Cross-border review of rail network officially launched

Re-doubling a formerly doubled railway line should not need PP or a RO.

Does a county council need PP to change the paint on a road to divide the existing road into more or less lanes? No.

They're only doing that fudge because they've left themselves with no other option because the wiring wasn't done! Like ideally we would have done the AC wiring a decade ago so we don't have to deal with dual modal/tri-modal rolling stock. This way has led to us wasting so much cash. Things which we can avoid if we plan ahead with electrification now.

Given the value prop. of this plan, this seems like incredibly good value?

If the rolling stock has to be replaced anyhow (life-expired) that is not a cost of electrification, just a cost of having any rail service from Dublin to Cork. As for €800m for speed improvements (200kph?) you could probably get some significant improve,emts for a smaller spend. In any event, electric traction will lower journey times (better acceleration and performance on gradients).

@Geuze Re-doubling a formerly doubled railway line should not need PP or a RO.

You might think that, but it may well do. The Midleton double tracking project is with ABP crawling through the full Railway Order process following the Strategic Infrastructure Development (SID) procedure as though it were a new line. This involves an Environmental Impact Assessment, Appropriate Assessment etc, It's slightly different, in that this is doubling a line that was always a single line, whereas Killonan Junction to Limerick Junction is re-doubling a line that was previously doubled but reduced to a single line. However it's not as straightforward as it sounds, as the existing single line which was relaid in recent decades may need to be lifted and moved to one side. It will also most likely involve bridge strengthening, level crossing renewal etc and on this basis may need to go through the full planning process. I know that IIR got a Senior Counsel's opinion on the need for a Railway Order in the case of Glouthane-Midleton, and you'd assume that they will do the same this time. Incidentally, work on doubling Limerick-Limerick junction has commenced. Not shovel in the ground work, but an assessment to determine the best way forward. In Iarnrod Eireann's words in Nov 2022 :

The assessment is being undertaken by Atkins and the results are/were due in the first half of 2023.

It's fair to say however that the reinstatement of the Foynes Line for Freight use appears to be proceeding without the need for a Railway Order. It would be great if the Killonan-Limerick Junction project could go this way as well, as it eliminates a 2/3 year delay.

It's not that crazy. Cork to LJ could be 200km/h (30mins). LJ to Limerick could be 20mins with double track. Then 1hr 10mins to Galway (120km) is not unrealistic with level crossing removals, passing loops and some double track.

Yep! It's pretty appalling.

At best it takes 2hrs. That's 60km/h average speed, and that's assuming it doesn't wait 15 to 20 minutes in Ennis or Gort for a passing train.

It also has to change direction in Athenry but I think that only takes 5 minutes.

I really don't like the comments made by the Taoiseach that the All-Island Rail Review strengthens the case for roads, if he is implying that the review should be ignored or mostly ignored. I know he pointed out that the vast majority of journeys would still be made by road even if every action recommended in the review is taken, but I still don't think that is a good reason to invest in roads more than railways. This is because the world is in a climate emergency. I wouldn't go as far as saying that road investment should stop. I do think, however, that there should be much more investment in improving public transport than improving roads, and the money spent on improving and building railways (of course only railways that would actually help stop the climate crisis) should be more than the money spent on improving and building roads, because car usage will need to decrease to stop the climate crisis (well, a decrease in car usage would at least help stopping the climate crisis). So it's only fair that in a climate emergency, railways that can help stop the climate crisis should get more investment than roads that contribute to the climate crisis

I have heard people on this forum say that road investment improves public transport, because roads are used by buses as well as cars, but I disagree because improved roads make cars faster as much as they make buses faster, so I see no reason to believe that they would make more people travel by bus instead of by car. Bus lanes are an exception because they stop buses getting caught in traffic jams, so they can make buses faster than cars. That brings me to another argument I hear to defend investing in roads more than in railways (or public transport in general), which is that if everyone had electric cars, there would be no problem with cars. I disagree with this argument as well, for two main reasons. The first reason is that I would definitely say that having everyone travel by private electric car would use up much more electricity than having some people travelling by private electric car and others travelling by public transport. It is important to reduce demand for electricity, because the lower demand for electricity is, the easier it will be to stop using fossil fuels and generate electricity entirely from sources that emit no greenhouse gases. The second reason why car usage should decrease even if electric cars become the norm is that traffic congestion would still be a problem if car usage stayed the same.

Do I think that it would be crazy not to implement everything in this All-Island Rail Review by 2050? No, I definitely do not. There might be several actions recommended by the review that would not help to stop the climate crisis, so I definitely don't think that such actions should be given priority. I think the most important thing recommended by the review is the replacement of the whole diesel-powered train fleet with electric and hydrogen-powered trains, and electrification of some of the network, but any steps that would help stop the climate crisis, whether they are improvements to the existing rail network, or extensions to the rail network, are also very important and should be done.

You are totally wrong in your interpretation of the Taoiseach's remarks. He quoted the Report itself in stating that if delivered in full the Rail share of freight would be 10% and passengers 6%, He also stood by the 2:1 ratio of Public Transport to Road investment agreed in the programme for government. Bad and congested roads are in no-one's interest.

Attitudes like this guarantee a total wipeout of the Greens in the next election, especially away from the chattering classes on the DART and the Green Line LUAS.

It's just under 100km from Cork to Limerick Junction. To do it in 30 minutes you'd have to be pretty much going the full 200kmh all the way which ignores stopping at Mallow and ignores that the approach to Cork in particular is pretty twisty and not capable of those speeds. Throw in the future commuter rail frequency of 10-15 minutes between Cork and Mallow and you have a bottleneck and reduced speed there.

There is no chance that Cork to Limerick Junction will be 30 minutes and equally zero chance Cork to Galway can be done in 2 hours.

Attitudes like what? The belief that investments in railways that would help stop the climate crisis should(for the time being) be made more than investments in roads that would result in an escalation of the climate crisis? I don't understand what you mean when you say "attitudes like this."