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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6806595.ece

Think tank: Radical departure for Dublin rail plan
Irish Rail loves to spend big, but there is a cheaper way to connect the capital Ruadhán MacEoin

An Bord Snip Nua has said €55m should be saved by closing about 240km of railway around the country. Irish Rail, however, has different plans. It is seeking to build a €100m office block on top of Tara Street station in central Dublin, in conjunction with a property developer. The problem is, of course, the capital has a glut of post-Celtic tiger office space lying empty and it’s hard to think of any developers with money to invest.

Irish Rail is also advancing a plan to build about 8km of underground railway in Dublin city centre, at a cost of up to €2 billion. Connecting Spencer Dock in east Dublin with Heuston station on the western outskirts, the interconnector certainly has merit. Once completed, suburban trains will be able to go from Balbriggan in north Dublin to Naas,

Co Kildare, via Spencer Dock, St Stephen’s Green and Heuston. Trains will also be able to travel from Maynooth via Connolly station to Wicklow. Pearse station would be the interchange.

My point is that most of these link-ups can be achieved using existing CIE lines. These include the so-called “secret” railway, which includes a tunnel under Phoenix Park, connecting Heuston to Connolly and Spencer Dock stations, forming an arc that hugs the North Circular Road. Twin-tracked all the way, this line meets safety standards and serves some of the most populated areas in the capital, including Phibsborough, Cabra and Croke Park, each of which could be served by a new station.

Five years ago, Joe Maher, then chief executive of Irish Rail, told the Dail’s transport committee: “We certainly intend to use the park tunnel in the short term to bring trains from the Kildare/Newbridge area into Spencer Dock because there is demand for that.” But it never happened.

While there might be additional engineering costs for works next to the Royal Canal at Phibsborough, developing what has become known as the “ghost line” would be far less expensive than building the interconnector, or Dart Underground, which was estimated in 2003 to cost €1.3 billion, but would undoubtedly be €2 billion now.

The interconnector’s new stations will be in areas already well served by public transport. St Stephen’s Green has Luas, and the proposed station at Christ Church will be within 300 metres of the Luas’s Four Courts station. These areas will be even better served when the two Luas lines are eventually connected.

The first step in my plan would be to run Arklow trains around to Kildare, connecting Connolly and Heuston in the process. There are no engineering impediments to this.

Within a few months, Spencer Dock station will be served by a Luas extension. A minor junction change there would allow direct access from the Heuston and Dundalk lines. This would mean Balbriggan-Kildare trains could enter Spencer Dock and proceed in the opposite direction to Phibsborough or the Clontarf Road. A similar arrangement exists on the Dublin-Waterford line at Kilkenny. Trains could go from Balbriggan to Naas, and Maynooth to Wicklow using existing stock and infrastructure.

Complementary to that would be the completion of the green Luas line from Stephen’s Green via O’Connell Street and Broadstone station to Phibsborough, connecting with the commuter trains. Based on Luas construction costs to date, this could probably be done for €120m.

Under my plans, Dublin could have an integrated rail and Luas network for less than €200m. Most of the population between the canals would be no more than 10 minutes from a railway station.

Irish Rail’s plans involving tunnelling under Dublin Castle, Wood Quay and Stephen’s Green; it is difficult to think of more environmentally sensitive areas in the city. Instead, using existing but idle assets offers a frugal yet realistic integration of its rail network.

These days Irish Rail seems more interested in projects other than its core business. Public transport users are entitled to the best possible use of existing infrastructure without having to wait for grandiose schemes that may take years to build and cause huge disruption.

To use the current rail infrastructure, it may be necessary to privatise the network and lease it to a company similar to Ryanair, whose operation is based on end-to-end demand-driven services. If don’t, we may end up with closed lines and another empty office block for the National Asset Management Agency to conjure with.

Ruadhán MacEoin is a journalist and chairman of the Mountjoy Square Society