Connolly, Pearse, Tara and Heuston are the busiest, talk about stating the obvious…..

Now that we have the budget situation under control, finishing Transport 21 could form a great part of a decent simulus package. Theres so many projects they could get moving on:

-Dart II west to Celbridge
-The Luas extensions to Lucan (via Liffey Valley) and Bray
-The Dart Underground interconnector
-Metro North and West
-The previously canceled (in 2008) replacement of the dart rolling stock

All of them would have a huge multiplier effect on the economy and if we did them all at the same time even better.

I see they didn’t bother answering the question posed in the headline.

“Now that we have the budget situation under control, finishing Transport 21 could form a great part of a decent simulus package.”

I’m sort of with you, but the use of the word “stimulus” makes me edgy in an Irish context. I’ve heard some politicians support big projects in theory because of the number of jobs they’ll “create”, which in reality is far down the list of reasons these projects are needed. That said, if that was to generate enough political return for them to pursue them, perhaps I wouldn’t mind!

Sadly, the government will not use any improvement in budget position for significant capital investment, it’ll all go to easily buying votes with more current expenditure, a trend which they’ve begun with this budget. Transport 21 is dead – it was never FF’s intention to actually get it finished, and FG are even worse than them when it comes to being stingy for infrastructure spending. T21 was largely a self-congratulatory repackaging of projects that had already been floating around for ages. Half of those projects were reconstituted as the revised national development plan in 2010 and FF left it to FG and Labour to quietly cancel them.

But if we imagine for a moment, we live in a country where the government does actually care about public transport beyond platitudes…

My personal opinion is that the Luas extention to Lucan is a bit messy, and while the Bray extension would be good in terms of connectivity, we’d want to see the current extension getting a lot more patronage. The DART replacement stock is largely a function of getting the second DART line up and running and I always felt that Metro West was a good idea (radial link, link to Blanchardstown) not particularly well-executed.

If the government had any imagination, what they could do is electrify not the Celbridge/Hazelhatch line, but the Maynooth/Pace M3*. You could then run a DART line from Maynooth, and the second DART line on the Northern line. This would lay the groundwork for the new underground. You could then electrify Celbridge and also fill in the missing quad-track section, perhaps even building the Inchicore DART station at the same time.

This could’ve all been done piecemeal, as funds allowed. By now, we could have all the groundwork done and ‘only’ the tunnel left to do to put everything into place. Instead, as I mentioned below in another comment, it’s more likely than not that the whole thing was packaged as one big expensive project because the FF government of the time never had any serious intention of building it, and this government can use the “no funds” rationale to excuse their lack of ambition or imagination.

*As an aside I mention that we may as well electrify the Pace M3 line because the Navan railway extension isn’t happening. Dempsey promised it for about 15 years and then paved an M3 motorway over a crucial part of the alignment. With regard the Metro North, the powers that be are planning to pave a Swiftway bus corridor right over the its alignment – you can look up the BRT plans on the NTA website. The soundings being made about how this delivers the benefits of light rail, at a fraction of the cost™ should set alarm bells ringing. This kind of short-term attitude is exactly why we have crummy infrastructure. Build the cheap solution and spend 10 times more fixing it later. See: M50 motorway.

Not all trains have power points at each seat either which is a bit annoying in the smartphone era!

It’s one of the biggest oversights in the ordering of the Mk IV sets (Dublin-Cork trains) that our ‘premier line’, our busiest intercity, doesn’t even have power points. It’s dire.

Hi Chris, the Irish rail network is not hugely complicated.

Do not misunderstand what I suggest. I would like to see the state retaining ownership of the infrastructure, it is merely the services I would like to see tendered out. Exactly how Luas operates. Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus have both made dramatic improvements in the last few years, and I would suggest a large part of that due to the increase in competition from other providers. With Aircoach and Citylink on the scene, what BE was offering had to improve, and it has. From 2016, 10% of Dublin bus routes will now be open to tender, with the NTA specifying the types of buses et al. DB will be free to submit a bid to run those routes. London runs quite a successful network on the same model, so why can’t we?

But one of the CIE companies has made minimal improvements, and that is Irish Rail, and until their position is challenged they will refuse to. While I will criticise every government of the last 30 years for not being committed to delivering the necessary improvements to our railway infrastructure, and throwing money at politically-motivated rubbish like the western rail corridor, the reality is that during the boom, there was enough money floating around for Irish Rail to have done far far more than it achieved. Instead they bought fancy new trains and ran them on lines that are slower than 20 years ago. Why are they only now considering using phoenix park tunnel, why is the city centre re-signalling taking an eternity, why was DART Underground tendered with a vital link missing, why is their customer information so poor, why are their staff striking over minimal pay reductions, why did they not see the writing on the ball with the new motorway network being developed, and are NOW asking for more money to upgrade lines to speeds they promised in the early 90′s etc.

Irish Rail have a legacy of failure far more than people realise. Their position during the boom was extraordinarily arrogant and self-congratulatory given how little they achieved. I’d welcome even a conservative action, where 10% of the rail routes are tendered out. IE need a kick up the hole. The current situation is serving no one well. But given that Irish governments tend to treat the railway as a train set that for which they can buy new pieces for political gain, my hopes of this happening are slim.

Search, the rail network is actually hugely complicated. The dart line alone, has thousands of interlocked relays and solid state equipment to make it failsafe, including level crossings, signals and points. All this equipment is interlocked by thousands of cabling, almost all black cores. If one of these thousands of wires or connections fails, then faults happen. This includes corroding cabling, as some of the cables are old, and problems with rats eating cables too. It’s not as simple as running a train up and down the line. There is also all the telecom gear and signallers equipment with links to all that equipment. You can’t just make a fleeting comment, with absolutely no idea what goes on. I work for irish rail, and there are probably problems with the model, but all that privatising will do, is increase the price of a ticket. I welcome privatisation. I am an electrician in signalling, and we don’t earn the trade rate, maybe with privatisation, we would get paid the actual electricians rates. Private companies will come soon, as irish rail have to open up to competition, but it might not be all good for the customer. Be careful what you wish for.

“Search, the rail network is actually hugely complicated. ”

Not compared to a lot of other countries who manage to run theirs properly. I was referring more so to the network than the actual physical design and logic of the tracks et al.

“You can’t just make a fleeting comment, with absolutely no idea what goes on. ”

And I didn’t. Find me another wealthy country where what you’ve said above doesn’t apply. It doesn’t justify running a second rate service. Anyway at no point have I suggested making the infrastructure private. Nor did I suggest running a railway was a simple matter of just buying a train, lashing down a bit of track and away you go. But as I said, that’s the case in ALL similar countries, so it’s irrelevant. I would’ve accepted the argument about lack of investment 30 years ago, but that excuse has worn thin. At some point IE has to take responsibility for the fact that the services it offers are largely crap.

“all that privatising will do, is increase the price of a ticket.”

Not being privatised hasn’t stopped the price increasing dramatically in the last few years.

Alpha..A but unfair to say all irish stations are mickey mouse. By European standards , yes they’re small. However they’re very underutilized. Thats not IR’s fault. That’s governments fault for not investing..

This population argument is rubbish.
Have people never seen train services in the likes of Denmark? Population 5.6m, not that much bigger than Ireland but a train system that is way beyond ours.
A capital city with only one “Metro” style train line that has a peak service of trains every 15 minutes is just not good enough in this day and age
I would argue if they built more lines and increased services they would actually attract more passengers out of cars and would increase revenues.
Instead they focus on cost cutting, treat passengers with disdain by cramming people into 4 carriages at rush hour.
Don’t believe me? Look at the Luas people said it would be an expensive white elephant and not enough demand etc. It’s a roaring success that is always busy with reliable and frequent services. No need to look at a timetable if you want one.

@Michael “However they’re very underutilized. Thats not IR’s fault. That’s governments fault for not investing..”.

It’s a combination of the Irish government not caring about railways beyond a political plaything, Irish Rail being wasteful with the money they *did* get, and the Irish public for not demanding enough of either. Irish people WILL use quality public transport when it’s provided, but we need more effective platforms for communicating that message to our inept political classes, most of whom don’t understand the first thing about public transport (probably because they never have to use it!)

@Ian – I largely agree with you, but a few points:

“I would argue if they built more lines and increased services they would actually attract more passengers out of cars and would increase revenues.”

I do agree, but I think we should focus on making our existing lines work first. We have the shovel ready ‘project’ DART Underground waiting to go that largely addresses a lot of problems in the Dublin, and national railway network. I put ‘project’ in marks because it should really be considered a related collection of projects, and if the government had any imagination, they would pursue it in piecemeal fashion as funds allow, and then put in the finished tunnel element as the last thing, so we could reap the benefits, of say, Maynooth electrification, even in tighter times. Instead they’ve lumped it altogether as one hugely expensive project, because the reality is that no one in FF or FG actually has any serious desire to build it. It will be cancelled and re-designed again, for I’m not sure, the 4th or 5th time since the 1970′s when it was first envisioned. The other big project that needs to happen is Metro North, but all the noises out of government about “Swiftway” suggests that it has been quietly cancelled.

“A capital city with only one “Metro” style train line that has a peak service of trains every 15 minutes is just not good enough in this day and age”

If DART Underground was built, and the lines around Dublin electrified, and a competent rail operator found, then this problem could be addressed. I’ll be fair to IE on this one, they have been pushing for this in the last few years, but FG and Labour have no interest in public transport so it’s not going to happen. Bare in mind that the current DART line itself is a downgrade of an original proposal for a properly connected series of lines with a tunnel through the heart of a city. We can thank lack of political ambition and some misuse of EU funding for that.

“Instead they focus on cost cutting, treat passengers with disdain by cramming people into 4 carriages at rush hour.”

Treating passengers with disdain is the CIE way.

“Look at the Luas people said it would be an expensive white elephant and not enough demand etc. It’s a roaring success that is always busy with reliable and frequent services. No need to look at a timetable if you want one.”

Luas is a roaring success, despite being hugely over-budget and due to political ‘considerations’ (read: interference) built as two disconnected lines instead of the originally envisioned three properly connected ones (yet another re-design, see above). Interestingly, it originally started life as a CIE project, but thank goodness for all of us it was taken out of their clutches!

I have one Mike and to be fair the prices are exactly the reason I put up with all of the above. It’s a lot cheaper than running a car the same commute would be. Plus I find it much easier to nap on the train than while driving ;) Just felt kool tiger needed a little clarification