Let's discuss the future of Irish Rail

donvito99

Shefwedfan wrote: »

So if you build a train line from Dublin to Navan/Cavan you could then populate those areas and have commuters coming into Dublin. Building houses in Cavam would be a lot cheaper to Dublin, you not think so?

We shouldn't be incentivising sprawl, be it along motorways or railways.

Muahahaha

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Really, I live out past Swords and I use the Cork train all the time. You can use a car park at train station if you can't get a connecting train.

Then you're into the other problem of having 1) drive through traffic to get to Hueston and 2) to pay for parking at a train station, this grinds on peoples gears. Drogheda charges something like 5 euro a day and people are left thinking why not take the car because the fiver will more than cover the cost of fuel to Dublin. When they introduced parking charges at Drogheda people actually drove further up the line to stations with free car parks. Then they introduced it there too and people said feck this I'll just drive all the way. Thats the kind of insanity you're dealing with when CIE are in charge.

What we need large park and rides with free parking like other countries have but instead we have CIE trying to make money off people on the double by charging for car parking at train stations on top of the price of the ticket. People shouldnt be punished financially for taking the train but the reality is that they are.

Of course you can come up with all sort of convuluted reasons not to use a train. If it was any other country in the World it wouldn't even be a discussion.

Its not that, its to do with spatial and urban planning, something Ireland has failed massively at with one off housing and bungalow blight. Heavy rail is only viable in places of high population density and we have some of the sparsest in Europe. If people arent within 10 km drive of a train line then they will just drive, getting the train is too much hassle. We've made a rod to break our own backs on this and there is no reversing it now, its too late.

So instead of asking for a train line all the way to Donegal we should be filling in the land densely with housing between Dublin and Navan and re-opening up that rail line instead. But that wasnt even done during the Celtic Tiger when the money was there and the sitting Minister for Transport with the purse strings was actually from Navan.

Not sure what the rant about DUP is about.

They're in the stone age, the A5/M2 to Derry has been planned for decades but they dont want it for their own selfish reasons. They wont admit it publicly but ultimately it is sectarian, Dublin is the enemy to these people so the last thing they want is a fast and direct road linking Derry to the capital. The A5/M2 would economically transform counties Monaghan, Cavan, Derry, Fermanagh and Donegal, a good fast road link to Dublin would bring multinationals and jobs galore. But the DUP and their supporters have been frustrating the process for more than 20 years now. Anything Sinn Fein support up there the DUP will automatically oppose by default. The DUP dont care about progress, all they care about is getting one over on the other side, thats the mindset you're dealing with.

The A5 has had tens of millions wasted in planning, they've had no less than four public inquiries that gave it the go ahead but that wasnt enough for the objectors so it is now bogged down in years of legal challenges and judicial reviews over their human rights :rolleyes: Right now we're into challenges using the EU Habitats Directive which is a special kind of irony for a bunch of people who campaigned for Brexit. The funding is there from London to build it and the Irish govt pledged 75 million towards it back in 2015 too yet it is still not built. At best it will be 2035 by the time it is done, which will be 40 years after it was first planned.