SeamusOG

@PDLL wrote:

London

Thanks, PDLL I never knew that, and I lived there for 8 years:o Which ones are different?

@murphaph wrote:

I used to agree with using Irish Standard Gauge for metro to make it compatible with DART but looking at the propsed post T21 network and knowing that the RPA metro is in fact to be light rail, similar to the fantastic Metro do Porto and the metro units will be able to share trackage with Luas, it’s a better call to stay with European Gauge. Think of all the current and future Luas lines that are/will be at or near metro levels of segregation from traffic and imagine the metro units being able to access those stretches, providing many more 0 change journey possibilities. The much maligned Red Line actually has vast amounts of segregated running, virtually all the way from the Square to James’s is highly segregated and crosses few streets-it’s only the awful city centre stretch that suffers delays with the many junctions it encounters. The Green Line from Sandyford all the way to Charlemont is almost entirely segregated. The future Luas to Broadstone will run in the old MGWR alignment from Broombridge Station along by the railway down to Broadstone before emerging onto city streets (probably) to run down O’Connell street to connect with the extended Green Line. This Luas is likely to be extended in a completely segregated fashion to beyond the M50 via Finglas where it will cross the metroWest. The reason this is likely to happen is that the N2 dual carriageway provides an ideal environment to go elevated like the metroNorth along the swords Bypass. Don’t think of it as purely Luas and purely metro-there is a blurring of the lines on the horizon and it makes sense for a sprawling city like Dublin to have a two-pronged approach to it. It will be possible for example for metroWest trains to run from Ballymun to Citywest or the Square, rather than terminating at Belgard Road and forcing a change.

There are some very interesting points raised and useful possibilities highlighted in that post. What is still not clear to me though is why these projects could not be carried out using Irish gauge. What is the advantage to using European gauge for these projects? As I understood it, the Sandyford Luas tracks were built so that they could eventually be relaid using the Irish gauge.

@Graham Hickey wrote:

The strange plaques that possibly used to be clocks (displaying times in different parts of the country?) look great now that they’ve been cleaned and painted a vivid blue:

I was passing by the GPO today and had a close look at it, prompted by Graham’s excellent photos above. The brick immediately beneath the middle window (between the pillars) on the first floor is perhaps a metre long (it may actually have been two bricks totalling one metre) has a curved bit cut out of it – as if to form a place for another circular object which would have been smaller in radius than the two blue plaques. There is then a metal bar running across the window which might have been used to hold this object in place. I dunno what the circular object might have been, but a clock would be an obvious thing. (Put in place after construction – otherwise it’s hard to see why they would have put a full size window there). Might they have had separate clocks for time in London, Dublin and (say) Galway. Something to watch 😮 out for, anyway.

There are also two metal rods which protrude from the building either side of the central window -for lamps perhaps.

@phil wrote:

Phibsboro Road?

Nope.

I just remembered this old one (alas, another non-visual one):

What is the closest “Road” to O’Connell Street?

So what would be the likely reason for it. As you pointed out in an earlier post, we’re dealing with wide streets (Westmoreland St, College Green, at least). Surely it has to be easier than tunnelling under the historic buildings of TCD.

Looking at those routes, my guess is that TCD will be making a submission:p

@Andrew Duffy wrote:

So what’s the third street with a Lower, Middle and Upper?

Andrew, I think we’re going with Mountjoy, Gardiner and Abbey. I’m interested to hear from Phil that there used to be a Middle Liffey Street – I wonder was that the section between Abbey Street and Great Strand Street or was there a street through what is now the ILAC centre?

As far as I know, there is still a middle Mountjoy Street – I just did a google search and it came up with, e.g. , an Irish Times article about a property on the street in October ’05.

Hanlon’s it is indeed – doors on Old Cabra Road, North Circular Road and Annamoe Road.

@Bren88 wrote:

Alot of pools are built so that they are 49 or 51 metres and so not usable for competions. This is normally private pools such as gyms or health clubs. Where the owner doesn’t want to be forced into a position where he would have to hold competions. Irelands first 50m pool, Wasn’t really 50metres.

Interesting. I’d certainly known that that kind of thing was true of shorter pools, i.e., around the 25 metre range. Many “serious” swimmers will do their training based around swimming 25, 50, 75, 100 metre batches, so they find it more difficult to operate in, say, a 22 metre pool. Many gym operators do not want these people (for a variety of reasons, e.g., they can cause disillusionment among more casual swimmers:D ) so they deliberately build a 17 metre pool or a 22 metre pool to make it less attractive to “serious” swimmers.