Irish Rail proposes Heuston to Connolly tunnel link
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Irish Rail proposes Heuston to Connolly tunnel link
Liam ReidIarnród Éireann has warned that its network will become clogged within eight years unless a €1.3 billion tunnel linking Connolly and Heuston Stations in Dublin is built.
In a submission to the Government in July, the rail company said that the current network was due to reach capacity by 2012 and would be unable to cater for projected increases in population along its routes.
In an ambitious €3.4 billion plan contained in the submission, the company said it planned to be able to provide double-decker trains which would run on a commuter line from Drogheda, through the tunnel and on to Kildare. The interconnector tunnel would have five underground stations through the city, serving key areas such as St Stephen’s Green and Pearse station.
The company has informed the Government that it could have the Connolly-Heuston tunnel built by 2011.
Other key projects in the proposal include extending the DART to Maynooth and Dunboyne, along with a further DART spur off the existing Howth line to the airport.
Iarnród Éireann has also proposed a €90 million investment for a commuter rail development in Cork.
Under the current €2 billion investment plan for the railways, including extra trains, tracks and new signalling, the company will be able to increase its passenger numbers from 35 million last year to nearly 45 million by 2008.
A company spokesman said that after 2008, it would be unable to keep up with increased demand from extra commuters unless the interconnector was built.
Figures collated by the company suggested that population along commuter lines serving Dublin will increase by 300,000 between 2002 and 2015.
Describing the project as “a necessity” rather than a possible alternative to a metro system, he said without it, demand would begin to outstrip any increased capacity from that date.
“People are coming and we know where they are coming to these routes,” he said. “The main problem in the current network is the fact that the two main stations, Connolly and Heuston, do not link up.” This was exacerbated by the fact that the only viable passenger link across the Liffey, the Loop Bridge, was restricted to fewer than 10 trains an hour, which severely limited capacity on the entire network.
The interconnector would remove Drogheda and north-bound intercity trains from the bridge, enabling DART trains to travel from Maynooth to Greystones.
Iarnród Éireann’s plans are among a series of public transport proposals which are being being considered by the Government. They include plans for a metro and proposals to create a series of new Luas lines.
A spokesman for the Minister for Transport, Mr Cullen, yesterday said that a decision on the interconnector tunnel would be made as part of a wider Government plan for public transport investment.
Burge Eye it does in about 30 minutes in sardine can conditions,
Luas is aestethtically fantastic; Alstoms latest toy.
Pero the mantra of property is location location location
The mantra of functional transport is capacity capacity capacity
and luas is off the market in that regard.IE know what they are talking about
IEI are hosting a talk next wednesday on this type of thing…
Irish Rail – Greater Dublin Integrated Rail Plan
Presented by Joe Meagher, Managing Director, Iarnród Eireann@burge_eye wrote:
Am I missing something or doesn’t the multi zillion pound LUAS link Connelly and Heuston????
It does, but the Interconnector will do so much more. If it was just a case of linking Connolly and Heuston, it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but at the moment there is no spare capacity across the loop line bridge to allow more trains into the city, and the trains at commuting times are packed to capacity.
This will allow the current DART to split in half, so Kildare trains will continue through the tunnel to Drogheda, taking in the northern half of the DART. Other DARTs will use the same tunnel to run from Heuston to the Airport. This will leave the loop line bridge almost totally free for the second DART line which will run between Bray and Maynooth. The two lines will cross each other at Pearse, and with no big gaps for outer commuter or InterCity trains, DARTs will run at regular intervals all day, making changes between lines quick and easy.
Hey platform 11 folks! Instead of my direct train from Drogheda to Sidney Parade (it runs on to Bray) I change at Pearse? is that the plan or will through trains still happen?
@burge_eye wrote:
Am I missing something or doesn’t the multi zillion pound LUAS link Connelly and Heuston????
The LUAS is great if you want to start your journey somewhere along the line, and finish somewhere else along the line. The Interconnector will also benefit intercity trains.
I don’t know if IE have plans to do this, but it would be great if we could have (for example) Cork-Dublin-Belfast trains, or Waterford-Dublin-Sligo trains, so that national connections could be made without getting out at Heuston or Connolly and trecking across the city (wasting AT LEAST an hour in the process).
This will aid regional development even though it is a Dublin project, by allowing people in (say) Portlaoise access other parts of the country (like Dundalk) almost as easily as if they were based in Dublin and with greater time-certainty than before.
@Rory W wrote:
Hey platform 11 folks! Instead of my direct train from Drogheda to Sidney Parade (it runs on to Bray) I change at Pearse? is that the plan or will through trains still happen?
That’s right, you’ll change at Pearse. Drogheda trains will all be through trains, but they’ll be going to Kildare rather than Bray.
A minor inconvenience, I agree. However, in exchange you will get a train every ten minutes from Drogheda, and a maximum wait for a train at Pearse of seven minutes. I think this is well worth the slight inconvenience of losing a few direct trains.
Services like Cork-Dublin-Belfast seem likely to go ahead in the future, as there is EU funding available for such a service. Although the Interconnector tunnel will only be suitable for electric trains, the Phoenix Park tunnel would be ideal for such a service. At the moment it isn’t possible because there isn’t room in Connolly (anything that crosses the DART line takes up a slot and another service would have to be dropped). However, because the northern line DART trains will turn off before Connolly and Maynooth trains will probably use the Midland line, there will be no conflicts with trains bound for the bay platforms at Connolly (it’s a bit hard to understand if you don’t know the area, but it does make sense). This would allow a push-pull train to drive into Connolly and reverse back out to continue its journey.
Every 10 mins would be cool – Thanks santa
Just one more thing can we have a service that runs after 8:45pm (from Connolly) on a Saturday night (last train to Drogheda) it’s ruined my social life!!!
@Rory W wrote:
Every 10 mins would be cool – Thanks santa
Just one more thing can we have a service that runs after 8:45pm (from Connolly) on a Saturday night (last train to Drogheda) it’s ruined my social life!!!
A ten minute frequency may be some way off, but Irish Rail’s new timetable starts in mid-December, and you can now get a 23:20 train from Connolly to Drogheda every day of the week including Sunday. A massive improvement on the old timetable!
Of course from January it’ll be back to bus transfers to Portmarnock at weekends, but you can’t have everything.
Cullen is to give the go ahead for the construction of a station at Spencer Dock, aparently tomorrow – according to tonights 9 News on RTE, it looks like he favours the whole ‘interconnector’ plan and is willing to fund, to link luas etc. but not too much info given in the report, will probably be more about it tomorrow …
Are they going to use the old North Wall Station or start again?
The development plan for the area sees it as a possible ticket hall, but it will be some way away from the actual surface station. Since Treasury Holdings is designing & building the station, I suppose someone here with contacts could ask them?
Wow – suddenly I’m back in civilisation again with late trains!!! Cheers for that lostcarpark – just one last question – how can I get my hands on the new timetable that you’re quoting from (other than waiting for it to appear at the stations) as it doesn’t seem to be on the irishrail site yet?
Thanks
@Rory W wrote:
Wow – suddenly I’m back in civilisation again with late trains!!! Cheers for that lostcarpark – just one last question – how can I get my hands on the new timetable that you’re quoting from (other than waiting for it to appear at the stations) as it doesn’t seem to be on the irishrail site yet?
I think the timetable comes into affect around 13 Dec, so if you select any date after that on the IE website you should see the new trains. Note that the 23:20 goes from Connolly rather than Pearse. There seems to be a new train from Pearse just before 10pm too.
Diaspora wrote:Burge Eye it does in about 30 minutes in sardine can conditions,
Luas is aestethtically fantastic]What a load of crap. I live in Dublin (unfortunately and not for much longer) and use the Luas from Heuston to Connolly. Yes it is cramped, but the service is regular, and cramped conditions for a 20 minute ride is quite acceptible. Have you ever lived in a big city such as London, Paris, Tokyo. Well if you had you would realise that cramped conditions during peak hours is quite the norm… Dublin as a small city has had huge investment in its infrastructure which has arrived at just making matters worse. The Dublin rail commuter solution could be solved if there was some intelligence behind the scheduling of darts and commuter trains.
Yesterday I waited for a dart to take me from Eastpoint to Connolly. Two commuter trains flew past while I waited over 10 minutes for a dart. More intelligent use of commuter trains in the metropolitan region will resolve many of the existing problems.
Please consider the governments spend on Dublin in relation to the UK’s spend on Birmingham, a city with a greater area population which is four times more populous than Greater Dublin.
@mickeydocs wrote:
The Dublin rail commuter solution could be solved if there was some intelligence behind the scheduling of darts and commuter trains.
That will go some way, yes, but IE have projections showing a 4-fold increase in commuter traffic between now and 2016. The Dublin rail plan will provide a fast, regular service on the four main lines into the city, One element of the is upgrading the signaling to allow trains to run closer together.
@lostcarpark wrote:
That will go some way, yes, but IE have projections showing a 4-fold increase in commuter traffic between now and 2016. The Dublin rail plan will provide a fast, regular service on the four main lines into the city, One element of the is upgrading the signaling to allow trains to run closer together.
Here’s some anecdotal evidence of why people will continue to use cars. Earlier this year, three work colleagues of mine all started using commuter rail to get to work. They were encouraged by a company initiative and by tax deductions which are available on monthly and annual tickets. One colleague lasted a month. The other two lasted less than three months. The reason to resume commuting by car was a strange one, in that they were all sick of arriving late for work.
How will you convince more and more people to use the trains, when most of my friends and colleagues become frustrated with Irish Rail in a few months and resume travelling by car?
@mickeydocs wrote:
Here’s some anecdotal evidence of why people will continue to use cars. Earlier this year, three work colleagues of mine all started using commuter rail to get to work. They were encouraged by a company initiative and by tax deductions which are available on monthly and annual tickets. One colleague lasted a month. The other two lasted less than three months. The reason to resume commuting by car was a strange one, in that they were all sick of arriving late for work.
How will you convince more and more people to use the trains, when most of my friends and colleagues become frustrated with Irish Rail in a few months and resume travelling by car?
Of course functional public transport is not just measured by capacity but also by
- frequency,
- reliability,
- speed,
- comfort and
- cost.
Anyone of these factors can be enough to make someone switch back to car use.
In the case of your colleagues, they chose to stop using public transport because of reliability. Yet reliability does not have to improve to 100%: after all car use is not 100% reliable as AA Roadwatch informs us every morning.
@mickeydocs wrote:
Here’s some anecdotal evidence of why people will continue to use cars. Earlier this year, three work colleagues of mine all started using commuter rail to get to work. They were encouraged by a company initiative and by tax deductions which are available on monthly and annual tickets. One colleague lasted a month. The other two lasted less than three months. The reason to resume commuting by car was a strange one, in that they were all sick of arriving late for work.
How will you convince more and more people to use the trains, when most of my friends and colleagues become frustrated with Irish Rail in a few months and resume travelling by car?
This would be solved by the Interconnector. The bottlenecks in the system would be removed. When the DART opened 20 years ago it worked like clockwork. The problems all started when certain slots in the DART timetable were filled with commuter trains to Maynooth and Drogheda and this wrecked the whole “metro” nature of the original DART and turned Connolly into a station were all kinds of trains were trying to jostle for position at peak times.
The Interconnector tunnel/Dublin Rail Plan will create a situation where the DART will not only be extended to Maynooth, but will return to its original high frequency metro status and will also allow 12 car double-decker RER-type EMUs carrying 2,400 passenger PER TRAIN running at 10 min intervals between Drogheda and Kildare while serving everywhere else in between including Spencer Dock, Pearse, Stephen’s Green, High Street, Heuston and also integrating with Luas and all mainline and suburban rail and a new DART line to Dublin Airport along with commuter services on the Navan line into the bargin. The entire network will be essentially a “one-change” system.
If we got that, your friends would leave the cars at home. It’s all costs €700 million less than the price of one single RPA metro line between Stephen’s Green and Dublin Airport integrated with the LUAS and nothing else.
We have to stop this Ad Hoc approach to rail transport in Dublin by tagging on “a bit of a Luas here, and a bit of an oul Metro there, a few QBCs over there and run a new commuter trains to Mulingar – there that’s grand that’ll do so” mentality which is just causing more problems that it solves.
The Interconnector is the Answer. It really, really is.
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