The Most Ambitious Transit Expansion in Europe? DART+ and Metrolink

poor unloved Islands never really gets any mention in transit discussions anywhere it's a place where trains are wide that's about it despite being quiet I want to take a moment to highlight a program in the near future like beer rank as one of Europe's Most ambitious with a city life trying to expand its Transit Network and fixed many of your mistakes of its past it's time to explain the dart plus and Metrolink programs a proper history of Dublin's Railways videos could be something I do in the future but for now here's The Abridged version as is typical for much of Europe the early Railways were disorganized effort by a range of competing companies around Dublin civically a big four took shape the Great Northern Railway connected the city to Ulster the Midlands Great Western Railway went Northwest to salgo and Galway the Great Southern and Western Railway covers much of the Southern half of the islands and the Dublin and Southeastern Railway took a line South along the course to Wexford efforts will be beds over the years to bring lease together as a more case of network in 1877 the Great Southern Western's north wall extension would bring their line to both the dockyards and Amy and Street Station today Dublin Connolly in 1891 the loop line opened to finally allow trains to cross the city from north to south and United for Big Four together at last the Irish free state would fully nationalized their territory's Railways in 1925 as for Great Southern Railways a company that would evolve into the cie in 1945 which still serves as the Republic of Ireland's national public transport operator unfortunately at the same time Ireland was hit particularly hard by the mid-century decline of rail travel many factors including partition economic issues a lack of natural resources and all the flat being exasperated by the second world's War saw a massive shutdown of Railway infrastructure in the 1950s and 60s it's being perhaps the biggest loss of track in Europe the existence of a CC1 a steam engine designed to run on Pete built as late as 1957 illustrates all of these facts as well around Dublin for biggest losses undoubtedly the line from Harcourt to Bray a vital commuter line for the city which closed in 1958 the loss of list commutes of roots is one lat as we'll see is something the city has been trying to fix ever since also lost obvious include the doubling and blessington Tramway in 1932 Dublin's tram Network altogether in 1959 including the final closure of the Dublin and Lucan Tramway and the hill of Health Tramway and Broadstone station in 1961. Railways and Islands were not in a good place leaving the 1960s but there was one bright spot in 1984 the electrification of Dublin's causal commuter line have finished and the dart was inaugurated beginning a new era for islands and bats puns alike initially running from house to Bray the service was extended on both ends in 2000s a branch to malahide's opening in bernoff and an extension to greystone's opening in South also at this time Dublin was willing to give trams a try again in 2004 the Lewis opens with two lines red and green red is an East-West line which as of its current completion in 2011 runs from the docklands to Connolly through the city center to Houston and all the way to the city's Southwestern suburbs the green line ran from Saint Stephen's Green to sandyford's along the same Bruce as for the Harcourt line a further extension to Bridges Glenn followed in 2010 followed by a northern extension to Broome bridge in 2017 which also follows the path of the former Broadstone line as one more thing Dublin's non-electrified local rail services are branded as commuter the northern to Dundalk Western to Longford and bm3 Parkway and Southwestern to portaloys that brings us to where we are today as City guys undoubtedly feeling the pain of past planning decisions but also trying to move forward so what's next attempts to extend the dart into a full Metro service is something Black's been on the dockets for a long time Dart currently shares its tracks with national Intercity Trends which obviously happens some of its capacity another reason why the Harcourt line is so missed many proportals have been focused on expanding darts into a full Regional Community system and complementing it with the dedicated Metro or underground system summer police proposals involved having an underground start line connecting Houston's Connolly this has been dropped off the plans but today this is manifested itself as the dart plus and Metrolink programs to start with the darts plus let's go over the common threads before going over the suffix the big aim is to expand start service on its existing coastal line as well as onto new lines out previously only saw diesel can commute service these slides will see a grids Crossing removal efforts while Norm Melbourne this should comfortably improve the reliability and frequency of service on Bliss Corridor along with providing an opportunity for new pedestrian and cyclist-friendly crossings over the line electrification will be extended over the new routes and a new set of Trends onto the dart plus fleets program will be produced by Alston on the extrapolice platform to supplement this new service 37 trains have been orders of which 31 will be fitted with batteries for short runs on non-electrified sections of track do not slap the plan is still to fully Electrify the dart plus lines with ovad's wires but for use of battery electric capable Trends will allow servers to begin before electrification is complete with the trends being capable of quickly being converted to full electric once ready on the data plus coastal South section the only part of the project lab will not be receiving any Civic infrastructure improvements these measures should still mean that the service season improvements in service frequency and quality Coastal North is where things get interesting the headline is that Dart wants to extend service all the way to drug either including electrification of the line a new dedicated Dart platform will be constructed at drogator and for frequency new platforms will also be constructed a clong Griffin and Malahide saw dark Trends can terminate Fair created a proportionate decrease in service the further you get from Dublin and ensuring capacity for other types of surfaces the over North is with the health Branch with the current plan being to rumble line as a shuttle on quieter times while maintaining the ability to do a full through service when demands calls for it as long as the connection is timed effectively with schedules this shouldn't be a major downgrade and it does allow for much more frequent service on the greater density of the rest of the line so this likely is a good trade-off darts Coastal North will bring frequent Dart service vastly improving connections along the coast with the existing Dart lines extended we can look to bring Dart service to new lines the dart Plus West seeks to take over the current commute slides the M3 Parkway and Maynooth with a fully electrified service from this slide to conibly and a new Depot at the very end of the line as part of this plan a relocated dockland station renamed to Spencer dock should be better situated to serve the many attractions in the area that brings us to the dart Southwest brings us to the dark Southwest which aims to quadruple track the section from Houston to Park West and Cherry Orchards enabling the separation of Dart and regular services this will also see the reopening of kiss hog station and a new Houston west of that upgrades this hilariously tiny platform lags us today into a proper station for trains headed onto the dart West tracks via the Phoenix Park tunnel overall the dart plus with its creation of new frequent electrified service both within Dublin and Beyond should vastly improve surf swimmers sitting far beyond it the way the project is split into many different parts are not dependent on each other for completion should bring a gradual wave of benefits to the city over time and I really look forward to seeing the dart plus come to fruition over the coming years now let's talk about the Metrolink because for a brand new metro line there's a lot to like here they want the system to be fully automated with four car Trends enabling a very high frequency on the line no Civic model has been chosen at the moment but renders shows Sydney Metro trains but green so it's good news that they aren't going for something super proprietary if also 15 stations starting at an estuary Park and Ride station in the north next to the motorway passing through the major suburb town of swords and Dublin Airport it will enter board tunnels to enter the city serving places like Dublin City University at Collins Avenue made a hospital at meta or Connell Street Tara Street and the station and send Steven screen before terminating at a green line interchange at Charlemont going back to the dot plus program it will interchange with the Metrolink at Glasnevin where Dart west southwest and Metro trains can all stop as you can maybe know brought us with the Metro terminating at Charlemont the original plan for this thing was that the bachelor would take over the green line on the harcourts route this was cut due to the service disruption and complexity of making the line take off the tram would entail the tunnels south of Charlemont are long enough to allow for easy future extension but for now the dream of returning high frequency commute surface to the harcourse goes on a positive about the natural link is its heavy use of Cut and cover where possible even in the city virtually every station will be built to cut and cover I think O'Connell streets will be the only exception which is understandable all of that is very good news for construction Simplicity Lee stations also aim to be fairly shallow goods for accessibility and also allowing for natural light into the trench but where the stations have skylights on the surface Plaza reminds me quite bit of Copenhagen another noteworthy design choice is that a 16th station dardestown is provisionally designed for easy building as an infill site in the future this station will be the location of the system's Depot and the site next to it is preserved solar energy station can be built if the area around develops ensuring that Depots have passenger stations is an often overlooked aspect of system design planning so I am glad that Dublin will be taking the opportunity to do so while also saying the groundwork for major Transit oriented development District so looking at all this in perspective Dublin will Implement a major expansion of frequent electrified rail service across the center across the city in sensible implementable ways light isn't getting more attention internationally it's a shame so I hope this helps to bring the projects on the radar of at least some fans out there

Channel: Skyward LP

Views: 90,676

Keywords: Ireland, Dublin, Transport, Transit, DART, DART+, Metro, Metrolink, Underground, Subway, Trains, Travel, Alstom, Projects, Project, Construction, Future, Development

Id: con3UmkWiA8

Length: 12min 52sec (772 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 26 2023