One of the biggest disappointments with the review was the decision to not even look into reopening the old Belfast County Down Railway from Belfast - Downpatrick - Newcastle. There is not a single station anywhere in Mid/South County Down. Reinstating that railway would bring another est 200,000 within 5km of a rail station. It’s a shame that not all counties will be reconnected.
Reusing an old rail alignment can help with speeding up the development and part of the work is already done, but is it really the best option? Without any knowledge about the current state of said alignment, you're probably starting almost from scratch anyway, so why use an alignment that worked perfectly for 19th century steam locomotives when we aren't using steam locomotives anymore? Building an entirely new line is harder, but it does open the door to other possibilities, e.g. branching off at Lisburn and serving Ballynahinch on the way to Downpatrick, or an alignment closer to the A7 serving Carryduff... And with all the red tape for rebuilding a line that has been closed for so long, I'm not even convinced it would take much longer than reopening the old County Down Railway...
@@barvdw I’d be inclined to agree with you here. As you’re probably aware it’s now the comber greenway serving most of the lines old route out to Comber. It would be nice to see a rail connection in the future for South County Down. I’m a Carryduff native myself but work in Downpatrick and often am founded getting the bus as I dread the car journey in the morning. It would be nice to have alternative but a more realistic approve would be adding a rail link from Newry way up to Downpatrick. Seems like it would be the shortest route from current rail lines.
@@VarissNI the AIRR does talk about a new line down from Lisburn to Newry via Banbridge, which might make it slightly less far away. Not entirely sure if I'd restore a connection to Newcastle, just Downpatrick might be enough, if you can integrate bus and train well.
This makes me really excited, especially as a Dubliner with the new DART+ on the horizon. I live near Kishoge which is finally being opened after around 15 years of it sitting abandoned, and hopefully we won’t be stuck with ICRs for commuter routes anymore, they’re great trains but as the name suggests, they’re for intercity routes, they just don’t have the capacity for commuter routes. I think it’s generally a very exciting time for public transport in Ireland
No worries about the footage and happy to help out, the only thing missing about this project is getting a rail link to County Donegal, which used to have a 3 foot gauge railway but long since closed, plus would be easier to visit a friend in Donegal 😂
@@Sim0nTrains the proposed link to Letterkenny would *technically* be serving County Donegal, but agreed that it would definitely be nice if it served some of the other towns as well!
Closest I've been to Ireland is probably York, so I'm not exactly a local, but... Looks good. If mostly done by 2045 it'd be good. If half done by 2070, not so good. i.e. I'm sure there's more investments that would be good, but as long as this plan is actually implemented and services on the new/expanded lines start happening in the not so far off future then it'll be possible to add more lines after all this is completed.
Personally I think we're likely to see more of these projects completed within the Republic of Ireland than in Northern Ireland, purely because Northern Ireland is still under the control of the UK government, who seem to be allergic to spending money on anything! I hope to be proven wrong though...
It would be interesting to see if the Connolly-Heuston tunnel actually opens, seen as it has been proposed (as the “DART Interconnector”) since the 1970s. I was slightly disappointed lines like the West Cork Railway or the Belfast and County Down Railway aren’t reopening, but I suppose I should be thankful that the review was published at all since lines have almost been only closing since 1920!
@@BIKERJIMThat's the phoenix park tunnel, which does cross Dublin similarly but via a more northerly route as opposed to the interconnected between heuston and docklands
The EIB's input on funding and prioritisation will be very interesting. I expect that to be announced shortly as the Department of Transport have already been working with them behind the scenes. There are multidisplinary consultant tenders out for capacity improvements on the Galway line, the reopening of the Navan line for passenger services and also electrification of the Cork line. I suspect that the Galway line infrastructure improvements, double-tracking from Portarlington to Athlone and the Athenry to Galway Ceannt will take priority first as the new redeveloped Ceannt Station will have the platform capacity to handle more services going from 2 platforms to 5. Irish Rail are already citing capacity constraints on this line. It's going to be very difficult to have increased services to and from Limerick without double-tracking and that's before we come to the increased freight on the line. In terms of InterCity service improvements, Cork and Limerick have hourly services to Dublin and Belfast to Dublin will follow suit in October. That will leave Galway and Waterford. Galway will be going from 10 to 12 weekday services to Dublin and Waterford to Dublin from 8 to 9 at the end of this month. I expect Waterford to get a further increase in services when their new station opens and probably the same for Galway. It will be interesting to see what rolling stock is chosen for the new Enterprise Fleet. The tender from last year specified 200m trains with diesel power, 1.5KV DC electric mode and batteries. Renewal is scheduled for 2028/2029. The medium term plan is to swap out all the transmissions on the 22000 InterCity trains and install battery packs. The existing 3 speed transmissions are not as efficient as the ZF 6 speed transmissions (that have been trialled) and 2nd gear has a lot of vibration. With the new transmissions and batteries they will be roughly 20% more fuel efficient, smoother and can accelerate to max speed up to 1 minute quicker. They'll also be able to run the trains on battery power alone at stations like Heuston. Irish Rail have been working on novel solutions to our bog problems. We've the second highest amount of peatland in Europe. Bog is not conducive to running fast trains as the rail deflection is quite severe at speed. Micropilling has worked well on the Cork line removing a localised speed restriction and bringing the affected area up to line speed. However, it may not be enough for 200km/h speeds by itself. The All Ireland Rail Strategy is pretty comprehensive. There's no stupid things like high speed rail lines and connecting sparsely populated areas like Donegal to Sligo. I do suspect that Northern Ireland won't fund the proposed sections - but here in Ireland we can only worry about our own country and continue with our own plans.
Gives us some hope for the future of the railways here. Could definitely be a bit more ambitious but will hopefully get the ball rolling for years to come. Ireland could easily be as well connected as countries like the Netherlands with good strategic investment.
I'm not very optimistic about the entirety of the plan, but I do see some projects going ahead which would bring positive change. A lot will depend on which priorities are made, which projects get European funding, etc. While Enniskillen is left out, if rail transport is reintroduced to Omagh, taking a train will come a lot closer to the people of Fermanagh than it is today.
In the north, anything would be better than what we have. While I’m hopeful we can get rail back west of the bann, not linking Enniskilen and Mid Ulster is a missed chance imo
As soon as you said £27b I knew its a nonstarter. No way we in NI will be able to get £8b. And thats if costs dont go up. Its fantasy to think otherwise.
I agree it's unlikely, but one possible way to persuade politicians is to look at how much it would be annually. For example, £800m per year over 10 years starts to sound a lot more appealing than just saying "£8bn" as a lump sum. Likewise the fact that the programme can be broken down into smaller projects also helps, as politicians can decide to commit to some of the smaller projects first, even if not the full programme!
Yep More empty promises from Irish gov this is version 3.0 I believe since the years 2000. We have seen it all before. We haven't the price of a pint of milk between all of us.
@NetworkNewsUK There are already tenders out. Some of it will most certainly happen. Ignore that idiot anyway. They are spouting the same nonsense on the Foynes freight line. Freight is commercially sensitive and not governed by freedom of information.
No I really am just that bad! My only excuse is that I was also rushing to try and get this video out the same day the review was released, whereas if I'd taken my time with it a bit more, I probably would have done some research into the proper pronunciation of all the places mentioned!
One of the biggest disappointments with the review was the decision to not even look into reopening the old Belfast County Down Railway from Belfast - Downpatrick - Newcastle. There is not a single station anywhere in Mid/South County Down. Reinstating that railway would bring another est 200,000 within 5km of a rail station. It’s a shame that not all counties will be reconnected.
Reusing an old rail alignment can help with speeding up the development and part of the work is already done, but is it really the best option? Without any knowledge about the current state of said alignment, you're probably starting almost from scratch anyway, so why use an alignment that worked perfectly for 19th century steam locomotives when we aren't using steam locomotives anymore?
Building an entirely new line is harder, but it does open the door to other possibilities, e.g. branching off at Lisburn and serving Ballynahinch on the way to Downpatrick, or an alignment closer to the A7 serving Carryduff... And with all the red tape for rebuilding a line that has been closed for so long, I'm not even convinced it would take much longer than reopening the old County Down Railway...
@@barvdw I’d be inclined to agree with you here. As you’re probably aware it’s now the comber greenway serving most of the lines old route out to Comber. It would be nice to see a rail connection in the future for South County Down. I’m a Carryduff native myself but work in Downpatrick and often am founded getting the bus as I dread the car journey in the morning. It would be nice to have alternative but a more realistic approve would be adding a rail link from Newry way up to Downpatrick. Seems like it would be the shortest route from current rail lines.
@@VarissNI the AIRR does talk about a new line down from Lisburn to Newry via Banbridge, which might make it slightly less far away. Not entirely sure if I'd restore a connection to Newcastle, just Downpatrick might be enough, if you can integrate bus and train well.
This makes me really excited, especially as a Dubliner with the new DART+ on the horizon.
I live near Kishoge which is finally being opened after around 15 years of it sitting abandoned, and hopefully we won’t be stuck with ICRs for commuter routes anymore, they’re great trains but as the name suggests, they’re for intercity routes, they just don’t have the capacity for commuter routes.
I think it’s generally a very exciting time for public transport in Ireland
No worries about the footage and happy to help out, the only thing missing about this project is getting a rail link to County Donegal, which used to have a 3 foot gauge railway but long since closed, plus would be easier to visit a friend in Donegal 😂
@@Sim0nTrains the proposed link to Letterkenny would *technically* be serving County Donegal, but agreed that it would definitely be nice if it served some of the other towns as well!
Closest I've been to Ireland is probably York, so I'm not exactly a local, but...
Looks good. If mostly done by 2045 it'd be good. If half done by 2070, not so good.
i.e. I'm sure there's more investments that would be good, but as long as this plan is actually implemented and services on the new/expanded lines start happening in the not so far off future then it'll be possible to add more lines after all this is completed.
Personally I think we're likely to see more of these projects completed within the Republic of Ireland than in Northern Ireland, purely because Northern Ireland is still under the control of the UK government, who seem to be allergic to spending money on anything! I hope to be proven wrong though...
It would be interesting to see if the Connolly-Heuston tunnel actually opens, seen as it has been proposed (as the “DART Interconnector”) since the 1970s. I was slightly disappointed lines like the West Cork Railway or the Belfast and County Down Railway aren’t reopening, but I suppose I should be thankful that the review was published at all since lines have almost been only closing since 1920!
The tunnel is open and in daily use for some years now
@@BIKERJIMThat's the phoenix park tunnel, which does cross Dublin similarly but via a more northerly route as opposed to the interconnected between heuston and docklands
The EIB's input on funding and prioritisation will be very interesting. I expect that to be announced shortly as the Department of Transport have already been working with them behind the scenes.
There are multidisplinary consultant tenders out for capacity improvements on the Galway line, the reopening of the Navan line for passenger services and also electrification of the Cork line.
I suspect that the Galway line infrastructure improvements, double-tracking from Portarlington to Athlone and the Athenry to Galway Ceannt will take priority first as the new redeveloped Ceannt Station will have the platform capacity to handle more services going from 2 platforms to 5. Irish Rail are already citing capacity constraints on this line. It's going to be very difficult to have increased services to and from Limerick without double-tracking and that's before we come to the increased freight on the line.
In terms of InterCity service improvements, Cork and Limerick have hourly services to Dublin and Belfast to Dublin will follow suit in October. That will leave Galway and Waterford. Galway will be going from 10 to 12 weekday services to Dublin and Waterford to Dublin from 8 to 9 at the end of this month. I expect Waterford to get a further increase in services when their new station opens and probably the same for Galway.
It will be interesting to see what rolling stock is chosen for the new Enterprise Fleet. The tender from last year specified 200m trains with diesel power, 1.5KV DC electric mode and batteries. Renewal is scheduled for 2028/2029.
The medium term plan is to swap out all the transmissions on the 22000 InterCity trains and install battery packs. The existing 3 speed transmissions are not as efficient as the ZF 6 speed transmissions (that have been trialled) and 2nd gear has a lot of vibration. With the new transmissions and batteries they will be roughly 20% more fuel efficient, smoother and can accelerate to max speed up to 1 minute quicker. They'll also be able to run the trains on battery power alone at stations like Heuston.
Irish Rail have been working on novel solutions to our bog problems. We've the second highest amount of peatland in Europe. Bog is not conducive to running fast trains as the rail deflection is quite severe at speed. Micropilling has worked well on the Cork line removing a localised speed restriction and bringing the affected area up to line speed. However, it may not be enough for 200km/h speeds by itself.
The All Ireland Rail Strategy is pretty comprehensive. There's no stupid things like high speed rail lines and connecting sparsely populated areas like Donegal to Sligo. I do suspect that Northern Ireland won't fund the proposed sections - but here in Ireland we can only worry about our own country and continue with our own plans.
Gives us some hope for the future of the railways here. Could definitely be a bit more ambitious but will hopefully get the ball rolling for years to come. Ireland could easily be as well connected as countries like the Netherlands with good strategic investment.
I'm not very optimistic about the entirety of the plan, but I do see some projects going ahead which would bring positive change. A lot will depend on which priorities are made, which projects get European funding, etc. While Enniskillen is left out, if rail transport is reintroduced to Omagh, taking a train will come a lot closer to the people of Fermanagh than it is today.
In the north, anything would be better than what we have. While I’m hopeful we can get rail back west of the bann, not linking Enniskilen and Mid Ulster is a missed chance imo
believe it when we see it as with eveyrthing planned for the future 10-20 years might as well be forever
Would stop Traffic Jams, Road Deaths, Car Accidents & Pollution.
As soon as you said £27b I knew its a nonstarter. No way we in NI will be able to get £8b. And thats if costs dont go up. Its fantasy to think otherwise.
I agree it's unlikely, but one possible way to persuade politicians is to look at how much it would be annually. For example, £800m per year over 10 years starts to sound a lot more appealing than just saying "£8bn" as a lump sum.
Likewise the fact that the programme can be broken down into smaller projects also helps, as politicians can decide to commit to some of the smaller projects first, even if not the full programme!
@@NetworkNewsUK Yes but govt budget money is so tight that theyre scrapping for every penny at the minute.
@@FlashyVic yep. Very frustrating as investment is badly needed but the government seems unwilling to provide it!
All pie in the sky never happen 😅😅😅😅
We can hope, but you're right that just because this report has been published there's no guarantee that any of this will actually happen!
Yep More empty promises from Irish gov this is version 3.0 I believe since the years 2000. We have seen it all before. We haven't the price of a pint of milk between all of us.
@NetworkNewsUK There are already tenders out. Some of it will most certainly happen.
Ignore that idiot anyway. They are spouting the same nonsense on the Foynes freight line. Freight is commercially sensitive and not governed by freedom of information.
@@NetworkNewsUKI’m in Tyrone, can’t imagine rail coming to anywhere in Northern Ireland tbh, government has no money here
Are you doing the mispronunciations on purpose !
No I really am just that bad!
My only excuse is that I was also rushing to try and get this video out the same day the review was released, whereas if I'd taken my time with it a bit more, I probably would have done some research into the proper pronunciation of all the places mentioned!
@@NetworkNewsUK Tip, Athenry, pronounced ATH-N--RYE.
@@29brendus thank you, that makes more sense than whatever it was I was saying!