Navan Rail Line

If it is to happen how far along the M3 would the railway line have to run before its gradiat would be sufficent for a train to cross the motorway?

The old alignment is gone in for large chunks of it that there is little benefit in trying to reinstate it. Going closer to Dunshaughlin would be better, at least it would serve people.

You can make out where a fair bit of the line was on Google Maps, thats not really the same as it still being there. Most of the land would still have to be CPOed, including houses, and the level of work required would be the same as building elsewhere.

A new line would have to be between Dunshaughlin and the M3.

NTA commissioned a study on it almost a year ago. It was looking at similar route options to those in the 2009 study. Search 'navan rail line feasibility 2009' and you can see images with the options being considered.

An issue that will emerge is capacity for additional services towards the city centre. There's limited train paths by the time DART+, additional Longford commuter and Sligo trains are all in and potentially mixing with Phoenix Park Tunnel services as you get to city centre stations.

So Navan services would really need to be electrified or Battery electric (if feasible), acting as an extension of M3 Parkway services; unless there is an appetite to make further capacity enhancements in the city centre above DART+ current proposals. Would a service frequency of 20min be enough for Navan to make it attractive? M3 Parkway frequency is 10min so you could start a few at Navan.

I've conveniently ignored journey times and passenger capacity.

If there's a 10 minute frequency at M3 then surely that capacity can simply be extended to Navan, assuming enough rolling stock is bought to run on it. This is a very good frequency for a commuter service to an exurb like Navan. Journey times would probably be more than an hour to central stations so better than car or bus at the moment and most importantly reliable. At the minute we don't have DART crossing rural areas to get to towns, so that'll be novelty feature when travelling to Maynooth on the first DART+

Although with bus connects cbc 5 to blanchardstown and some future orbital bus priority in phibsboro the speed and capacity of commuter bus services will also be growing, that could sink any cost benefit analysis if we keep doing cost benefit in the same mid-20th century thinking.

Won't be much time to be made up slotting in at most 9 minutes behind a stopper - and there's really no space for overtaking tracks of a useful length either; or station passing loops.

Most of the building actually came after the towns were there. Locales in Utah or Colorado sprung to existence after their railroad came.

The railroads actually suffered from poor engineering and politics. They were wedged between investors from certain towns, analysis of potential business,and building costs. It wasn't that easy.

I'd like to see a more integrated approach to it all.

NTA and Meath CC to sit down and map out what Navan and Dunshaughlin would need to look like to support a reasonably sustainable rail service (some subvention). The towns would look a lot more European. Would existing residents support that increase in density?

It should be possible to get in a third track around Clonsilla station. West of the station there is already a siding. A new station could be built on the other side of the road with platforms setback enough for three tracks, and then extend that up to the Dr Troy Bridge where the extra few metres could be taken from the adjoining fields (which are due for redevelopment anyway). That would give about 2km of three track, would that be enough for an outer commuter train to overtake a DART which stops at Clonsilla? It would have to be done now as part of DART+ West with signaling etc. designed in.

perhapse sorting the roads to a good standard for a good bus service might probably ironically cost more then reinstating the rail ink which seems easy enough to reinstate not that it will be done.

certainly as part of the navan rail link and interworked with it it wouldn't be the worst reopening in the world but nothing will come of it so there is nothing for you to worry about.

of course it still would be easy to do in the unlikely event the line was reopened.

greenways can be moved, especially tiny ones like this one.

as i said, it's not going to happen so you have nothing to worry about.

Oh, no, and we all know that it's utterly impossible for Ireland to lay track anywhere that wasn't specifically occupied by track during the Victorian era, I'm pretty sure it's actually illegal or unconstitutional or something.