Interconnector is go
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Perhaps the catchment for the southern loop is greater – Digital Hub, Stephen’s Green, TCD and the general Dublin 2 commercial core? Seems to be a busier part of town than Cabra, Drumcondra and the North Strand
It hardly travels through densly populated areas – the back end of Cabra – Prospect cemetary, etc.
If they were to increase densities along the track then it would warrent a full reopening however at the moment this argument is spurious. You could still run trains through to Specer Dock if this was the next stop.
Isn’t the point that the bottleneck is the loopline bridge, using the phoenix park tunnel doesn’t add extra capacity across the river: the assumption being that these new dart lines all need some stops south of the river. Without the interconnector, kildare, maynooth and malahide dart services will come in to connolly or spenser dock and only a half or so of these services will be able to connect to the southside, whereas with the interconnector, the maynooth dart will continue south along the current southern dart and the kildare line will travel south of the river before continuing along the current northern dart.
Now a rail user lobby group have questioned the vast amount of money which is earmarked for a new tunnel under the city when the old Victorian railway line could be used to service some of the city’s most densely populated areas.
“They are wasting an incredible asset and instead ploughing vast sums of money into a new inter-connector tunnel,” said Derek Wheeler of Rail Users Ireland.
I thought that Platform 11/ Rail Users Ireland was very keen on the interconnector. Must have had a policy change.
Biffo seemed to suggest recently that borrowing would now be increased to invest in NDP projects to take up the slack from a contracting construction sector. I would have thought that the interconnector would be just the sort of project to fast-track. Platform 11 must really believe that the interconnector is now never going to happen. I guess they have some inside knowledge. More’s the pity. If we can build 800KM of motorway I don’t see why we can’t put a 5km railway tunnel across the city centre. Is there not a few votes in it from the commuters along the kildare and maynooth lines?
I am sure the sindy misreported p11; they want the ppt in use now but the interconnector to go ahead asap. you would worry why they would be misquoted in this way.
@notjim wrote:
I am sure the sindy misreported p11; they want the ppt in use now but the interconnector to go ahead asap. you would worry why they would be misquoted in this way.
There was a part on the last word on Today FM this evening, p11 cleared up the reporting -they are infavour of the interconnector but said there was a promise to use the existing tunnel. Serious guff coming from Barry Kenny in Irish rail about capacity at Connolly again. There must be an engineer out there that can design a solution to the Connolly issue. After watching what the much criticised British did with St Pancras this must be kids stuff. Will London’s crossrail project be finished before our interconnector -place your bets?:(
@CC105 wrote:
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Will London’s crossrail project be finished before our interconnector -place your bets?:(Most likely, but more disturbing it has now been confirmed that there will be 5 empty trains each way a day between Claremorris and Athenry before then, and this is without a doubt the greatest scandal regarding the T21 project. Irish Rail managers and engineers are standing in the bogs of Mayo when they should be everywhere else instead. It’s partly political, but also partly cowardice on behalf of IE engineering. That like nice easy gigs. It’s a disgrace.
I spoke to a someone recently and asked why the Interconnector was last on the T21 timetable. I was assuming that part of the reason was waiting for uncle arthur to sell up shop and move. But she said no. It’s down to two things. CIE are completely out of their depth with this project and for this reason the Government is holding off on the chequebook. CIE bit off way more than they could chew pushing the Interconnector alighnment – they simply do not have the experience nor team to build it. They also widly underestimated the cost of building it. 5-8 billion is a number which is being thrown around. The government want to build the Interconnector, but they have no faith in CIE/Irish Rail to pull it off.
I feel it is very unlikely the Interconnector will ever be built and I suspect a east-west metro line will replace it at some point and Irish Rail may have no choice but to use the PPT. I would nearly bet money RPA will take over the Interconenctor concept as soon as Metro North is near completion and the CIE Interconnector ends up are MetroCentral or something. Even though I am a huge fan of Metros, I would be sad to not see the DART Underground go ahead, but it would be better than nothing.
another interesting side note is that a train station is included on the draft development plan for Glasnevin Jct and Croke Park which suggests that CIE are working on the PPT line behind the scenes. Smells of a hidden defeat to me.
Bottom line: The Interconnector as proposed by CIE is looking terminally ill. Claremorris will be “the Grand Central Station of the Irish railway network” and not Stephens Green.
@Cute Panda wrote:
Most likely, but more disturbing it has now been confirmed that there will be 5 empty trains each way a day between Claremorris and Athenry before then, and this is without a doubt the greatest scandal regarding the T21 project. Irish Rail managers and engineers are standing in the bogs of Mayo when they should be everywhere else instead. It’s partly political, but also partly cowardice on behalf of IE engineering. That like nice easy gigs. It’s a disgrace.
I spoke to a someone recently and asked why the Interconnector was last on the T21 timetable. I was assuming that part of the reason was waiting for uncle arthur to sell up shop and move. But she said no. It’s down to two things. CIE are completely out of their depth with this project and for this reason the Government is holding off on the chequebook. CIE bit off way more than they could chew pushing the Interconnector alighnment – they simply do not have the experience nor team to build it. They also widly underestimated the cost of building it. 5-8 billion is a number which is being thrown around. The government want to build the Interconnector, but they have no faith in CIE/Irish Rail to pull it off.
I feel it is very unlikely the Interconnector will ever be built and I suspect a east-west metro line will replace it at some point and Irish Rail may have no choice but to use the PPT. I would nearly bet money RPA will take over the Interconenctor concept as soon as Metro North is near completion and the CIE Interconnector ends up are MetroCentral or something. Even though I am a huge fan of Metros, I would be sad to not see the DART Underground go ahead, but it would be better than nothing.
another interesting side note is that a train station is included on the draft development plan for Glasnevin Jct and Croke Park which suggests that CIE are working on the PPT line behind the scenes. Smells of a hidden defeat to me.
Bottom line: The Interconnector as proposed by CIE is looking terminally ill. Claremorris will be “the Grand Central Station of the Irish railway network” and not Stephens Green.
What use would an East-West metro be, the point of the interconnector is to free up capacity on the rest of the irish rail network.
Who is this lady you were talking to, on what is she basing her opinions?
You know the interconnector is not needed to serve the area between tcd and heuston, the lucan luas can do that: the only and important point is to allow the kildare, maynooth and malahide dart services to all have stops on the southside and to avoid having terminuses where there is no room for terminating trains. It is obviously a desirable project, but it is hard to shake the felling that there is a cheaper alternative to tunnelling the width of the city. The problem is I just can’t think of it.
Its not just about that, its about creating two cross city dart lines that finally break away from the rigid east coast alignment, Hazlehatch to Balbriggan & Maynooth to Greystones – offering massive opportunities for cross city travel while creating the capacity to offer a decent service.
If ever built, the lucan luas will be a poor second, snaking in to town in 45 minutes+, while the dart underground makes it from Hazlehatch to Stpehen’s Green in 25.
Peter: you are not falling into the trap of assuming the only possible DART journeys will be ones with no interchange are you?
?? not sure if i get you ? multiple journeys via multiple interchanges from multiple locations are of course possible !! ?
well were are getting into subtleties; my point was that what is important is the extra capacity across the river, not somehow, the joining of the east coast lines to the western bound lines, this is a detail of the putative solution. if someone was cunning enough to come up with a cheaper plan, it wouldn’t matter if it left the east coast line as a single line, provided it interchanged with the maynooth and kildare dart.
Sure but the level of integration the interconnector model can offer is worth the expenditure imo, with just 1 change necessary to access the rest of the network in most cases. A cheaper solution may require 2 changes+ for many destinations; In any case, i can’t think of a cheaper, more elegant solution either.
The primary problem being that the dart underground’s position on the T21 list may lead to it falling off the budgetary cliff when preceded by such weighty projects as metro north, coupled with the likelihood of budget overruns.
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