Cross-border review of rail network officially launched

Rosslare is a ro/ro port...

Rail freight doesnt/cant handle ro/ro

Rail handles container and bulk ,Bellview in waterford handles freight and bulk , and has a rail connection,

Problem solved, millions saved ..

Surely Portsrlington to Athlone make more sense as there's more trains using it

I mean I think you're underselling what such a project could deliver. If it were built the coastal line to Drogheda could have DARTs every 5 minutes even while also allowing people to commute from Drogheda to Dublin in 15 to 20 mins. The Airport would have an intercity station and if that line connected to the line out of Heuston that could allow through movement of intercity trains from Belfast to the south and west freeing up buckets of terminal capacity in Heuston and Connolly and allowing passengers to reach the airport without going to Dublin City Centre, many private coach operators do this already because there is significant demand for those journeys.

Trains could run directly from Cork to Belfast and trains could run directly from Galway to say a new terminal near the airport. And before you say it, end-to-end journeys aren't the point the inter connectivity is.

It would be nothing short of a revolution in rail transport in Ireland. Granted it would be expensive but also a highly valuable asset. Electrifying and modernising the intercity lines should come first though. But I would say in the case of Dublin-Belfast there are few other good options for doing so. As you point out a paltry 12 services a day is insufficient and the journey time and reliability is also not suitable, such a project would resolve those multiple issues and Raheny residents can keep their back gardens.

Yes that is the plan.

LJ was remodled within the last 5 years or so to give a new Down Main platform for Dublin-Cork trains. While this facilitated train movements it replaces what was a cross-platform connection (Dublin-LJn-Limerick) with a traipse over a footbridge.

A second bay platform beside the existing "Limerick Bay) might facilitate higher train frequencies.

If the same train is doing Limerick-Limerick Junction and Limerick Junction-Limerick, some people are going to have to use the footbridge, assuming the Dublin/Cork and Cork/Dublin trains both arrive/depart at the same time, which is the optimum performance that you want.

It’s impossible to be all things to all men.

I can see a scenario where they might add a bay to the southern platform but it would still require some people to use the footbridge.

The current bay has two platforms which allows for both Waterford and Limerick trains to board simultaneously, the Waterford train departing once the Limerick train has cleared Limerick Junction pocket loop.

Just to clarify, I am quite aware of the trade-offs regarding the new down main platform. My post was a response to a previous poster who seemed to advocate cross-platform transfers for all, something which has been lost as part of the tradeoff.

Also I was not referring to a second bay platform beside the existing Down main, but rather beside the existing bay platform. I am aware that there are technically 2 platforms on thexisting bay, but this imposes restrictions on order of arrival and departure.

Overall, no utopian solutions for Limerick Junction.

Latest in the IT about the all-Ireland Strategic Rail Review.

While selective, it seems clearly related to Eamon Ryan's rather loopy views on rail transport, not only involving Ballina-Rosslare (again!), but also railways to Denegal. For a minister who is leader of the Green Party, no mention of decarbonisation of the rail network (aka electrification).

Bizarrely the piece by Martin Wall was written from New York. It sounds more like it was written from Outer Mongolia. Irish Times coverage of transport issues is truly dreadful.

So it's a Strategic Review, which omits electrification. In this day in age it's like Hamlet without the Prince.

I mean I'd be all for Derry to Letterkenny trains, it'd make more sense than trains to Claremorris but brand new lines can come before making the current network modern and fit for purpose

They could but it's not the most direct route. There once was a line from Portadown to Derry via Omagh but it was closed in favour of the indirect route, believed to be because that route served the Protestant population better.

Double tracking & line speed improvements from derry to belfast to Dublin would be better return.

Letterkenny to Dublin via rail in 3 hours is achievable, and also benefits derry to Dublin and derry to belfast services.

How realistic is the portadown to Derry line chances of reopening? Is the old alignment there (doubtful) or will it be new build? Spur to Cavan and Monaghan also needed. Was so idiotic all these lines were closed to start with

It will not reopen 100%. The old alignment isnt up to modern requirements anyways, would be too slow. Any new alignment would suffer the same obstacles from certain large landowners as the A5 road project has in Derry and Tyrone.

Besides, a new alignment would be better from portadown to Enniskillen via Armagh, Monaghan town and clones. Makes far more sense based on population density than trying to run a rail line through the Mourne river valley

If the goal is to improve rail connections between Derry (and by extension Donegal) to the rail network in the south, the best option would be a link from east of Lisburn to the Antrim town to Lisburn line at Ballinderry. That could be done with about 6km of new track. To go from Derry to Dublin, it would have to be train to Lisburn and then change to the Enterprise but the journey time would be better than going to Belfast.

If a longer section of new track was to be built, a new route from Coleraine to the existing Derry line west of Limavady (and actually serving Limavady) would knock a decent chunk of the journey from Derry to just about anywhere. A new route to Derry the other side of the Sperrins would be at least 3 times longer.

There is a lot that can be done to improve the existing network that doesn't require mega-projects which will take decades to deliver (if at all realistic). Hopefully the AIRR looks at the lower hanging fruit to optimize the existing network rather than just proposing a future fantasy network.

I started my post with "If the goal is to improve rail connections between Derry (and by extension Donegal) to the rail network in the south", so I was clearly posting in a specific context. I wasn't saying it was a priority or that it was more important than other potential investments.

I was saying how improvements could be made on that line and increase its catchment using minimum amount of new rail. Building a whole new 100km line isn't realistic, I was speculating on alternatives.

What is the source of this document? It is very vague in places (4-tracking Cork mainline and Northern line - for how many kms?).

Stuff about decarbonisation and implicit references to hybrid rolling stock. But nothing explicit or meaningful about electrification, a matter about which official bodies seem to have a total mental blockage.