Cork to Limerick rail improvements

I travel for work Cork to Limerick a couple times a month and would love to see a direct service with no messing around with connections at the Junction. Most times the connecting train is there within 10-15 mins but even that is a bit of a pain. But the odd time have been left stranded due to delays, mostly on the return leg, when the Heuston to Cork train is delayed.

Unfortunately, I'd say I'll be retired before there's any proper improvements like a direct link!

ultimately what the poster is suggesting is planning ahead though.

the city is going to grow and around some existing and future stations is going to be part of that and that means spending on heavy rail for those areas or any others that need it, with light rail for the rest and then bus for the very low lying stuff.

retrospective justification as long as there is a clear future plan is absolutely justification for spending the money, especially that when we really look at the costs of rail, it's not going to be a fortune in reality.

at least not when we have spent huge money on some low hanging road schemes in our time.

forget about BRT, if that is the route you are going down then build trams instead, at least it avoids the cost of upgrading to trams later on and the transport infrastructure is there for the future.

100% agree with this, especially the final paragraph. The identification of "housing development zones", with public transport and all of the other social and infrastructural facilities to be provided in a timely manner, should be mandatory to reduce sprawl, ribbon development and one offs. Sadly, where housing is concerned, the local authorities responsible for the greater Limerick City area have the worst planning track record in the country, and nothing suggests that this has or is changing.

For many years, this country suffered from "sewage led development". Builders looking to develop any kind of dense housing faced a binary situation, if a property had access to a main sewer they were in with a good chance, if it didn't have that was the end of it. So many housing estates were located on the basis of sewer availability. I'm not sure that "transport led development" is much better to be honest. Myross is the wrong location for significant housing development for many reasons, unless an awful lot changes. As it stands, with no other context changes, it seems to me to be a thoroughly stupid location for Limerick's first (and only) commuter rail station. A single commuter rail station is bad enough, locating it in Moyross is plain daft.

Commuter rail works in Dublin because it has the density to make it viable and the lines and stations are located in places where people need to go. It also works as a concept in the greater Cork area, because it proposes to leverage the existing track connecting several large towns (Mallow, Midleton, Cobh) and underpins significant future housing development already envisaged for Carrigtwoohil and Monard/Blarney. The existing traffic volumes, together with those envisaged for the medium term greatly help achieve viability. There is no such vision for Limerick that I am aware of, nor is there any clear route to building a viable commuter rail network based on the current lines and population patterns.

And in any event, without major strategic planning, its difficult to see the Limerick to Limerick Junction line having any great role.

Moyross was a good location because it was mostly meant to ease overcrowding in historic areas like Kileely and Thomondgate. It also had excellent transport links for a long time which slowly got eroded and only got a lease of life in 2020 with the return of 15min buses on the 303.

A problem on the Northside is buses only really go to town. None go to UL or UHL, any of the industrial estates etc.

I've stared at Limerick's rail alignments long enough trying to think of a way to use them for a useful commuter service but have never managed to come up with anything that made sense.

As I said before, the only way to make a commuter line from the current network is a tunnel which makes Colbert into a through station rather than just a terminus.

With all this fanciful talk of commuter rail for Limerick this is starting to sound like that daft WRC thread

well no, rail infrastructure is not hugely expensive to build for the most part.

building tunnels, sure, but that is the case for road tunnels also.

rail is also not expensive to run in the great scheme of things, it just looks so, just like the rail infrastructure claims, because people have been conditioned to believe it while spending large amounts of money on certain non-intercity motor way schemes is saw as cheap even though it wasn't in reality.

the reason people turn their noses up at buses is simple, people see that in some cases they are not being used or even suggested as a genuine suggestion, but as a way to get out of building rail and tram infrastructure, and that is not without legitimate precedent, we only need to look at luas and the dart.

as for BRT/BRT light, again the reason people turn their noses up at it is because ultimately it's sort of pointless when you look at it, as you could get similar by just chucking the cars out of the cities and give full priority to existing buses without having to build any infrastructure.

but even then that only works for the low lying fruit services that require something frequent but don't have enough for light rail.

single deckers are a capacity cut as you aren't getting long buses or bendy buses in ireland, been there and done it and it didn't work.

Walls don't fix flooding, they move it. Realistically flood plains that remain are exceptionally low down the list of what'll be acceptable to build on.

realistically there is nothing daft about the WRC or the discussion around it but that's for another thread, the case for it is clear so there really isn't anything left to discuss or do but just get on and reopen it.

the swiss and germans ETC engaged in a lot of rebuilding after WWII so their streets are suitable for articulated buses if that is what they want.

irish cities on the other hand just aren't suited to it and the expense to make them so would nearly pay for light rail anyway.

There's merit to talking about Limerick commuter lines, but it's a very different thing to "Cork to Limerick". I'd hope "Cork to Limerick" would be fast and mostly direct, and I have no problem with a Limerick commuter system just wouldn't want the two to be the same thing.

Ball with NTA and the minister who struggles with making decisions

I mentioned this a few pages back. Atkins were commissioned in November 2022 to provide report which would (1) identify a preferred location and option for the Moyross station and (2) review options to enhance capacity on the Limerick-Limerick Junction route. The report from Atkins was due to be completed in the first half of 2023. Nothing has been heard of this since.

It's possible but unlikely that Atkins failed to produce the report. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I'd guess that a draft of the report was submitted to the commissioning bodies and wasn't to their taste.

Thats the most logical location for a station, right next to the M7 to capture traffic coming into Limerick and also to make rail more attractive towards Dublin as it would avoid the trek into Limerick city for many

The time lost by the stop can be made up by the higher speed and double track to LJ

Discussion currently taking place in the CACR thread but isn't relevant to that thread. The Cork Line Level Crossings Project was discussed in this thread initially so will pick up the discussion here.

ABP has finally given approval for the Cork Line Level Crossings Project after a little over 3 years.

The potential speed improvement was being discussed on the other thread. Given 5 of the 7 LCs to be closed are between Mallow and Charleville, I would have thought it would give a good speed improvement on that section. 5 LCs closed over a 12km section with no stops in between should mean trains can maintain a good speed between Mallow and Charleville. The other two north of Charleville should help heading towards Dublin but southbound trains would have to slow any way approaching Charleville.