West-East/East-West Railway line

I think the interconnector has good bones but it does miss Connolly.
Then there is fair view park which you will assume might try and be developed in a century.
Every major transport project in Dublin ends with a shopping centre.
We have a curvaceous loop here which is very similar it can add 10-15 minutes to journey times. And after midday it changes directions. A lot of the issues are related to the interconnector and metro north if considered as one and any future line expansion.

Lads, before you offer up solutions, you better understand the problem in the first place that requires the interconnector to be built at all. The bottleneck that is called Connolly Station. Now start from there and offer an alternative to the current plan to dramatically free up extra capacity.

Please click here🙂

@weehamster wrote:

Lads, before you offer up solutions, you better understand the problem in the first place that requires the interconnector to be built at all. The bottleneck that is called Connolly Station. Now start from there and offer an alternative to the current plan to dramatically free up extra capacity.

Please click here🙂

Maybe thats really the problem then, there is a narrow focus on the Connolly Bottleneck, and a real lack of vision on what a couple of billion euro worth of tunnel could deliver for Dublin. The station locations are the key to delivering value for money and giving Dublin a proper transport system.

Why the hell can’t I expect to get on a train in the heart of the city?
Why would anybody spend 2billion on a tunnel and locate the stations away from demand!?
Lack of vision, certainly not lack of spending anyway!

@weehamster wrote:

Lads, before you offer up solutions, you better understand the problem in the first place that requires the interconnector to be built at all. The bottleneck that is called Connolly Station. Now start from there and offer an alternative to the current plan to dramatically free up extra capacity

I think the problem is perfectly well understood.

One of the difficulties with the solution – i.e. the interconnector – is that there seems to be a shortage of trains which will use it.

What I’m suggesting above is an arrangement which would (a) dramatically free up extra capacity at the bottleneck that is called Connolly Station and (b) make more efficient use of the tunnel.:)

@ac1976 wrote:

Why would anybody spend 2billion on a tunnel and locate the stations away from demand!?

Is it really away from demand?

Looking at the proposed stations

• Docklands – For the offices and apartments around the IFSC
• Pearse St – For Trinity, south docklands offices and interchanges
• Stephen’s Green – For shopping in Grafton St and the offices around Leeson St and Harcourt St
• Christchurch – Probably the lowest demand, but there’s a large residential population in the area
• Heuston – Rail connections to the south and west of Ireland

What other alternative would be possible? Maybe through Tara St and Dame St, but then you cut out a lot of the access to some of Dublin’s busiest office districts and don’t link with Metro North. It would also seem to have a very tight bend, which would restrict speed.

To me there are two pities about the Interconnector as proposed

• The proposed spur from Portmarnock to the airport wasn’t included. This would have meant direct services from Heuston and Pearse St (for the Rosslare line) to the airport and would have meant single change connections from the vast majority of Irish rail stations to Dublin Airport, while Metro North doesn’t integrate with any InterCity lines.
• The line will be restricted to commuter trains, which means it can’t be used as a basis for running through trains from the south and west to Drogheda, Dundalk and Belfast or in conjunction with the first point having all InterCities to Dublin terminate at the airport.

@jungle wrote:

Is it really away from demand?

Looking at the proposed stations

• Docklands – For the offices and apartments around the IFSC
• Pearse St – For Trinity, south docklands offices and interchanges
• Stephen’s Green – For shopping in Grafton St and the offices around Leeson St and Harcourt St
• Christchurch – Probably the lowest demand, but there’s a large residential population in the area
• Heuston – Rail connections to the south and west of Ireland

What other alternative would be possible? Maybe through Tara St and Dame St, but then you cut out a lot of the access to some of Dublin’s busiest office districts and don’t link with Metro North. It would also seem to have a very tight bend, which would restrict speed.

To me there are two pities about the Interconnector as proposed

• The proposed spur from Portmarnock to the airport wasn’t included. This would have meant direct services from Heuston and Pearse St (for the Rosslare line) to the airport and would have meant single change connections from the vast majority of Irish rail stations to Dublin Airport, while Metro North doesn’t integrate with any InterCity lines.
• The line will be restricted to commuter trains, which means it can’t be used as a basis for running through trains from the south and west to Drogheda, Dundalk and Belfast or in conjunction with the first point having all InterCities to Dublin terminate at the airport.

Thanks for giving the Leeside perspective it is not just valuable it is vital determinate in Dublin decision making.

The airport spur will happen if any connection is made to Dublin Airport; when one looks at Cross rail one sees an evolution from drawing dots on a map from point A to point B to connecting standard gauge to standard gauge systems and allowing synergies blossom.

Seamus

I detect from your previous posts that you live not to far from me; I see the logic of your point visiting Dub as a tourist and going to the sites; I’m just not sure that excluding St Green would maximise passenger numbers; there are numerous unattractive buildings within half a mile of St Green that have a lot of commuters. By prioritising a viable alternative to car based commuting you need to move away from a leisure district to the office district and St Green is to Dublin what Mayfair/Noho is to London. Clearly Soho/Covent Garden is College Green

I’m not an engineer or an architect, so I’d be interested to hear your views on this.

Rather than digging up the Green itself, would there be any merit in flattening the State-owned Anglo Irish head office (Anglo has said in the past week that it’s committed to a move to North Wall Quay, the only other tenant in the building AFAIK is the State-owned ESBI) and putting the new station there instead?

@jungle wrote:

Is it really away from demand?

Looking at the proposed stations

• Docklands – For the offices and apartments around the IFSC
• Pearse St – For Trinity, south docklands offices and interchanges
• Stephen’s Green – For shopping in Grafton St and the offices around Leeson St and Harcourt St
• Christchurch – Probably the lowest demand, but there’s a large residential population in the area
• Heuston – Rail connections to the south and west of Ireland

I’m afraid It has taken a long fror me to return to this thread and respond to some interesting posts. I was using up some holidays spending time along the west coast of Ireland, without ready access to the internet.

(And, while I’m on that topic, why does everybody always forget about Sligo? What a magnificent county)

It’s not that it’s away from demand, it’s just that there would probably be greater overall demand if the tunnel were to be built through the really central parts of the city. In conjunction with the metro, then, areas like St. Stephen’s Green could also be served.

What other alternative would be possible? Maybe through Tara St and Dame St, but then you cut out a lot of the access to some of Dublin’s busiest office districts and don’t link with Metro North. It would also seem to have a very tight bend, which would restrict speed.

Where’s the tight bend?

Why would it not link with metro north? All of the metro north documentation so far produced has stressed that it will interchange with the interconnector at St. Stephen’s Green.

If the interconnector had a different route, I think it would be sensible for the proposed locations of the metro stations to be altered accordingly. The interconnector is, after all, a much higher capacity line.

Dublin’s busiest office districts? Hmmmm. On my recent visit to the city, I was surprised to see how much of Georgian Dublin had “To Let” signs outside.

The modern offices nearby, on places like Adelaide Road and Wilton Place/Terrace, are obviously too distant from the proposed St. Stephen’s Green interconnector station for it to be seen as a long-term solution to the commuting needs of the people who work there.

@PVC King wrote:

Seamus

I detect from your previous posts that you live not to far from me; I see the logic of your point visiting Dub as a tourist and going to the sites; I’m just not sure that excluding St Green would maximise passenger numbers; there are numerous unattractive buildings within half a mile of St Green that have a lot of commuters. By prioritising a viable alternative to car based commuting you need to move away from a leisure district to the office district and St Green is to Dublin what Mayfair/Noho is to London. Clearly Soho/Covent Garden is College Green

PVCK, I don’t know how you managed to detect that, as I don’t live in the U.K. at all.

(If you’d written that from W1, I might have thought Baker Street, and been extremely disappointed!:))

(But thanks:) for giving me something else to chew on, as I’ve never considered myself a tourist in Ireland. I was born there, I grew up there, my parents are there, I spent some years working there and it is still very much my home.).

I did live in London for some years, though, but I don’t think you can really draw too many comparisons between Dublin and London. I think that comparisons between Dublin and cities like Frankfurt, Munich, Prague, etc., would be more appropriate, because of the sizes involved. I think these are important cities to look at, especially given that not a sod has yet been turned on underground public transport in Dublin.

Severing possibly the busiest section of commuter line in the country for a year or two to build a 1 in 15 gradient tunnel portal in the middle of the city that ends in a 90 degree turn does not make sense.

Particularly when the current plan facilitates all such passenger movements through the interchange at Pearse.

There are real engineers doing real work on the Interconnector at last: geological surveys, station design, project planning, logistics, etc. This is a proper plan that involves minimal disruption to existing services while quadrupling the capacity of the commuter network. The time for amateurs with crayons is over.

@jimg wrote:

The time for amateurs with crayons is over.

I couldn’t agree with you more.

Us Irish are the best in the world for complaining and not doing anything about it. Now I don’t mind people giving suggestions but why is it always when the planning process is in full swing and it is too late to fundamentally change a route.

Why don’t people move on and give suggestions for other possible lines that haven’t started the design process yet. For example Luas line E, the Luas BxD line extension to Finglas, a possible Metro South. A line linking Howth Jtn to the Metro North line. All of these which were proposed in the DTO’s Platform for Change, but were left out of the T21 programme.

@jimg wrote:

Severing possibly the busiest section of commuter line in the country for a year or two to build a 1 in 15 gradient tunnel portal in the middle of the city that ends in a 90 degree turn does not make sense.

Particularly when the current plan facilitates all such passenger movements through the interchange at Pearse.

There are real engineers doing real work on the Interconnector at last: geological surveys, station design, project planning, logistics, etc. This is a proper plan that involves minimal disruption to existing services while quadrupling the capacity of the commuter network. The time for amateurs with crayons is over.

Jim, as we have discussed before, the people behind the 1970s DRRTS survey suggested a Heuston-Connolly line via Dame Street/College Green/Temple Bar. This is the line about which I am talking.

Are you suggesting that they were amateurs with crayons?

The gradients on that proposed line need be nothing like 1 in 15. I think even a very basic knowledge of the terrain would show you that a gradient of around 1 in 35 would bring this line above ground South of the Tolka. I’m not sure where you got the idea that the tunnel portal needs to be in the middle of the city.

This is a gradient which is considerably less than will be required for a line from under the river Liffey up to the level of the Northern Line, via Spencer Dock. Maybe that’s where you got the 1 in 15 figure from?

And the 90 degree turn. Where is that in the plan produced by the DRRTS people?

I would, however, like to see an investigation of a Kildare Line-Northern Line route, via Spencer Dock, Pearse Station, Dame Street and Christchurch. If the relatively steep gradient issues for the northward line emerging from the Spencer Dock station are not insurmountable, I think that could be a runner.

Really, the main problems I see with the currently proposed interconnector route are the catchment area issues which will be encountered at the St. Stephen’s Green station, on Ireland’s highest capacity line.

The DRRTS is a 30 year old proposal, like an earlier proposal to run an elevated train line on stilts along the quays to join Heuston and Connolly. So what? Both proposals are easily bettered by the current Interconnector plan from every practical perspective.

Back to the subject of this thread. So when questioned on some practical matters like gradients and dealing with tunnel boring machines, you’ve switched tack from

this could be done north of Grand Canal Dock, though it would involve loss of the north-south pedestrian connection on either Erne Street or Erne Place

to

I think even a very basic knowledge of the terrain would show you that a gradient of around 1 in 35 would bring this line above ground South of the Tolka

I don’t think you’ve really thought very deeply about this, before you posted your first suggestion, have you?

Also, you avoid dealing with the disruption issue (the severing of the busiest heavy commuter line in the country for a year or two) or the practicalities of dealing with spoil and a tunnel boring machine in a built up area (I’m not going to debate the semantics of “city centre”) requiring the CPOing of about an acre of buildings.

Please put away the crayons. Let the real engineers build the Interconnector as proposed which is the result of years of real technical work not whimsical notions.

Jim, before I can reply fully to your post, I need to know that you have an actual picture of what I am saying.

I know that I’ve heard you writing things like “easily bettered by the current interconnector plan” on a previous occasion. (If you’ve forgotten, the thread relating to “The destruction of St. Stephen’s Green”).

Yet you disappeared before I could get answers from you.:(

Please don’t dash off this time.

I have a couple of questions relating to your recent post:

Where did I change tack on the gradient issue? I’m having difficulty understanding the connection between the bits quoted by you on this matter.

What is the gradient required to bring the proposed line from the Spencer Dock station up to the level of the Northern Line?

Has there been a question about TBMs on this thread?

Why would the busiest commuter line in the country be “severed” during construction? These things are done all the time around the world without this happening. “Disrupted”, yes, but that will happen in any case. Please focus on the word “severed” in your answer.

Why do you seem to be so fixated on “minimal disruption”? There’s going to be disruption if you are to build these interconnector and metro lines which are proposed for Dublin. You obviously don’t want “maximal disruption”, but you also don’t want to be so worried about disruption that you start avoiding areas of maximum demand, such as seems to be happening in Dublin.

And, specifically in relation to this thread, how would you propose to deal with the problem that the interconnector will not be used to anything approaching its capacity? (At least under current IE proposals).

Seamus, I imagine you have difficulties understanding the connections between many things, if you require simple inconsistencies explained to you. You’ve been repeating this nonsense for years about the Inter-connector route. Just let it go – nobody has the slightest bit of interest. You can try scanning your crayon work and posting on one of the transport infrastructure fora and see how you are received – not very well I imagine. In the meantime there is proper grown-up work happening (you know – engineering type “stuff” – not bickering on internet fora) to ensure that a railway order for the current Interconnector plans are submitted by the end of the year. If anyone is interested in what is actually being built rather than Seamus’ la-la land fantasies, the DART underground project is described here.

This is not directly related to the interconnector but O’Connell st bridge for metro north is designed to be the busiest station.

When are we expecting the planning application?

@jimg wrote:

Seamus, I imagine you have difficulties understanding the connections between many things, if you require simple inconsistencies explained to you. You’ve been repeating this nonsense for years about the Inter-connector route. Just let it go – nobody has the slightest bit of interest. You can try scanning your crayon work and posting on one of the transport infrastructure fora and see how you are received – not very well I imagine. In the meantime there is proper grown-up work happening (you know – engineering type “stuff” – not bickering on internet fora) to ensure that a railway order for the current Interconnector plans are submitted by the end of the year. If anyone is interested in what is actually being built rather than Seamus’ la-la land fantasies, the DART underground project is described here.

Jim, I note that you have been bad-mouthing me in your last couple of posts. And I’m not going to thank you for that.

But you have avoided answering almost all of the questions which I have posted on this thread, and, in particular, you have quite carefully avoided providing answers to those presented in my previous post. I would thank you if you could stop dodging, and concentrate on providing them.

The original idea for a metro/interconnector interchange at St. Stephen’s Green seems to have come from the “Platform for Change” document produced by the Dublin Transportation Office (DTO).

There had been a plan to have a rail interchange in the centre of the city, in or around College Green/Dame Street.

The DTO’s plan would see the interchange moved further to the south.

I occassionally wonder whether the DTO – from their offices in St. Stephen’s Green – might not have (subconsciously) overestimated the demand to get to and from that location, relative to more central parts of the city.

The City simply changed between 1975 and 2000

@PVC King wrote:

The City simply changed between 1975 and 2000

I fully agree.

It changed a lot in that period. In many ways.

But did St. Stephen’s Green become a more important location, in terms of numbers, relative to the College Green/Dame Street/Temple Bar area, during that time?

I’ve seen figures which show that it didn’t. And those figures tie in with what is plainly obvious to me – and, very probably, to anyone else – when I visit Dublin.

I’ve yet to see any figures which show that it did.

I think there’s a lot to be said for a central tunnel linking the highest capacity lines in the east and the west of the city.

Broadly speaking, an arrangement where the highest capacity lines in the east of the city and the highest capacity lines in the west are linked by a central tunnel.

In other words, a system where most (and hopefully eventually all) highest capacity trains from the west of the city become high capacity trains to the east, and vice versa.

Like in Frankfurt, Munich, Oslo and several other cities.

Then, any north-south metro lines which are built can have an interchange with all east-west lines, in one place.

One can then look at lines like the Maynooth line as a way to develop something like the earlier Metrowest idea. For example, planning to build a heavy rail line between Clonsilla and Heuston would eventually fulfil many of the functions of the Metrowest, but would also deliver people from much of the Maynooth line directly into the city centre. In conjunction with a heavy rail line to Tallaght, which could be developed over some years, the metrowest idea could be combined with a rapid connection between Tallaght and the city centre. Won’t happen soon, I know.

Arrow trains from Coolmine would run into the city centre, as now, but there may be some way to eventually incorporate suburbs like Coolmine into a metro system.

Obviously, now that the money’s gone, it’s extremely unlikely that the original interconnector proposal, with its very poor use of tunnel capacity, is going to happen. And the metro is probably also going to go by the wayside.

But I think that the basic system from cities of a similar size, like Munich and Frankfurt, is one we should be looking at for the future. They started with a framework, and built upon it. I think it has potential in Dublin.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/end-of-line-for-metro-as-euro25m-of-property-rented-out-2841519.html

End of line for Metro as €25m of property rented out

Saturday August 06 2011

PROPERTIES bought as part of a €150m spending spree in preparation for Metro North are being rented out instead of demolished in a clear indication the project is doomed.

Rail chiefs spent €25m buying up properties on the ill-fated rail route, an Irish Independent investigation has found.

But most of the houses are being rented out in a clear sign the project will be scrapped.

The Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) spent €200,000 on refurbishing and maintaining the houses in the strongest indication yet that the Metro North project will be shelved.

The Government is expected to announce this decision in the autumn, due to the estimated final cost of the project which has been put at €2.5bn.

Documents obtained by the Irish Independent reveal the RPA’s multi-million euro expenditure on Metro North, with most of the costs relating to the disastrous property purchases and large payments to consultancy companies.

Eleven houses near Croke Park, close to the city centre, were bought two years ago, along with the Catholic Institute for the Deaf.

All the properties are in Drumcondra, the political heartland of former Fianna Fail Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, and were to be demolished to make way for the construction of a new Metro station.

Premium prices were paid even though the property market had crashed.

Predictions

The purchases went ahead a full year before planning permission for the Metro project was granted by An Bord Pleanala in October 2010.

The project had been pushed hard by former Transport Minister Noel Dempsey, who at the time refuted predictions that the project would be shelved.

An RPA spokesman defended the purchase of the properties in advance of planning permission for the Metro.

He said the RPA had been sensitive to the needs of the owners in acquiring new accommodation.

Some of these properties are now worth less than half what was paid for them and the RPA has been forced to rent out many of then in a bid to recoup some cash from the purchases.

Four terraced houses on St Alphonsus Avenue were bought for between €623,000 and €661,000.

A similar house on the road is on the market with an asking price of €270,000.

Eight of the the properties are now being let by the RPA while two others are on the rental market. But so far the agency has only taken in rent of €62,000 — after spending €200,000 on refurbishment.

Transport Minister Leo Varadkar last night lashed out at the ” shortsighted and reckless policy ” of the last government in spending massive amounts of money on planning such projects “without being sure that the money would be in place to construct them”.

Almost €200m has already been spent on planning and preparatory work for Metro North, the DART underground, and the link-up of the two disconnected Luas lines in the city centre.

The RPA has now been ordered to “rein in” spending on planning and preparatory works for major public transport projects.

“The last government decided to spend huge amounts of money planning road and rail projects without being sure that the money would be in place to construct them.”

The Fianna Fail-Green coalition was aware of and signed off on the €150m planning expenditure on the Metro and the purchase of the property portfolio, according to the Department of Transport.

The Drumcondra properties were all purchased by mutual agreement, and the compulsory purchase system was not employed.

“The cottages will have to be demolished, but not just yet,” the RPA spokesman insisted.

But he added that even if the Metro project did not proceed in the near future the houses were in a “much sought after area of Drumcondra”.

The new tenants are aware that the houses will be demolished if Metro North is ever built.

– Treacy Hogan

Your timing is perfect; MN will be formally shelved within weeks. The RPA should be culled; doing off market CPO work without planning consent is suicidal behaviour in my book. But as always with the RPA its only taxpayers money……

The 1837 proposal to link the railways via an elevated line along the south quays.

1837 – Proposed Railway Colonnade, Dublin

Wow – what a bonkers idea the 1837 Scheme was