DART+ (DART Expansion)

God, Europe would never have managed to electrify most of its railways if it had to contend with planning Irish-style. Modern 25kv masts are relatively lightweight an unobtrusive, but I wonder at the rcent very clunky studd recently installed on the Great Western main line in the UK.

No need for pessimism. I was only saying that the idea we could override the planning process just because it's a railway is a non-starter. (Not least because letting a government suspend laws to get its "plans" implemented isn't a great idea..)

That doesn't mean the thing will get bogged down. It will all be happening on private land, and the substations etc will be located in areas that already have buildings in place. You'll get a crank or two complaining about the view, but they'll be ignored. One or two people will have legitimate complaints and the plan will be adjusted to accommodate them. All business as usual. But the likes of FIE will have no grounds to obstruct this, as the land is already taken and in any case electrification will remove the pollution associated with diesel fuelled trains and allow some of our most heavily used railway servives to run on renewable energy.

Coastal North was ready in December. Read into that what you like

The expectation is that something will be done with Bray-Greystones and Dart will be extended to Wicklow using battery trains. What's being long-fingered is the level-crossing closures as they're too contentious and would bog the other bits of the project down.

LA planning doesn't apply to projects that are big enough to go straight to ABP. This is one.

The ability of complainers to instigate JR proceedings has been greatly restricted in the new planning acts.

But mostly our issues with planning are not a problem of what planning law allows, but of understaffing at ABP. Hopefully this has been resolved.

There's a temptation to use Metrolink as a benchmark, and yes, Metrolink has taken ages, but Metrolink is a far larger project, building a completely new railwat on new land-take and under existing buildings... there's potential for huge impacts if it goes wrong, so the detailed consultation process is to be expected.

DART+, though, takes place almost entirely on lands already owned by IÉ, and so almost no land take or loss of access is involved. Even the environmental cost is tiny compared to the emissions saved by electrification. All of this means it should clear the planning process much more quickly.

There are just too many friendly judges who would approve a jr against level crossing closure in D4. The only outcome at this point is for IÉ to close the crossings for 16 hours a day and provide no pedestrian or cyclist alternative.

This is beyond ridiculous. As Sam states, "it is a very simple project". The public consultation took place in 2019 and plans were modified subsequently. The railway order was applied for in 2021 with the oral hearing scheduled for Sept 2022. By agreement with ABP an EIA procedure was conducted in advance. And pretty much nothing since. The status of the case on the ABP website is "Requires Further Consideration". A straightforward project, re-routing roads, constructing a small number of bridges etc. Greatly improving safety for both road and rail users, improving the rail journey time between Cork-Dublin and Cork-Limerick and underpinning those services for the future. Sure there is some inconvenience for local traffic which was aired during the public consultation, and some alterations were made to retain connectivity, convenience etc. But overall a simple project, hugely grounded in the common good, that didn't appear to generate much hostility or opposition. It really shows-up the lip service to public transport in official circles that this is allowed to languish. If ever there was a case for ministerial intervention to get the ball rolling this has to be it.

And if it is so tortuously difficult to get this simple project over the line, what chance is there for Merrion Gates, where the opposition is a lot more vocal, vociferous, well healed, well resourced and any worthwhile solution considerable more complicated and impactful. Having spent many hours in the past sat in a queue of traffic on Strand Road and Merrion Road waiting for the barriers to rise it's absolutely ludicrous that this isn't tackled.

If anyone's wondering why DART+ West is so expensive, remember that it has two major new station builds on it, at Glasnevin and Spencer Dock, the latter of which will be built underground.

Spencer Dock station will have four tracks at "basement" level (around 3 m below ground): IÉ are clearly not giving up on the idea of a DART Tunnel in future…

@loco_scolo Yes, the document does mention demolition of track and platforms, but that is stated as a worst-case scenario, not a prerequisite.

Also, some reports refer to Docklands, others to the new Spencer Dock station. Extension underground from Docklands is indeed nearly impossible.

I'm not trying to raise the corpse of the DU discussion, and if I were, I really wouldn't want to discuss it on this thread, but it was an interesting and pleasantly forward-looking decision to spend more money to build this station with four tracks below ground when there's no compelling reason to do so: the station will also take up the whole site at ground level, so it's not a matter of preserving valuable ground-level street frontage for development. It does however provide a nice straight route to bring tracks under the Liffey if that becomes desirable in future. Yes, cost of doing this would be very high... but now that the legacy rail lines in Dublin are nearly all back in use, any further provision of mass transport in Dublin city is going to be expensive.

I don't think DARTu is a runner now anyway at least not in its previous form because needs have shifted. If it were me I'd instead opt for a Lucan to Ringsend Metro line along with a Tallaght to Coolock metro line, that'd solve our big rail capacity issue permanently then just replace the core bus corridors with luas.

4 tracking the northern line will also further boost capacity. We can then abandon DARTu and the harebrained Lucan Luas

I'm sorry I mentioned it now...

Of course "the old DU" is dead, there isn't going to be a massive interchange with Metro under SSG for a start. If the DART tunnel project is eventually resurrected it will be very different to what was previously proposed for DU, that is abundantly clear and has been for years.

Under the Option 2B Weaknesses, the report says;

In the case that the clash with the DU TBM portal cannot be avoided, the current Docklands Station will be temporarily required when constructing the Dart Underground. Also, platforms and tracks would need to be demolished (still under study).

It is clearly saying that, unless a solution to avoid a clash is designed in, operations at the new station would have to be temporarily relocated, then you build the tunnel portal. The platforms and tracks would need to be demolished, that is not a big issue, most of the structure would remain. As a weakness, that is a fairly minimal one compared to the potential benefits. Yes it's not ideal to temporarily relocate the terminus but given the increase in heavy rail services the tunnel would allow, it's a small price to pay.

I thought the main point of Dart Underground was to decongest Connolly, no?

Unless one of the options for Dart+ was to use it to alleviate the lack of 4 tracking on the northern line or to bring it along a different alignment northside and surface it elsewhere.

Busy new fit out of the wagon shop, ahead of the first delivery of new trains in September. This is where they'll be fitting the carriages with bogies, after road transfer from the port.