppose it is still better than still taking here in 20 years time about the northern section.

Dats me

LongboardPro wrote: »

A guy from TII said to me that it was either just do the northern section or risk sinking the whole project. So I suppose it is still better than still taking here in 20 years time about the northern section.

Yeah that's how it looks alright. It'll be amazing as a proof of concept, like the system looks amazing and will lead to more Metros definitely, similar to how people said the luas would be bad and now everyone wants a luas.

It's just a pity we know what the right thing to do is, and for once money isn't a problem, but we're not doing it because 'reasons'.

TCM

spacetweek wrote:

The term subway is used in the UK, we call them pedestrian underpasses and there used be one in ballymun which was a hotbed of muggings and ASB so probably isn’t a good idea.

Ballymun once had a pedestrian underpass crossing under the old roundabout. It became a no go area for anyone who valued their lives.

Sam Russell

TCM wrote: »

Ballymun once had a pedestrian underpass crossing under the old roundabout. It became a no go area for anyone who valued their lives.

Ballymun once had a pedestrian underpass crossing under the old roundabout. It became a no go area for anyone who valued their lives.
[Off-topic]
[Edit:] Perhaps that is unfair. Ballymun was seen as fantastic when it was built. It had good facilities, including caretakers to keep the place tidy and well regulated. This worked very well, until the council had a cost cutting exercise which got rid of the caretakers. This caused the place to become unkempt and then antisocial behaviour started.

This caused the 'better' families to move out, and disruptive tenants from other schemes to be moved in. The decline set in until the blocks were demolished. So to save a few bob, the caretakers were got rid of, resulting in the whole scheme being demolished, and now we have no social housing and a housing crisis.
/Edit]
[/off-topic]

Qrt

TCM wrote: »

Ballymun once had a pedestrian underpass crossing under the old roundabout. It became a no go area for anyone who valued their lives.

To be fair, I think we mean two separate entrances with ticket barriers etc on both sides of the road. Not just a random underpass free for anyone to loiter in.

CreativeSen

Re Glasnevin Station & the impact that this will have on Drumcondra Station

This is going to become a major interchange on the metro line, connecting Metro with commuter rail (future dart lines) and Bus Connects. It would be great if some intercity trains from Galway/Limerick/Waterford/Cork were terminated in Glasnevin to allow for direct access to the Metro and onto the Airport. Although i suspect capacity at the station would be an issue and make this unlikely.

But my question is really about the impact that Glasnevin will have on Drumcondra Station. The two stations will be 1km apart, is it likely that they will keep Drumcondra open?

cgcsb

Glasnevin would be a great terminus point for Sligo trains and would relieve Connolloy's capacity issues, there's a bit of room at Glasnevin where an intercity platform could be installed. This could even mean more frequent trains to Sligo as the Connolly capacity constraint wouldn't be there.

loyatemu

CreativeSen wrote: »

But my question is really about the impact that Glasnevin will have on Drumcondra Station. The two stations will be 1km apart, is it likely that they will keep Drumcondra open?

I don't see why not, there are Dart stations that are closer together than 1km.

Amirani

CreativeSen wrote: »

But my question is really about the impact that Glasnevin will have on Drumcondra Station. The two stations will be 1km apart, is it likely that they will keep Drumcondra open?

Keep it open, but only use it for stopping electric trains, so a future Maynooth DART type service. Probably not worth having Sligo trains stopping here with Glasnevin so close.

It would also be nice to build a new station at Ballybough Road/North Strand in future for Maynooth DARTs if this ever happened, would be of great benefit to that area.

Qrt

loyatemu wrote: »

I don't see why not, there are Dart stations that are closer together than 1km.

1km is a fair distance for an area so close to the city centre, I can't imagine them even contemplating the idea of closing them.

CatInABox

Qrt wrote: »

1km is a fair distance for an area so close to the city centre, I can't imagine them even contemplating the idea of closing them.

I'd actually like them to put in another station at Ballybough Rd, or at North Strand. It'd be crazy to have a mass transit line going through all these areas without any station.

cgcsb

Drumcondra Station will be on the Kildare-GCD DART
A new station at the wasteground on Sackville Avenue would be served by the Maynooth/M3 - Docklands DART.

I'd imagine DART expansion only caters for new stations at Heuston West, Cabra and Glasnevin
Adding 2 more stations may be a post 2030 job, or a shelbyville idea.

CatInABox

Only reason I'd think a Ballybough/North Strand station is even possible is that the line will effectively be closed once Metrolink construction starts. The line will just be sitting there while Glasnevin station is being built, so I'd assume (or at least hope) that they'd do the electrification of the line at the same time. It'd be possible to build a station in that time, but as you say cgcsb, I'd assume that it's a long shot at this stage if they haven't already started planning it.

marno21

Colm McCarthy with a refreshing original article in the Farmers Journal this week about the notion of spending €3bn on a "partly underground tram" that services Dublin Airport and one suburb, both of which have express busses through the parallel Port Tunnel.

However, he does make up for it by giving full backing to BusConnects, especially in light of the fact that one of the gardens to be CPO'd is his own (the front garden of an apartment block).

thomasj

cgcsb wrote:

Drumcondra Station will be on the Kildare-GCD DART A new station at the wasteground on Sackville Avenue would be served by the Maynooth/M3 - Docklands DART.

Are you sure?

Looking at the recent NTA map on the DART expansion, it looks like maynooth line going via Drumcondra, with the tunnel services via the Midland line

jd

Happened as part of the North Dublin/GDA transport study which decided that "optimised" Metro North was a better solution.
There are a few docs on line if you search for them - here is one
https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Fingal_North_Dublin_Transport_Study_Final_June_20151.pdf

CreativeSen

cgcsb wrote: »

Drumcondra Station will be on the Kildare-GCD DART
A new station at the wasteground on Sackville Avenue would be served by the Maynooth/M3 - Docklands DART.

I was at a recent meeting in Croke Park for the local residents. The GAA said that a station cannot be built on Sackville Ave as it is too small a space and too close to the stadium. They said that you could only build a station at least 500 meters from the stadium.

loyatemu

CreativeSen wrote: »

I was at a recent meeting in Croke Park for the local residents. The GAA said that a station cannot be built on Sackville Ave as it is too small a space and too close to the stadium. They said that you could only build a station at least 500 meters from the stadium.

have they never been to Lansdowne Road?

cgcsb

CreativeSen wrote: »

I was at a recent meeting in Croke Park for the local residents. The GAA said that a station cannot be built on Sackville Ave as it is too small a space and too close to the stadium. They said that you could only build a station at least 500 meters from the stadium.

And as we've learned from the Na Bhfianna debacle, what the GAA says is law.

Sam Russell

loyatemu wrote: »

CreativeSen wrote: »

I was at a recent meeting in Croke Park for the local residents. The GAA said that a station cannot be built on Sackville Ave as it is too small a space and too close to the stadium. They said that you could only build a station at least 500 meters from the stadium.

have they never been to Lansdowne Road?

They did not build the station near the stadium at Landowne Road, they built the stadium next to the station.

I think Na Fianna missed a trick - they should have said - 'Please build the station on our ground, but the station must be called Na Fianna' . For evermore, everyone would know where Na Fianna's ground was, even tourists on their first visit to Ireland. It would be a huge boost for the club.

I think station naming should be looked at - for example, the Glasnevin station should be called Whitworth. Glasnevin is the graveyard, and the Botanic Garden.

Qrt

Sam Russell wrote: »

I think station naming should be looked at - for example, the Glasnevin station should be called Whitworth. Glasnevin is the graveyard, and the Botanic Garden.

I think Cross Guns would be a better name tbh.