Cross-border review of rail network officially launched

It always looked to me like the London Overground and some of the outer (overground) Underground lines used the same lines as National Rail.

That's not true. The reason why there isn't a positive case for DU is because the NTA revised their demand projections in light of covid and put in some dubious assumptions about a permanent drop in demand that has not really proven to be the case in terms of travel patterns observed since covid. In other words, they thought there'd be a permanent drop in demand for public transport as a result of covid, but what's transpired is that we're well on the way to being back to pre-covid demand levels.

Is there any chance that each major project can be costed separately,and their annual operating costs , and a reasonable estimate made for passenger numbers ,Ie have formulas for that - trip generators on the route - age profile , population within x distance of the stations , oh and alternative routes ,

Then give a per expected customer subvention required to build the line..

Some of the subventions would be stratospheric,

If only there was an efficent ,point to point ,flexible mass transit system , that can use current infrastructure ,

How about a

Basic

Underground

System .. or Bus

Initial reactions:

1. Far too much about totally unrealistic possibilities (Mullingar-Portadown, etc, etc)
2. Far too little emphasis on relatively inexpensive capacity-enhancing improvements.
3. No rigorous assessments of the limits of battery-electric (range) and hydrogen (unproven technology). Also operational inflexibilities when train fleets are not useable on (almost) all routes.
4. Insufficient emphasis on the positive advantages of full electrification: fleet flexibility, energy efficiency, speed, reliability, low maintenance, longer rolling stock life, etc. All we hear are the initial capital costs.
5. No estimates of the potential emissions savings from rail freight (proportionately greater than for passengers)

I can see the media discussion being dominated by the usual hopeless cases: WRC, Rosslare-Ballina, Donegal, Mullingar Portadown (!!!). Here's a simple suggestion: how about a connection from the Up Cork main line to the Waterford line just South of Cherryville, thus avoiding a reversal at Kildare and the ensuing delays and costs.

The thing about the tunnel is if its built as a DART tunnel with twin track and that's what it is used for then fine. If it's built as a DART and Intercity tunnel with 4 tracks also fine (I'm not sure I know any examples of 4 track rail tunnel other than New York City.

What isn't fine is if its built as a DART tunnel and intercity trains are shoehorned into it. You'll have 4 track railway on the northern line, 4 track on the Cork line reducing to 2 tracks in tunnel, a recipe for disaster.

In terms of cost, I'm not sure if a 4 track tunnel is more or less costly than having 2 separate tunnels on different routes, there's not much call for intercity to join the DART line in the city centre so an alternative route could be better.

Rolling stock is listed separately in the table.

Missed that. Figures for that are delusional, on the low side, for what is being proposed.

100% agree.

Strategic ?? There is absolutely nothing strategic about this. It's pure utter blueskies stuff. Like a verbatim report from an anoraks convention in a pub late at night. Everything bar the kitchen sink has been chucked in, apart from reinstating Midleton-Youghal, Waterford-New Ross and that mad West Cork nonsense. Sure there is some good stuff in there, but it's lost amongst the pie-in-the-sky and the basket cases and does nothing to provide a much needed clear and realistic blueprint. Quite the opposite it will create a fog of confusion, raise a cloud of promises and once again cause available resources to be spread far too thin. The “case studies”, which really scrape the bottom of the barrel, provide a graphic display of just how poor the report is. 

And of course with the Stormont situation we will get another 24 months of hot air about this without a single decision being made or a Euro/Pound being spent.  

I happened to be in West Limerick today, not far from Curraghchase, and stopped to see the flurry of Sisk activity on the reinstatement of the Foynes Freight line. I sat there for 10 mins looking at this and trying to think exactly what freight is going to be chuffing along here. It really makes you wonder where our priorities are – surely this money would have far better spent on say the direct commuter link to Navan.  Priorities ? Bang for Buck ? not to mention value for money or internal rates of return….

Very very disappointing. 

I personally think the Ryder Cup in Adare is what is driving the Foynes line rebuild.

I haven't followed rail infrastructure policy in a while but I sat down the morning to read through the review and, to my surprise, it's not as bad as I thought. The report authors Arup are pretty clear that what they've done is basically a menu rather than a roadmap:

This Chapter presents plausible choices for policymakers that, together, provide a route to achieving the Re iew’s oals and Objectives. In doing so, this Chapter presents a set of recommendations and summarises the case for taking them forward to the next stage of development. As stated in the introduction to this Report, the recommendations provided below do not represent official policy for either jurisdiction, but aim to provide a constructive, evidence-based approach for delivering the Goals and Objectives of this Review.

There were a few things I liked including that a Spencer Dock-Heuston tunnel would be transformative, but they should have stressed more that this would actually have big positive impacts for travellers from outside the GDA as well as inside. They also made the sensible point that Wexford-Dublin travellers would more usefully go through Waterford with a diesel coastal route terminating at Greystones for people to catch a DART.

In terms of the optics the biggest problem is the politicians pretending that much of this is deliverable when we all know that most of it isn't. It's a shame because when sensible projects like a DART tunnel in Dublin are on the table in 2030 we'll have a dozen TDs jumping up and down claiming that they are not getting their Lisburn to Mullingar line and why should Dublin get something if they are not.

But turning back to the review, there are a few things that really don't add up:

-Connecting Shannon and Belfast airports by rail. These are small airports and I'm sceptical there would be much of a modal switch for one arrival every 90 minutes and not much of a network to join. Even Manchester has only 16% rail model share and I count seven departures for Manchester Piccadilly per hour. The review only assumes 10% which is hard to imagine ever justifying the costs.

-For rail freight they propose developing a network of inland terminals close to major cities on the rail network. The obvious point is that major cities (Dublin, Cork, Belfast) already have a port nearby. Suppose you build a rail terminal at Hazelhatch. So you lift a container off a boat at Dublin Port, roll it on a train 15km to Hazelhatch, then lift it back on to a truck that delivers it to Liffey Valley. This makes no sense and you can repeat the exercise for Cork and Belfast.

-Some of the decarbonised options look like complete fantasy. I'm not an engineer but is there any solution for a 150km route from Portadown to Mullingar that does not involve OHLE or diesel?

-The report correctly identifies that four tracks are needed between Connolly and Drogheda but completely fudges how this would be done. I think this is a pity as hard choices will be needed here that are going to mess with people's back gardens and views but this is really where there are big benefits possible too.

-They propose a spur from Dublin Airport to Clongriffin which would suffer from very low patronage to speed and a very convoluted route. It would only mirror the Aerdart bus service of the early 2000s which collapsed due to low patronage. It would be even more irrelevant once metrolink is built.

From what I understand it doesn't matter if any freight goes on the Foynes line but it needs the line to get a certain top level grade which I assume is good for business.

Shannon has about 5% of the passenger numbers that Dublin has. Mentioning the 2 places in the same sentence as places for rail links is totally surreal nonsense. No sense of priorities whatsoever.

No there's benefit alright if you can build a rail commuter network in the Limerick area, because buses are stuck in traffic. We just don't do bus priority in Ireland. So for a Shannon town/industrial estate/airport plus maybe cratloe, moyross, etc you get a genuine commuter network. I think that's valuable alright

It's mention of an option of going via New Ross that had me scratching my head! Agree though,if Waterford line gets 200 km/hrs running it makes sense to piggyback on it.

You completely misintrepret what I said. Rail link to Shannon (for pax) is mad. Rail link to Dublin is at least a sane proposition.

Rail from Limerick to Shannon connects an airport to rail network, connects large industrial estate in Shannon with Limerick city, and also functions as a commuter line for Limerick. Nothing mad about it.

Electrifying the current lines and extending them to Shannon isn't just mad, it's a criminal waste of money. If Ryan had suggested doing this it would be safe to ignore it. It's altogether different when Arup put their name to nonsense like this and it does serious damage to whatever credibility the review might otherwise have. 

I'm assuming that the €600-900m is for the electrification of the lines from Colbert to Sixmlebridge and Colbert to Foynes. There is so much wrong with this it's difficult to know where to start. 85% of this combined C shape passes through open green fields and ultra low density housing and that is unlikely to change anytime in the foreseeable future. Outside of the section from Myross to Raheen, the connected “population centres” are Sixmiebridge, Cratloe, Patrickswell, Adare, Askeaton and Foynes. Combined population 7,500, many of whom live far from the nearest station. Throw in Bunratty and Shannon on the basis of the airport link and you get to 17,000 total. Add 3,000 for new housing to be built on the line by those far seeing strategic thinkers in Clare and Limerick Councils and you get to 20,000. Potential passenger journeys per day, perhaps 500, 750, 1,000 ? Trains a day 8, 10, 12 ? This is complete and utter nonsense and makes zero sense. Just use a battery train. Oh and what about the one, or two freight trains per day or is it weekly ? And worst of all, the inclusion of daft stuff like this debases the entire report. Think what that figure of €600-900m could achieve in the Dublin area where there is a crying need and huge demand for investment, with a return on investment (social and environmental not to mention financial) that is stratospherically better. 

Unless of course Arup though that the enormous volume of freight that moves daily between Sixmilebridge and Foynes required a direct route and the budget figure included a 5km rail tunnel/bridge to cross the Shannon between Bunratty and Pallaskenry.....

This encapsulates why rail will never ever be improved in Ireland. If we get electrification of the Cork Dublin line and a bit of dual tracking in the next 25 years, that'll be about the most that will come of this review.

AFAIK, the following airports are on intercity networks:

Birmingham

Manchester

Luton (1km peoplemover to terminal)

Stansted (stub off mainline?)

Gatwick

Heathrow (stub off GWML?)

Amsterdam

Brussels

Berlin

Koln

Frankfurt

Stuttgart (will be)

Paris CDG

Lyon

Are they all mad? No.

As airports generate a lot of trips, it makes sense for them to be on intercity lines.