Cork - Light Rail [route options idenfication and initial design underway]

Different technology, which is just emerging, so not in use 'all over Europe'. If you read the info in the link you'll see that trackless trams have emerged from high-speed rail technology. Versions of trackless trams have been in development for almost 20 years, but in 2017 the Chinese Rail Corporation, CRRC, introduced an autonomously guided tram, a significant advance of the design and technology known as Autonomous Rapid Transit (ART).

I've been on the Belfast Flyers, they are simple low-floor bendy busses and you do get thrown around a bit on them.

A dedicated rapid transit lane without rails can be equally effective as a light-rail corridor if it's properly policed. For years London buses have been fitted with cameras and any other vehicles recorded on the bus camera are issued with a fine, which currently stands at £160, or £80 if you pay within 14 days. The result is no one dares go in a bus lane in London.

This is from a 2004 report '900 cameras on buses and 500 roadside cameras patrol the city’s 700 bus lanes, issuing 100,000 summonses each year'

It's all in the link I provided.

BTW, I'm not interested in discussing the pros and cons, I just posted a link to an emerging new Rapid Transit technology, which I thought might be of interest.

Some Towns/Cities are replacing them with real trams. They have a downside too.

Trackless trams is one of those "silicon valley reinventing the bus again" type statements.

It is a bus with tracks. It is suggested it mostly has its own road lanes (bus lanes), and it is articulated. Like the Belfast glider, but tracks instead of wheels.

It is not a good replacement for rail, light or otherwise. If you would consider carving out corridors for this autonomous bendy bus, you might as well go the whole hog and just put down rails. At least then you won't have to charge the bus at every stop.

Trolleybuses are more efficient than trams when you have to deal with steep gradients. And because there are no rails, they don't require underground services to be cleared along the route.

They're in a kind of halfway house between BRT and Light Rail in terms of cost, efficiency and capacity.

Our love of double-decker buses makes them a non-starter in Ireland, though.

I think what you were looking at was a trolleybus system with some wire-free sections. The buses can still charge while on the move, but just not in certain areas. Adding higher capacity batteries has made trolleybuses a lot more flexible in cities that already had them, as now the buses can go further in areas without overhead power (all trolleybuses have had batteries since the beginning, the big change now is being able to use lightweight lithium batteries).

The "trackless tram" and electric bus systems are different: they have no overhead chaging at all between stops and rely on static charging at stops, which is a lot less reliable. It also means that they are running off battery 100% of the time which decreases the operational life of the batteries; an overhead-powered bus will only be running off battery for the short sections where there's no overhead lines - everywhere else, the overhead power is driving the bus and topping up its battery, if needed.

bk wrote 'EV double decker buses are now on the roads of Dublin, so no chance of Trolleybuses system being built anywhere in Ireland now. '

They are hybrid not 100% EV's, see here https://www.transportforireland.ie/news/nta-launches-hybrid-buses-for-dublin-and-galway-city-services/

We didn't throw everything away 😂😉 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.8973749,-8.4129976,3a,43.1y,247.55h,80t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sDV1Cyna9JEseW7jgJIewcg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?authuser=0&entry=ttu

Article about the Seville (in sections) battery powered trams. Apparently, they used to have to disassemble the overhead lines every year for the Easter parade. Seems like a practical solution in particular sensitive situations. The system appears very similar to LUAS otherwise, down to the exact same 'ding ding' warning chime.

A few sudays ago i Saw an older cyclist get his bike wheel stuck in the track in blackrock , hit rhe ground fairly hard - apparently not uncommon

@bk I completely agree. Nothing other than BEV buses is practical for us here.

Double deck buses make overhead electricity really difficult to use. Actually, just wait long enough and I'm sure someone will probably use that fact as an objection against Cork Luas (despite the relatively small number of 2-deck buses in the city, and the fact that Cork Luas is probably dead anyway).

If Dublin had a more extensive Luas on-street network in the city, then BEV trolleybuses could be used for in- motion charging on shared streets, but then, if Dublin has a more extensive Luas network in the city centre, buses of any kind would become rare in the centre, solving the problem a different way...

The NTA or TII?

They were 900 mm, chosen to be interoperable with the nearby Blackrock and Passage Railway at 3 ft 🤷🏻‍♂️ We've made some strange choices over the years.

Yes I'd expect that's the case. They're probably used to dealing with Dublin councilors who might be also hostile but also well used to change amd perhaps a little more pragmatic.

If that’s true, it’s beyond astounding. Cork City Council, both elected and administrative, have managed to block €3 billion worth of national investment into public infrastructure in Cork City? There hasn’t even been any meaningful community or public objections to it yet, if anything the public and local media have broadly supported the project. I understand that could all change when the route is announced but I can’t get over the council scuppering the project at this stage. Ann Doherty was asking for businesses to buy into the project just this month, to be simultaneously filibustering behind the scenes would be the biggest scandal in local politics in a generation. I am still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor, I hope someone like Eoin English or Tripe and Drisheen are reading this.

There are local elections coming up. If you see a politician out campaigning, make your opinions on this project known to them.

Their biggest vested interest is staying in a seat.

That's partly true, some Councilors are very reasonable in explaining what you're saying.

However some Councilors in private are also just downright backwards: they are themselves the ones who live and die by their cars and are very much leading, rather than being led. The council meetings show them intervening in schemes which have little to no public pushback.

As KrisW1001 says, it's very worthwhile to actually discuss with them during canvassing. It doesn't even break down along party lines, which is interesting.

?? Dublin buses run under Luas wires all the time, no problem.

The Cork Tramway system was a 2'11" gauge. The Cork, Blackrock & Passage line, while originally the standard 5'3" gauge was converted to the narrow gauge 3'0" when it was extended to Crosshaven. The Muskery Railway was also a narrow gauge system 3'0". The Tram to Sundays Well traveled successfully on the Muskery line along Western Road as far as Victoria Cross Road, where it left the Muskery line and turned north to Wellington Bridge (now named Thomas Davis Bridge).

While there are metric equivalents to the original gauges, I don't see The Board of Trade of the UK, speaking in metric measurements in The Regulating the Gauge of Railways Act 1846

The 4'8½" is still the UK standard gauge which is equal to the 1435mm, or thereabouts, found throughout Europe. We're an outlier with our 5'3" (1600mm) gauge which is why we need special custom-made bogies on any rolling stock ordered.