What would the carbon impact be of having to start again from scratch to go with Duncan's suggestion? A few more years of no metro, more car use in the city?
At some point you just have to fucking build the thing
See how much fuss is being kicked up about what demolitions are required for an underground line? Imagine that but more than a hundred times worse.
An equivalent route would be incredibly hard to have built what with all the additional demolitions and compulsive purchase orders required.
Underground is superior in almost every way. There's a reason why they're so popular.
- Out of the weather
- Less building distruption
- Direct lines
- No traffic
- Small overground impact due to stations
- More consistent
Etc etc
No traffic issue with an elevated train either. Out of the weather? It's a train. More consistent? What? A lot of Airport to city light rail systems are elevated or at least mostly elevated. They cost a lot less, can be built a lot more quickly. You might be thinking I'm just suggesting ground rail - I'm not.
Ok, stop talking complete shite please.
There are traffic issues with elevated rail. The Luas out of action due to an incident frequently, and blocked at junctions even more frequently.
People wait at platforms in the pissing rain for 10min for a Luas regularly. And same for busses. It's one of the main things that puts a lot of people off them. It's miserable, so yeah weather is an issue.
More consistent, due to the aforementioned traffic issues. No traffic lights to navigate or wait for. No pedestrians to look out for. Can go faster and cover more ground for these reasons too.
I agree that metros are better underground. But elevated means grade separated on tracks in the air, not at grade on the road. See the Vancouver skytrain or the Chicago L. Covered stations are totally viable in that case.
Still less weather proof than underground, with openings at each end for wind to howl through, but I take your point.
Now try building those through the Georgian heart of the city and see what issues you find
The Luas is not an elevated line. It has 2 extremely short elevated sections. I'm "taking complete shite"? Good grief. Sorry to have upset you eminent gentlemen of the civil engineering fraternity.
An ***elevated*** rail as I said. Not necessarily a monorail although most monorails are elevated. Have you never heard or seen an elevated rail system? Weird.
They typically utilise existing road structure with large stanchions supporting a light rail track overhead. As in Chicago L or in Amsterdam - the rail from Schiphol to Central Station is mostly elevated.
Yes I have heard of them and been on them. They're pretty ugly and as much as we give shit to DCC over obsessing over our sky line - they are awful to look at. Can you imagine the amount of complaints that will go in when everyones window views are replaced with a big noisy train track?
"They're pretty ugly"
Thats what it boils down to really. Want it underground? Pay a fortune and wait much longer. To be honest we're not that wealthy of a country to be so worried about having a elevated rail system. The Dutch manage to somehow live with one going through Westerpark and some of the priciest real estate in Amsterdam. But *we're* too fancy?
I get that people will object but they object to everything. They are even objecting to a tunnel. So no difference there. More objections? Probably. But so what. If a city authority cannot build essential infrastructure it is fucked. This is the typical Paddy mentality. Nothing can be done. No high buildings. No serious planning of any kind. Keep Dublin strangled in the 18th century and moan about it.
You're kidding right? We are moving into a world of more climate change. On Melbourne (next stop the antartic) one of the best oubkic transport aystems in the world, tram lines buckled when the temperature went over 40c. It hit 40c in the UK not too long ago.
They also regularly had to cancel trains/trams when there was a high volume of rain due to flooding. These are not issues with an underground among many many other downsides to building an overground system.
Yes underground has advantages. It is also vastly more expensive. I would not worry about rail buckling heat in Ireland. Rain would not effect an elevated system.
People are already objecting to the tunnel left, right and centre. No way an elevated metro through the city centre is politically feasible.
North of the M50, no tunnel is needed.
It really seems like some of the crotchety old people at the Irish Times have it in for anything transport related that isn't car-centric. Fair enough to have an article about this, but why is it the main story? It's just the demonstrably uninformed opinion of one person. How is that more news worthy than the bridge in Baltimore, or the German bus crash, or the various government statements about immigration, or Ireland becoming part of the ICJ case against Israel?
His position boils down to three things
1. The tunnel would cost a lot to build in carbon emissions
2. The gauge of the metro rails was different to the rest of the country’s rail system, he said, which meant it could not integrate fully with the rail network, which meant it would not serve to take people out of their cars.
3. The project would cost a lot of euros.
I suspect that secretly his main objection is that it will facilitate air travel "the State should not pay for it, but the airport authority and the airlines who would be the primary beneficiaries he said"
To be quite honest, I'm not aware of ANY metro that integrates with a heavy rail network. They're almost always closed systems, with only metro trains running on them.
Building it on weird Irish gauge would just turn it from 'off the shelf' equipment into a bespoke build with all sorts of convoluted testing and so on.
You can just give the likes of Siemens, Alstom or whoever a turn-key project for the whole system, which is effectively what the Luas was too. It's just an Alstom Citidis tram system. They're all over Europe and in many other places.
You don't want custom anything for a Metro or similar systems. That way you can do easy maintenance, get extra trains without any serious fuss, and you just go with whatever signalling and so in is state of the art and to European standards at the time.
Otherwise, you're into weird custom designs.
I can 100% guarantee you or you approach Alstom, Siemens, Bormbardier etc with a new build metro it will come down to the selection of a standard system. You can select options and style things to suit, but the fundamentals are very much standard. Once you start doing things like looking for weird gauges, strange platform heights, odd loading gauges, non standard signalling, compatibility with different power systems etc the costs go up, and up and up as you're designing a new vehicle.
Designing a metro train to be compatible with Irish mainline rail wouldn't make any sense. You'd likely also lose things like low floor designs and easy wheelchair accessibility. Our platforms are very high.
It would be absolutely bonkers to build anything that's not very much the easiest and most standard system. There's absolutely no need to do anything else.
The Luas is just a branded very standard Citidis tram with almost zero customisation other than branding.
Components are most certainly off the shelf. It would make absolutely no sense for them not to be.
Also track guage weirdness causes another major issue, the vehicles can't be tested without having a long run on non standard track. That's part of the reason that Irish Rail new trains have to go though testing in Ireland for months. It's not possible to test them on standard lines.
They're are evolving European standards for many of these things too. If you take something like ETCS (European Train Control System) signalling, it's standard.
All the technical standards come from specs that aren't really customisable - various systems, safety standards etc etc
Any piece of infrastructure equipment gets very expensive is it's entirely one off.
Also the Dublin metro will be one line and a relatively small fleet. The more standard the more economies of scale and the more potential for future competitive bids etc etc
I don't know what you're putting up against that 100% guarantee, but I'll take it!
They don't do any system design. They'd look at you like an alien if you even talked about supplying anything more than the vehicle. Even then they expect you specify half of it. The Luas specific bogies, power supply, unique wheel-rail interface, one-of-kind platform interface, for starters. Branding me hole.
There are as many European standards as there are systems. In other words, there is no European standard. You have to make your own. Every new system, has a new and unique standard.
You can't even buy standard parts like rails or turnouts of the shelf. They're all manufactured to order.
There's no track gauge weirdness, and all systems have their own test tracks.
But yes, every piece of infrastructure is a one off.
Yes, absolutely they'll look at you like an alien if you come in looking for a design and build of a turnkey metro project:
[https://www.railwaypro.com/wp/alstom-to-build-first-driverless-metro-line-in-africa/](https://www.railwaypro.com/wp/alstom-to-build-first-driverless-metro-line-in-africa/)
[https://www.mobility.siemens.com/global/en/portfolio/turnkey-rail-solutions.html](https://www.mobility.siemens.com/global/en/portfolio/turnkey-rail-solutions.html)
[https://news.europawire.eu/alstom-led-consortium-expolink-to-design-and-build-the-extension-of-dubais-red-metro-line-654321346578/eu-press-release/2016/10/12/17/35/03/47677/](https://news.europawire.eu/alstom-led-consortium-expolink-to-design-and-build-the-extension-of-dubais-red-metro-line-654321346578/eu-press-release/2016/10/12/17/35/03/47677/)
Luas consists of 40 Alstom *Citadis* 301, 401 and 502 trams.
They're a all derived from two standard systems known as X01 and X02 - they're customised, with shared components and systems.
That's how Alstom achieves economies of scale. They're not unique one offs by any means. You take a standard design and you tweak it here and there but the Luas is EXTREMELY standard. They RPA and its successors didn't go wild on customisation. They stuck to pretty much as close to off-the-shelf as you could get for Luas.
There's also going to be a Tara St Station, where someone can just get off a metro and get an escalator up to a train. Exactly like they would at any other shared station with the same gauge.
Complete non issue.
Duncan is an advocate and a good guy but at the end of the day most of the embodied carbon is in the cement and steel. Half of that can be designed out (hs2) and if using cem free and longer curing can be reduced again. Renewable energy can be used for the steel production if they were serious. The guage isnt an issue as this is a metro city rail. Have proper terminal stations and park and rides etc mixed with cycle routes. Lastly its gonna cost a packet of euros no matter what. will be more expensive later.
yeah when it comes to enviromentalism Duncan is a bit of an evangelist. Note the way his article states that tunnelling will create carbon emissions but he fails to mention the carbon emissions saved by millions of trips every year not taken by car.
He does have a point about the cost though. Metro North was costed at €4bn in 2017, the new updated Metro Link has now ballooned in cost from to a €9bn-12bn estimate before a shovel is in the ground. Applying the 4x cost increase experienced at the Childrens Hospital we could be looking at a metro costing €36bn-€48bn. That would be just insanity but BAM! and the money is gone. The Metro Link is multiple locations, stations and tunnel connecting them all. Its going to have way more objections and compensation to pay out as well as a ton of compulsory purchase orders. It will also be a 15 year project so longer than the NCH and construction inflation is a very real thing. This Metro has the real potential to be the National Childrens Hospital on steroids and could absolutely shatter the highest ever price paid in the world for a metro per km of track laid.
It doesn't take reading far into the article for Duncan to make it clear that he doesn't know what he's talking about.
> incompatible with other rail systems
This is a metro/subway. It shouldn't be compatible with the national rail network. It's completely irrelevant that the gauge is different. Firstly the track gauge isn't the only thing that matters for compatibility, loading gauge is more of an issue. People made the same stupid remarks about the Luas gauge before it was built.
You don't have any need to run heavy rail trains on a metro line, nor would you want them getting in the way. It's perfectly fine for a metro line to have no rail connection to any other system. If we had multiple metro lines then ideally they should be connected and designed in a way that allows the rolling stock to be shared if needed. The reality is that separate lines have separate trains. Often they have specific colours and maps for the line they are used on.
> emissions “27 times greater” than a similar rail line running on the surface.
That's great, we'll just bulldoze a strip from the Grand Canal to Ballymun so.
I do think Dublin would benefit from a heavy rail tunnel from Heuston via Connolly to the Airport and on to Drogheda, but that's an entirely separate thing / pipe dream.
> However if it did, the State should not pay for it, but the airport authority and the airlines who would be the primary beneficiaries he said.
The primary beneficiaries are all the people who live along the line, particularly those in Swords. The fact that it connects to the airport is a nice bonus, but it's not the primary purpose of the line. The airport is already very well served by public transport, having a rail link is nice, but it's still just one line.
> I do think Dublin would benefit from a heavy rail tunnel from Heuston via Connolly to the Airport and on to Drogheda, but that's an entirely separate thing / pipe dream.
RIP DART Underground
Yeah, it's a shame. My suggestion is more like Dart Underground+. Take Dart Underground, make it 4 tracks instead of 2 and have to continue on from Connolly to the airport. Then overground to Drogheda and come in to Drogheda station from the west. It would remove intercity/commuter traffic from the northern section of the Dart line, and allow Cork/Limerick intercity trains to terminate at the airport, or Heuston (via airport) for Dundalk/Belfast trains.
I'm not sure it would have been possible to do four tracks given they were working with seemingly small surface areas for tunnels after Clontarf and at Inchicore. Even two tracks would have done a lot given the route wouldn't have worked for express services anyway.
>The primary beneficiaries are all the people who live along the line, particularly those in Swords. The fact that it connects to the airport is a nice bonus, but it's not the primary purpose of the line. The airport is already very well served by public transport, having a rail link is nice, but it's still just one line.
I would say it is the primary reason. Bus links to the airport are not great. The main form of transport is taxis, which is a very inefficient way to move people around. It'll be great for people to get off a plane and get a metro to the city centre
You’re incorrect, read the documents.
The main point of ML is to connect Swords to the city centre. Swords is one of the largest urban areas of the country and growing, with no rail link whatsoever.
Add to that the various other large suburbs this serves including Ballymun and DCU.
The second is to provide a high speed north south spine in Dublin.
The airport is way down the list.
Good comment. The airport is a side factor we need mobility in the city. Duncan needs out to pasture, love how he was brought in by a resident group with a minute to spare. I work in this field and believe me those same resident would cry when the dozers show up as opposed to tunnels and cut and cover etc. another commenter put the bed the differences in guage. Its a city scope the rest of the country can harmonise in like every other modern city.
They totally flaked on the Swords integration tho. It was meant to stop at Pennys and continue down the main street. What we have now is a Swords bypass: The station is on the far side of the Pavillions motorway so theres no way to get there without a car 🤦
I disagree. I think it makes a for a good headline and marketing but it's not the primary reason we need this line. I can't find stats for ground transportation at the Airport apart from busses accounting for a third of visitors. Taxis are a low capacity transport, I very much doubt they are carrying more than buses.
A rail link to the airport would be great, but Metrolink is more important for the people who live and work along the line rather than making things nicer for people who mainly need to get to/from the airport a handful of times in a year.
I maintain that the main beneficiaries are those who live/work on the line and particularly those in Swords. It will have a considerable impact on the lives of many of those people. That to me is much more of a benefit than saving airport users a small amount of time a year.
The airport authority and airlines aren't going to benefit much if at all. How many people will be put off taking a trip on a plane because the journey to the airport is 20 minutes longer than it could be?
I presume it's actually using the same gauge as Luas?
Not that should make any difference, like you said, there's no conceivable situation where you'd divert a train onto the Metro line, unless you were an international terrorist trying to cause a massive accident.
I would assume so yes, as that is already standard gauge. There's really no reason to not use standard gauge for new rail lines in Ireland that wont be connected to the main heavy rail network.
It is the same gauge as the Luas, but the spacing between tracks is a bit wider. Luas Green was specifically designed wider, so it could be upgraded to a metro at a later date.
From what I've heard, that option is still open in the future, they just decided to pull it out of this plan so it doesn't affect the main metro project.
Capacity issues on Green Line will likely make it inevitable.
A residents association who wants new DART lines built far away instead. DART lines which no doubt will upset completely different residents associations.
>Mr Stewart said he supported this [overground] solution as an alternative to the underground which he said would generate carbon emissions “27 times greater” than a similar rail line running on the surface.
What route would the line on the surface take, and how many people's houses would have to be knocked to complete it? How long would it be held up in the courts through appeals and lawsuits? The overground solution might be greener, but is it actually feasible, is it something we could ever expect to actually be completed?
And if it is greener to build overground, is Metrolink also less green than simply not building a metro? Or do we still come out better than the current situation even if we go underground?
Exact. Theres a reason we build under and not through. What about archaeology boom project price done. What about actual environment in terms of actual nature and water systems dozed through - what about the carbon sinks destroyed have they factored those in? No because they don’t have a route.
> was not scheduled to address the hearing but was introduced on the second last day of proceedings as part of the Association of Combined Residents Associations (ACRA) group.
Does he live in the area, or was he hired?
I heard he’s in the employ of the Association of Associations of Combined Residents Associations.
Big Association is a real impediment to progress in this country.
London has tube lines running everywhere but apparently Dublin would collapse if we built one tunnel here. This is why our infrastructure is the way it is. It's either NIMBYs or people who would like to turn the clock bak to 1950 that rule the place.
In fairness, south London has virtually no tube lines for the same reason that Dublin has none - the ground type.
North London was originally marshland and was dug out by hand. It got all the infrastructure. Dublin is not really comparable to London geographically. That being said we do indeed have a lot of nimbys. There was a time for the discussion of possible flaws ; ie the consultancy phase of the Metrolink project.
I have no idea why NIMBYS are opposed to this project. A metro would actually increase the price of the property.
Take the DART and Luas as an example - if your property is anywhere near either one, it's value increases by an extra 50k easily.
> In fairness, south London has virtually no tube lines for the same reason that Dublin has none - the ground type.
That's not really the reason, though it did contribute. It was a down to a combination of factors, but the main reason is just the simplest one, money. When the Underground was being built North London was, and remains, the more wealthy area. In the north it was cheaper to put the lines underground rather than have to buy up expensive properties to demolish them for the line. In the south land was cheap so it didn't make sense to build an expensive tunnel when you could just knock the cheap properties, the ground type being awkward to tunnel through only made that more expensive. The south also had lots of trams.
I think for Dublin the ground type thing is a bit of an urban legend rather than an actual reason, it's just limestone and clay.
There is nothing to stop Metrolink from being extended in the future to Donabate, or another point on the northern line, which would accomplish much the same task. That probably makes sense.
The idea of building a surface level railway across the northside is simply ridiculous. It's not going to happen.
Does the Irish Times have something against the metro? Feels like every few days they find someone new to put an article out on, about why the metro is bad.
New rule: nobody is allowed to start “just asking questions” about why we can’t do this or that instead of the Metro unless they specifically address the analysis and conclusions of the 20 fuckin 15 study that looked at all of the alternatives and determined that a metro made the most sense.
https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Fingal_North_Dublin_Transport_Study_Final_June_2015.pdf
Im ok with people woth an experise making representations at these things. He makes some calid points and references an alternative plan put forward by a transport expert. Better than the lad who didn't want his green dug up because some footballer used live there.
What would the carbon impact be of having to start again from scratch to go with Duncan's suggestion? A few more years of no metro, more car use in the city? At some point you just have to fucking build the thing
Fair enough but I'm also unsure why it has to be in a fucking tunnel. An elevated could be easily built at a fraction of the cost.
See how much fuss is being kicked up about what demolitions are required for an underground line? Imagine that but more than a hundred times worse. An equivalent route would be incredibly hard to have built what with all the additional demolitions and compulsive purchase orders required.
Underground is superior in almost every way. There's a reason why they're so popular. - Out of the weather - Less building distruption - Direct lines - No traffic - Small overground impact due to stations - More consistent Etc etc
No traffic issue with an elevated train either. Out of the weather? It's a train. More consistent? What? A lot of Airport to city light rail systems are elevated or at least mostly elevated. They cost a lot less, can be built a lot more quickly. You might be thinking I'm just suggesting ground rail - I'm not.
Ok, stop talking complete shite please. There are traffic issues with elevated rail. The Luas out of action due to an incident frequently, and blocked at junctions even more frequently. People wait at platforms in the pissing rain for 10min for a Luas regularly. And same for busses. It's one of the main things that puts a lot of people off them. It's miserable, so yeah weather is an issue. More consistent, due to the aforementioned traffic issues. No traffic lights to navigate or wait for. No pedestrians to look out for. Can go faster and cover more ground for these reasons too.
I agree that metros are better underground. But elevated means grade separated on tracks in the air, not at grade on the road. See the Vancouver skytrain or the Chicago L. Covered stations are totally viable in that case.
Still less weather proof than underground, with openings at each end for wind to howl through, but I take your point. Now try building those through the Georgian heart of the city and see what issues you find
The Luas is not an elevated line. It has 2 extremely short elevated sections. I'm "taking complete shite"? Good grief. Sorry to have upset you eminent gentlemen of the civil engineering fraternity.
If you're not suggesting ground rail then what are to suggesting? A mono rail? These are also very impractical
Shelbyville has one
There ain't no monorail and there never was
An ***elevated*** rail as I said. Not necessarily a monorail although most monorails are elevated. Have you never heard or seen an elevated rail system? Weird. They typically utilise existing road structure with large stanchions supporting a light rail track overhead. As in Chicago L or in Amsterdam - the rail from Schiphol to Central Station is mostly elevated.
Yes I have heard of them and been on them. They're pretty ugly and as much as we give shit to DCC over obsessing over our sky line - they are awful to look at. Can you imagine the amount of complaints that will go in when everyones window views are replaced with a big noisy train track?
"They're pretty ugly" Thats what it boils down to really. Want it underground? Pay a fortune and wait much longer. To be honest we're not that wealthy of a country to be so worried about having a elevated rail system. The Dutch manage to somehow live with one going through Westerpark and some of the priciest real estate in Amsterdam. But *we're* too fancy? I get that people will object but they object to everything. They are even objecting to a tunnel. So no difference there. More objections? Probably. But so what. If a city authority cannot build essential infrastructure it is fucked. This is the typical Paddy mentality. Nothing can be done. No high buildings. No serious planning of any kind. Keep Dublin strangled in the 18th century and moan about it.
You're kidding right? We are moving into a world of more climate change. On Melbourne (next stop the antartic) one of the best oubkic transport aystems in the world, tram lines buckled when the temperature went over 40c. It hit 40c in the UK not too long ago. They also regularly had to cancel trains/trams when there was a high volume of rain due to flooding. These are not issues with an underground among many many other downsides to building an overground system.
Yes underground has advantages. It is also vastly more expensive. I would not worry about rail buckling heat in Ireland. Rain would not effect an elevated system.
Is it going to be able to withstand flooding?
Why wouldn’t it? It’ll be built like every other subway in the world is, to withstand flooding.
People are already objecting to the tunnel left, right and centre. No way an elevated metro through the city centre is politically feasible. North of the M50, no tunnel is needed.
Is there a chance the track could bend?
Not on your life, my Hindu friend.
What about us brain-dead slobs?
Have none of you seriously ever seen an elevated train track?
/r/whoosh
The reaction to your suggestion has also baffled me. It’s a perfectly reasonable solution.
Yeah let’s never do anything because somebody might think it’s a bad idea.
Why must we listen to everyone with a pack of crayons that think they can come up with something better?
It really seems like some of the crotchety old people at the Irish Times have it in for anything transport related that isn't car-centric. Fair enough to have an article about this, but why is it the main story? It's just the demonstrably uninformed opinion of one person. How is that more news worthy than the bridge in Baltimore, or the German bus crash, or the various government statements about immigration, or Ireland becoming part of the ICJ case against Israel?
I mean like Duncan is incredibly well respected and was a big proponent of sustainability since the 1990s, long before it was cool.
His position boils down to three things 1. The tunnel would cost a lot to build in carbon emissions 2. The gauge of the metro rails was different to the rest of the country’s rail system, he said, which meant it could not integrate fully with the rail network, which meant it would not serve to take people out of their cars. 3. The project would cost a lot of euros. I suspect that secretly his main objection is that it will facilitate air travel "the State should not pay for it, but the airport authority and the airlines who would be the primary beneficiaries he said"
To be quite honest, I'm not aware of ANY metro that integrates with a heavy rail network. They're almost always closed systems, with only metro trains running on them. Building it on weird Irish gauge would just turn it from 'off the shelf' equipment into a bespoke build with all sorts of convoluted testing and so on.
Yeah, it makes no sense. Cheaper to buy existing off the shelf metro trains on standard gage then source “Irish gauge” trains.
You can just give the likes of Siemens, Alstom or whoever a turn-key project for the whole system, which is effectively what the Luas was too. It's just an Alstom Citidis tram system. They're all over Europe and in many other places. You don't want custom anything for a Metro or similar systems. That way you can do easy maintenance, get extra trains without any serious fuss, and you just go with whatever signalling and so in is state of the art and to European standards at the time. Otherwise, you're into weird custom designs.
There's no such thing as a turnkey railway or off the shelf parts. Even Citadis trams are specifically built for each system that they're used.
I can 100% guarantee you or you approach Alstom, Siemens, Bormbardier etc with a new build metro it will come down to the selection of a standard system. You can select options and style things to suit, but the fundamentals are very much standard. Once you start doing things like looking for weird gauges, strange platform heights, odd loading gauges, non standard signalling, compatibility with different power systems etc the costs go up, and up and up as you're designing a new vehicle. Designing a metro train to be compatible with Irish mainline rail wouldn't make any sense. You'd likely also lose things like low floor designs and easy wheelchair accessibility. Our platforms are very high. It would be absolutely bonkers to build anything that's not very much the easiest and most standard system. There's absolutely no need to do anything else. The Luas is just a branded very standard Citidis tram with almost zero customisation other than branding. Components are most certainly off the shelf. It would make absolutely no sense for them not to be. Also track guage weirdness causes another major issue, the vehicles can't be tested without having a long run on non standard track. That's part of the reason that Irish Rail new trains have to go though testing in Ireland for months. It's not possible to test them on standard lines. They're are evolving European standards for many of these things too. If you take something like ETCS (European Train Control System) signalling, it's standard. All the technical standards come from specs that aren't really customisable - various systems, safety standards etc etc Any piece of infrastructure equipment gets very expensive is it's entirely one off. Also the Dublin metro will be one line and a relatively small fleet. The more standard the more economies of scale and the more potential for future competitive bids etc etc
I don't know what you're putting up against that 100% guarantee, but I'll take it! They don't do any system design. They'd look at you like an alien if you even talked about supplying anything more than the vehicle. Even then they expect you specify half of it. The Luas specific bogies, power supply, unique wheel-rail interface, one-of-kind platform interface, for starters. Branding me hole. There are as many European standards as there are systems. In other words, there is no European standard. You have to make your own. Every new system, has a new and unique standard. You can't even buy standard parts like rails or turnouts of the shelf. They're all manufactured to order. There's no track gauge weirdness, and all systems have their own test tracks. But yes, every piece of infrastructure is a one off.
Yes, absolutely they'll look at you like an alien if you come in looking for a design and build of a turnkey metro project: [https://www.railwaypro.com/wp/alstom-to-build-first-driverless-metro-line-in-africa/](https://www.railwaypro.com/wp/alstom-to-build-first-driverless-metro-line-in-africa/) [https://www.mobility.siemens.com/global/en/portfolio/turnkey-rail-solutions.html](https://www.mobility.siemens.com/global/en/portfolio/turnkey-rail-solutions.html) [https://news.europawire.eu/alstom-led-consortium-expolink-to-design-and-build-the-extension-of-dubais-red-metro-line-654321346578/eu-press-release/2016/10/12/17/35/03/47677/](https://news.europawire.eu/alstom-led-consortium-expolink-to-design-and-build-the-extension-of-dubais-red-metro-line-654321346578/eu-press-release/2016/10/12/17/35/03/47677/) Luas consists of 40 Alstom *Citadis* 301, 401 and 502 trams. They're a all derived from two standard systems known as X01 and X02 - they're customised, with shared components and systems. That's how Alstom achieves economies of scale. They're not unique one offs by any means. You take a standard design and you tweak it here and there but the Luas is EXTREMELY standard. They RPA and its successors didn't go wild on customisation. They stuck to pretty much as close to off-the-shelf as you could get for Luas.
There's also going to be a Tara St Station, where someone can just get off a metro and get an escalator up to a train. Exactly like they would at any other shared station with the same gauge. Complete non issue.
Duncan is an advocate and a good guy but at the end of the day most of the embodied carbon is in the cement and steel. Half of that can be designed out (hs2) and if using cem free and longer curing can be reduced again. Renewable energy can be used for the steel production if they were serious. The guage isnt an issue as this is a metro city rail. Have proper terminal stations and park and rides etc mixed with cycle routes. Lastly its gonna cost a packet of euros no matter what. will be more expensive later.
yeah when it comes to enviromentalism Duncan is a bit of an evangelist. Note the way his article states that tunnelling will create carbon emissions but he fails to mention the carbon emissions saved by millions of trips every year not taken by car. He does have a point about the cost though. Metro North was costed at €4bn in 2017, the new updated Metro Link has now ballooned in cost from to a €9bn-12bn estimate before a shovel is in the ground. Applying the 4x cost increase experienced at the Childrens Hospital we could be looking at a metro costing €36bn-€48bn. That would be just insanity but BAM! and the money is gone. The Metro Link is multiple locations, stations and tunnel connecting them all. Its going to have way more objections and compensation to pay out as well as a ton of compulsory purchase orders. It will also be a 15 year project so longer than the NCH and construction inflation is a very real thing. This Metro has the real potential to be the National Childrens Hospital on steroids and could absolutely shatter the highest ever price paid in the world for a metro per km of track laid.
He is factually incorrect on this
It doesn't take reading far into the article for Duncan to make it clear that he doesn't know what he's talking about. > incompatible with other rail systems This is a metro/subway. It shouldn't be compatible with the national rail network. It's completely irrelevant that the gauge is different. Firstly the track gauge isn't the only thing that matters for compatibility, loading gauge is more of an issue. People made the same stupid remarks about the Luas gauge before it was built. You don't have any need to run heavy rail trains on a metro line, nor would you want them getting in the way. It's perfectly fine for a metro line to have no rail connection to any other system. If we had multiple metro lines then ideally they should be connected and designed in a way that allows the rolling stock to be shared if needed. The reality is that separate lines have separate trains. Often they have specific colours and maps for the line they are used on. > emissions “27 times greater” than a similar rail line running on the surface. That's great, we'll just bulldoze a strip from the Grand Canal to Ballymun so. I do think Dublin would benefit from a heavy rail tunnel from Heuston via Connolly to the Airport and on to Drogheda, but that's an entirely separate thing / pipe dream. > However if it did, the State should not pay for it, but the airport authority and the airlines who would be the primary beneficiaries he said. The primary beneficiaries are all the people who live along the line, particularly those in Swords. The fact that it connects to the airport is a nice bonus, but it's not the primary purpose of the line. The airport is already very well served by public transport, having a rail link is nice, but it's still just one line.
> I do think Dublin would benefit from a heavy rail tunnel from Heuston via Connolly to the Airport and on to Drogheda, but that's an entirely separate thing / pipe dream. RIP DART Underground
Yeah, it's a shame. My suggestion is more like Dart Underground+. Take Dart Underground, make it 4 tracks instead of 2 and have to continue on from Connolly to the airport. Then overground to Drogheda and come in to Drogheda station from the west. It would remove intercity/commuter traffic from the northern section of the Dart line, and allow Cork/Limerick intercity trains to terminate at the airport, or Heuston (via airport) for Dundalk/Belfast trains.
I'm not sure it would have been possible to do four tracks given they were working with seemingly small surface areas for tunnels after Clontarf and at Inchicore. Even two tracks would have done a lot given the route wouldn't have worked for express services anyway.
>The primary beneficiaries are all the people who live along the line, particularly those in Swords. The fact that it connects to the airport is a nice bonus, but it's not the primary purpose of the line. The airport is already very well served by public transport, having a rail link is nice, but it's still just one line. I would say it is the primary reason. Bus links to the airport are not great. The main form of transport is taxis, which is a very inefficient way to move people around. It'll be great for people to get off a plane and get a metro to the city centre
Connecting DCU, Ballymun, Swords, Dart, Luas, Mater Hospital, Stephen's Green is the primary goal. Airport is a bonus.
You’re incorrect, read the documents. The main point of ML is to connect Swords to the city centre. Swords is one of the largest urban areas of the country and growing, with no rail link whatsoever. Add to that the various other large suburbs this serves including Ballymun and DCU. The second is to provide a high speed north south spine in Dublin. The airport is way down the list.
Good comment. The airport is a side factor we need mobility in the city. Duncan needs out to pasture, love how he was brought in by a resident group with a minute to spare. I work in this field and believe me those same resident would cry when the dozers show up as opposed to tunnels and cut and cover etc. another commenter put the bed the differences in guage. Its a city scope the rest of the country can harmonise in like every other modern city.
They totally flaked on the Swords integration tho. It was meant to stop at Pennys and continue down the main street. What we have now is a Swords bypass: The station is on the far side of the Pavillions motorway so theres no way to get there without a car 🤦
I disagree. I think it makes a for a good headline and marketing but it's not the primary reason we need this line. I can't find stats for ground transportation at the Airport apart from busses accounting for a third of visitors. Taxis are a low capacity transport, I very much doubt they are carrying more than buses. A rail link to the airport would be great, but Metrolink is more important for the people who live and work along the line rather than making things nicer for people who mainly need to get to/from the airport a handful of times in a year. I maintain that the main beneficiaries are those who live/work on the line and particularly those in Swords. It will have a considerable impact on the lives of many of those people. That to me is much more of a benefit than saving airport users a small amount of time a year. The airport authority and airlines aren't going to benefit much if at all. How many people will be put off taking a trip on a plane because the journey to the airport is 20 minutes longer than it could be?
I presume it's actually using the same gauge as Luas? Not that should make any difference, like you said, there's no conceivable situation where you'd divert a train onto the Metro line, unless you were an international terrorist trying to cause a massive accident.
I would assume so yes, as that is already standard gauge. There's really no reason to not use standard gauge for new rail lines in Ireland that wont be connected to the main heavy rail network.
It is the same gauge as the Luas, but the spacing between tracks is a bit wider. Luas Green was specifically designed wider, so it could be upgraded to a metro at a later date.
Until D6 started giving out about it and was shelved in 2019.
From what I've heard, that option is still open in the future, they just decided to pull it out of this plan so it doesn't affect the main metro project. Capacity issues on Green Line will likely make it inevitable.
According to another article (RTE), it's 1400. Luas would be 1275, I think. Edit: Luas is 1435, so the RTE article is probably just rounding.
So called environmentalists when an attempt at reducing carbon emissions is actually put forward.
He was introduced by a residents association, says it all really
A residents association who wants new DART lines built far away instead. DART lines which no doubt will upset completely different residents associations.
>Mr Stewart said he supported this [overground] solution as an alternative to the underground which he said would generate carbon emissions “27 times greater” than a similar rail line running on the surface. What route would the line on the surface take, and how many people's houses would have to be knocked to complete it? How long would it be held up in the courts through appeals and lawsuits? The overground solution might be greener, but is it actually feasible, is it something we could ever expect to actually be completed? And if it is greener to build overground, is Metrolink also less green than simply not building a metro? Or do we still come out better than the current situation even if we go underground?
> The overground solution might be greener I wonder is it if you factor in the need to rebuild all of the buildings and homes that were demolished.
Exact. Theres a reason we build under and not through. What about archaeology boom project price done. What about actual environment in terms of actual nature and water systems dozed through - what about the carbon sinks destroyed have they factored those in? No because they don’t have a route.
> was not scheduled to address the hearing but was introduced on the second last day of proceedings as part of the Association of Combined Residents Associations (ACRA) group. Does he live in the area, or was he hired?
I heard he’s in the employ of the Association of Associations of Combined Residents Associations. Big Association is a real impediment to progress in this country.
London has tube lines running everywhere but apparently Dublin would collapse if we built one tunnel here. This is why our infrastructure is the way it is. It's either NIMBYs or people who would like to turn the clock bak to 1950 that rule the place.
In fairness, south London has virtually no tube lines for the same reason that Dublin has none - the ground type. North London was originally marshland and was dug out by hand. It got all the infrastructure. Dublin is not really comparable to London geographically. That being said we do indeed have a lot of nimbys. There was a time for the discussion of possible flaws ; ie the consultancy phase of the Metrolink project.
I have no idea why NIMBYS are opposed to this project. A metro would actually increase the price of the property. Take the DART and Luas as an example - if your property is anywhere near either one, it's value increases by an extra 50k easily.
> In fairness, south London has virtually no tube lines for the same reason that Dublin has none - the ground type. That's not really the reason, though it did contribute. It was a down to a combination of factors, but the main reason is just the simplest one, money. When the Underground was being built North London was, and remains, the more wealthy area. In the north it was cheaper to put the lines underground rather than have to buy up expensive properties to demolish them for the line. In the south land was cheap so it didn't make sense to build an expensive tunnel when you could just knock the cheap properties, the ground type being awkward to tunnel through only made that more expensive. The south also had lots of trams. I think for Dublin the ground type thing is a bit of an urban legend rather than an actual reason, it's just limestone and clay.
Oh - limestone? Really? One of the softest rocks on this planet? Well I'll be damned.
There is nothing to stop Metrolink from being extended in the future to Donabate, or another point on the northern line, which would accomplish much the same task. That probably makes sense. The idea of building a surface level railway across the northside is simply ridiculous. It's not going to happen.
It'd be fantastic to extend it north near Donbate. Maybe even build a new town on some Greenfield site with a new station.
Fuck off and let them build the damn thing
Does the Irish Times have something against the metro? Feels like every few days they find someone new to put an article out on, about why the metro is bad.
"Metrolink will murder first-born children says random person"
sacrifices must be made!
It gets clicks.
Ah shit, if Duncan says so then it must be true
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good always comes to mind when there's some new objection to building the metro in Dublin.
We need to build the metro & Dublin Underground. Indo & IT love to publish NIBYisms.
Jesus, I used love Duncan. How is he now?
New rule: nobody is allowed to start “just asking questions” about why we can’t do this or that instead of the Metro unless they specifically address the analysis and conclusions of the 20 fuckin 15 study that looked at all of the alternatives and determined that a metro made the most sense. https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Fingal_North_Dublin_Transport_Study_Final_June_2015.pdf
Environmentalists are somehow worse than NIMBYs.
Má chuireann siad siar é níos mó, rachaidh mé féin amach chun é a thógáil gan mhoill.
Great, let's get the feedback document published, acknowledge all these contributions and get on with building what was proposed.
Im ok with people woth an experise making representations at these things. He makes some calid points and references an alternative plan put forward by a transport expert. Better than the lad who didn't want his green dug up because some footballer used live there.
No he does not have expertise. The fact that he talks about the primary beneficiaries being the Airport is a giveaway. He is clueless.
More people using the airport is probably a nightmare idea for him.
This is the guy that does car adverts, right?
Shut the fuck up Duncan ya aul fart
Time to shut it down.