Cross-border review of rail network officially launched

I think doubling sections of the Galway line will come before any of that.

• Assuming that level-crossing removals and line works and speed improvements to facilitate 200 (or 160) km/h running are an ongoing project, then these are all things that can be done incrementally that would improve service time and reliability, and prepare for electrification…

1. Double-tracking (in this order):
   - Athenry–Galway
   - Portarlington-Athlone
   - Kildare–Kilkenny
   - Maynooth–Mullingar
   Galway should be obvious. Doubling the lines beyond Portarlington and Kildare allows services to Waterford and Galway/Westport/Ballina to make up time they may lose due to commuter-service interference on the current Portarlington-Hazelhatch stretch, or waiting on the remaining single-track sections. Maynooth Mullingar last, because the benefits only come into play when the new Mullingar-Athlone and Maynooth-Hazelhatch links arrive.
   
2. The curve at Limerick Junction to allow Limerick line trains east of the Junction to seamlessly join the Cork Line. The benefit isn’t huge without line-speed improvements, but it is cheap, and could connect South Tipperary and Cork with a reasonable service even before any other line improvements. (Waterford is still too far away until the line is improved)

Then these two medium-size new projects:

1. Maynooth—Hazelhatch
   
2. M3 Parkway—Navan (probably as a DART line)
   

That’s the easy stuff, then there’s the bigger ones:

1. New Inter-city western approach, Portarlington&Kildare–Hazelhatch. Electrified from the start.
   
2. New Inter-city Northern approach, Clongriffin–Drogheda. Electrified from the start.

The order of electrification is a different problem, but the engineer in me leans toward using the Waterford line as a pilot line for this, given that it’s relatively short, and doesn’t branch, so the impact of problems here on other services would be limited.

Wow, is the Dublin-Cork tender for a consultant to design electrification of the entire route? That's quite a job, it would possibly be the longest electrification project in Europe right now.

McWilliams' piece sounds a bit like guff to me.

Some years ago, Irish Ral took a failed signalling project in-house and delivered a series of mini-CTC signalling projects quite successfully. There are probably other examples whan compaiies are left to do work on their own network (they know how things work), whereas at present we have a flying circus of NTA, TII, DoT, IE, numerous consultants, etc all spending endless time and energy on discussion, planning, evaluation and so on. And we are about to add a Department of Infrastructure to this clown show.

Keep it simple!

All the indications are that the chinese or Italians would design and build it quicker and more efficiently but only within a drastically reformed planning system. The Chinese are probably used to driving projects through any red tape but it could be a frustrating experience here for them.

Agreed. Whatever it takes. With a rapidly increasing population we are facing disaster if things aren't speeded up.

It ultimately comes back to the planning system. Which is designed to handle extensions to semi-ds not major infrastructure. We need to start with a planning amnesty for all major infrastructure projects and all housing projects involving 100+ units. Clear that backlog then put in new rules. 6 months max time for abp to decide, after that it's an automatic grant of planning. Abolish oral hearings, wich are bascially bits of compulsory attendance theatre for aging narcissists. Then abolish the JR process.

I looked briefly online for more information about McWilliam's favoured Chinese solution to an Irish problem. Apart from a lot of uncritical guff from Chinese sources, it would appear that the Serbian-Hungarian rail development is part of the Belt and Road initiative, specifically to enable easier access to Europe for Chinese exports routed via Piraeus.

If there is any country in Europe which is irrelevant for the Belt and Road initiative, then it's Ireland. Just look at a map. 😁

The Chinese state construction company uses slave labour also. And although that might be banned in Serbia, I wouldn't be shocked if the project there did benefit from slave labour in some way. They also don't have a hyper consultative planning system

The Metro is looking like it could cost up to 1bn per km. There is every reason to believe an Italian company would build it for much less. The existing Luas is a great piece of infrastructure but also significantly overran in cost and timeline. Brushing off the cost of the NCH 'for numerous reasons' doesn't mask the disastrous project management. Sure we can build stuff and have done very well but if you're satisfied with the level of spending, overruns and claims good for you. I'd prefer a more efficient means of delivery.

Just to correct one point.

LUAS Cross-City was opened in December 2017 without sufficient trams having been delivered to maintain existing service levels along the line between St. Stephen's Green and Brides Glen.

This caused major capacity problems south of Sandyford, where frequency had to be cut in order to meet the political deadline for the cross-city section to open in December 2017.

It was six months later in June 2018 before that was finally corrected and service levels restored.

Some of what you say is quite wrong, especially any amnesty, Abolishing Judicual Review might well run up against basic Constitutional barriers. However a 6-month deadline for planners would make them concentrate on really serious cases ( they will always argue for more resources ad infinitum), and maybe a serious curtailment of oral hearings would be

Also just look at the CACR project, flying along. Reason: the project bypassed the planning 'system'

I was thinking of the capital spend on the project as a whole to be honest.

I take your point re Sisk.

Another very underrated project to add to your list is the second runway at Dublin Airport. No hundreds of articles about how terrible we are at planning and delivering - it was delivered with the minimum of fuss and the only news items you see about it now are complaints about the way that it's being used.

Baldonnel is the obvious one, link it to the Red Luas line.

Not for the huge numbers of residents under the main runway approach it isn't.

It was and is a complete non-starter.

Anyway that's waaaaayy off topic.

You have to look at the extended centerline of Baldonnell Runway 10-28. It goes East over a huge swathe of South Dublin as far as Killiney. Civil airpors generally have long straight ILS approaches. As for Easterly take-offs (from Rwy 10) you can't have a Right turn until well clear of the Dublin mountains so its take-off all the way to Killiney.

If you think a few houses in St Margarets could cause such a fuss, what about a few hundred thousand Southsiders?

PS: Why is this in the all-Ireland rail network thread?

Anyway, Dublin is already getting a second airport. In Arklow.