That is probably a better idea.
But then there is the big question of how much this will cost, it doesn't sound like a cheap proposal.
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
The proposed Northern Ireland to Scotland tunnel - it is now confirmed will not be built
- Thread starter _toommm_
- Start date
- Status
But then there is the big question of how much this will cost, it doesn't sound like a cheap proposal.
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Since this clearly isn't working well for lorries at the moment, given the vast numbers being re-routed via Ireland-France direct ferry routes, why would it be any easier on a train?
6 trains each way doesn’t seem like a market to build a new railway for.
Probably not.
Tomos y Tanc
Member
- Joined
- 1 Jul 2019
- Messages
- 646
This comment from the chair of the NI select committee is probably not what the proponants of the scheme wanted to hear.
“The trains could be pulled by an inexhaustible herd of unicorns overseen by stern, officious dodos, a PushmePullYou could be the senior guard and Puff the Magic Dragon the inspector. Let’s concentrate on making the protocol work and put the hallucinogenics down.”
www.theguardian.com
“The trains could be pulled by an inexhaustible herd of unicorns overseen by stern, officious dodos, a PushmePullYou could be the senior guard and Puff the Magic Dragon the inspector. Let’s concentrate on making the protocol work and put the hallucinogenics down.”
Irish Sea rail tunnel plan derided as Doctor Dolittle fantasy
Senior Tory Simon Hoare suggests ‘putting the hallucinogenics down’ and making the protocol work
Gloster
Established Member
There does seem to be a slightly old-fashioned colonial attitude here. We will do want we want and then the Irish will jolly well have to make changes to their railways to fit what we have done.
Good to see much more sensible comments coming from the NI select committee than from number 10!This comment from the chair of the NI select committee is probably not what the proponants of the scheme wanted to hear.
“The trains could be pulled by an inexhaustible herd of unicorns overseen by stern, officious dodos, a PushmePullYou could be the senior guard and Puff the Magic Dragon the inspector. Let’s concentrate on making the protocol work and put the hallucinogenics down.”
Irish Sea rail tunnel plan derided as Doctor Dolittle fantasy
Senior Tory Simon Hoare suggests ‘putting the hallucinogenics down’ and making the protocol work
Is this true? I'm not doubting it, but I have not heard it before. What is the difference in journey times between France to Ireland direct, as opposed to France - England - Wales - Ireland? Will it help reduce the volume of traffic going through Calais and Dover, reducing the post-Brexit delays there?
d9009alycidon
Member
The people proposing this idea should read "Cairnryan Military Port 1940-1996" by Richard Holme, a very interesting book and he describes the period when the port was used to load the surplus munitions on to ships for transport to the dumping areas at Beafort's Dyke and also tow German "U" boats away for scuttling. He makes the point that the dumping was supposed to be done carefully and that the material was to be carefully disposed of in designated areas where the North Channel was deepest, however things frequently did not go to plan due to the usual bad weather in the North Channel and apparently the sea bed is littered with dangerous debris well outside the designated areas.
Wikipedia states: "Munitions have since been deposited by the tide on nearby beaches. In 1995, phosphorus bombs washed up on Scottish coasts, coinciding with the laying of the Scotland-Northern Ireland pipeline. In the prior five years, antitank grenades had been washing up on Northern Irish and Isle of Man shores. An explosion was registered as a 2.5 Magnitude earthquake on 8 February 1986"
Wikipedia states: "Munitions have since been deposited by the tide on nearby beaches. In 1995, phosphorus bombs washed up on Scottish coasts, coinciding with the laying of the Scotland-Northern Ireland pipeline. In the prior five years, antitank grenades had been washing up on Northern Irish and Isle of Man shores. An explosion was registered as a 2.5 Magnitude earthquake on 8 February 1986"
There's a thread in the other transport section. So far since December, DFDS have started a new daily sailing to Dunkirk, Stena have doubled capacity to Cherbourg, Brittany Ferries have opened up new routes to St Malo and Roscoff, as well as starting Cherbourg early, Cobelfret have added extra sailings to Zeebrugge, Rotterdam and Iberia (I think), Irish Ferries have added extra capacity on Dublin - Cherbourg and apparently P&O are considering adding sailings. Traffic from Rosslare to the continent is up 500%. This is in addition to the already added routes by Cobelfret and the Brittany Ferries services to Spain that were introduced last year.
Yes, it is likely to reduce the volume of traffic through Dover. I could also see some of the marginal routes from Ireland to the UK closing or much reduced (Dublin-Liverpool, Rosslare - Fishguard/Pembroke for example), as they must have lost half their freight to direct routes to the EU.
Going via direct ferry does add a not-insignificant time penalty compared to a theoretical "shortest possible" trip via the UK - even up to ten or eleven extra hours by some sources - but the "shortest possible" trip doesn't include mandated rest periods for heavy-vehicle drivers and possible road and border delays. Since the direct ferry eliminates one ferry embarkation and disembarkation, and bypasses border formalities at both ends, and additionally can be counted as a rest period by drivers it makes it not only competitive but arguably more reliable.
https://www.ft.com/content/164afe66-6130-454a-ba0b-459c9b5511fd
Tomos y Tanc
Member
- Joined
- 1 Jul 2019
- Messages
- 646
Tha facts are pretty plain. According to the BBC;
"Rosslare's January traffic to the UK was down 49% on January 2019. However, its European freight was up 446% as that route allows them stay in the EU and avoid customs documentation."
Brexit: Call to cut Welsh ports in a bid to boost trade
Wales should reduce its two ports in Pembrokeshire to one, a port manager in Ireland says.
www.bbc.co.uk
fishwomp
Member
To be fair - there's been a pandemic affecting all sorts of trade, and Brexit stockpiling. I don't doubt an impact, and large impact though.Tha facts are pretty plain. According to the BBC;
"Rosslare's January traffic to the UK was down 49% on January 2019. However, its European freight was up 446% as that route allows them stay in the EU and avoid customs documentation."
Brexit: Call to cut Welsh ports in a bid to boost trade
Wales should reduce its two ports in Pembrokeshire to one, a port manager in Ireland says.www.bbc.co.uk
FWIW, direct Cork(?)/Rosslare/Dublin to the continent ferries are few, I think they doubled in January to make up for the problems, even if they tripled or quadrupled it doesn't compare much to the 4 daily from South Wales, the 6(ish?) from North Wales, and the four from Cairnryan, or the one(?) from Liverpool to Belfast, the one(?) from Liverpool to Dublin etc. The trade between UK and the island of Ireland is huge.
One ship can make a lot of daily sailings for a 4 hour trip, a 12 hour one locks up your ship for far longer.
The other challenge is where those 6 trains start and end from.. the airports and ferry terminals source custom from all parts of UK and Ireland. A Bristol - Cork via Stranraer is never going to take off unlike the plane (or the South Wales ferries, but they don't take off these days since the cat finished).
Making supply greater and consumption easier always increases usage, but..
At the end of the day - there are economic arguments (bad ones) but this is political grande projets!
Last edited:
berneyarms
Established Member
The Irish Seanad (Senate) Committee on Brexit meeting today with Irish road hauliers and the port authorities from Dublin and Rosslare certainly didn’t see things in that light.
What I got from it was that there was likely only to be further increases of direct sailings to/from Europe, at the expense of UK sailings. The latter are carrying far less freight - that’s not changing.
It’s nothing to do with making up for problems but rather the reality that the direct sailings offer certainty of delivery times and none of the hassle that going through GB now does.
This thread below started the discussion. But there have been plenty of additional direct continental sailings added since either lo-lo or ro-ro.
DFDS launch "brexit bypass" Rosslare-Dunkerque freight ferry route
This is a fairly big move DFDS opens direct Ireland – France ferry route After Brexit: A new freight ferry route between Rosslare and Dunkerque offers lorries and their drivers direct and paperless transport between EU countries. On 2 January 2021, DFDS will commence sailings on a new...
www.railforums.co.uk
Last edited:
charley_17/7
Member
As the earlier poster alluded to, surely the true market is/was Dublin - London, which, along with Amsterdam - London, is/was one of the busiest air travel markets in Europe.
Given that HS2 was being built as far as Crewe, an upgrade of the North Wales Coast Line, and a tunnel beyond Holyhead, combined with a HS2 - HS1 link, could have given us a Dublin - London - Amsterdam (- Berlin).
If only we hadn't have had the Tories in 1992, imagine how much further we'd be now, instead of going further backwards!
Given that HS2 was being built as far as Crewe, an upgrade of the North Wales Coast Line, and a tunnel beyond Holyhead, combined with a HS2 - HS1 link, could have given us a Dublin - London - Amsterdam (- Berlin).
If only we hadn't have had the Tories in 1992, imagine how much further we'd be now, instead of going further backwards!
py_megapixel
Established Member
Fair enough.
But from a cynical perspective, it does seem to me that this project would be a convenient thing for government to point to as an example - an excuse, of sorts, when people claim there that there is too little (actually meaningful) investment in rail transport. Or to put it another way, Boris gets his wonderful statement of unionism but also gets to attribute the costs of it to rail, so it looks as if public transport is getting investment even though in reality it isn't.
Extending that cynical perspective I can't help but suspect that quite a few people would then be upset that such a vast and extravagant sum of money was being being spent on rail transport outside England.
Spain has dual gauge high speed trains which would resolve the gauge problem.
The services would be something like:
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Liverpool
Manchester
Birmingham
London
Belfast to Dublin would need to be rebuilt to provide viable journey times. Ironically for a unionist project, it would rely on most services continuing to Dublin to have a half viable business case.
With some upgrades in Cumbria London to Belfast in 3.5 hours and Dublin in under 5 would be viable through a high speed line between Belfast and the WCML. The former would take most of the market but the latter would be niche, maybe a one morning and one evening service per day. Birmingham would have more competitive journey times but is a much smaller market.
Manchester and Liverpool would be more competitive and pre pandemic had multiple flights to both. Glasgow and Edinburgh to Beflast and Dublin would have very competitive journey times.
I reckon the passenger service could equal the Channel Tunnel:
1tph from London to Belfast by extending HS2 service that is due to terminate in Lancashire. Would also serve significant parts of the North West. 2tpd extended to Dublin.
Shorter HS sets:
1tpd from Birmingham Curzon Street to Dublin via Belfast.
1tph Scotland to Dublin service, alternating between Edinburgh and Glasgow and becoming the main Belfast - Dublin service.
2tpd from Liverpool to Dublin via Belfast
2tpd from Manchester to Dublin via Belfast
That would be a total of about 37 services per day each way through the tunnel. It would need solid freight traffic to be half viable.
Its not as mad as its being made out to be but it would be a political not economic project. Even if the UK government decided to fund it, I doubt it would get the legal guarantees from Dublin and Edinburgh that it would need to avoid picking up the bill in event of Irish unity and / or Scottish independence.
It would clearly be a political project. The obvious (political) solution would be to extend HS2 services (e.g. Preston-Lancaster terminator) and run services from smaller cities with shorter high speed trains comparable in length to 5 car 800s. It would need to part of a HS cross country network to make any sense.
Dublin to Crewe would require a tunnel about twice as long and a rebuild of the North Wales main line. Possibly cheaper but an enormous project.
py_megapixel
Established Member
I think people would be upset by such expenditure on a blatant politically motivated white elephant which will struggle to compete with other modes and therefore provide little meaningful improvement in connectivity, regardless of which of the constituent countries it served.
If you compare it to a Northern Ireland tunnel, the case for HS2 - which, of course, is entirely in England - is virtually flawless - and look how upset some people are by that!
Nottingham59
Established Member
Let's just build a tunnel between Manchester and Huddersfield, to give a four track railway from Manc to Leeds. That's what's needed.
chiltern trev
Member
Pre Covid;
Cairnryan - Belfast, Stena Line, 2 ships, 6 sailings each way each day.
Cairnryan - Larne, P and O, 2 ships, 6 sailings each way each day.
Also sailings from Heysham to Belfast and Warrenpoint - several each way daily.
Niferry.co.uk covers all Irish Sea ferries - Stena, Irish, P&O, Brittany, etc and all ports from Larne down to Cork. The site originaly started with just covering Northern Ireland.
Last edited:
Funnily enough, for Scotland and Northern Ireland the pouring of money into HS2 and other England-only projects (not to mention London-only like Crossrail) isn't all bad news because of the Barnett consequentials. Sucks to be the rest of England though.
I do agree with your point, mind.
CentralTrainer
Member
- Joined
- 1 Feb 2017
- Messages
- 359
Is there nothing to be said for just using a catapult instead?
fishwomp
Member
Sadly not, sonic boom avoidance would limit to launch speed of just 343m/s on a dry day, although these are rare and speed of sound in rain is higher which permits a faster launch speed. At this figure, about 11km is the range at 45 degree launch angle, sadly too short, even before calculating for the prevailing westerly winds which would be a problem.
Perhaps a aerofoil may give more range to the projectile. Equally, such an aerofoil shape, perhaps with a wing mounted propulsion mechanism, could keep it aloft and go not just to Larne, but all the way into Belfast? I have a picture of this Idea somewhere..
If only the Irish hadn't demanded exit from the United Kingdom, and Operation Sealion had been successful, then we could have been much further even than that.....
RyanOPlasty
Member
To avoid the Beaufort dyke, and avoid the problem of Scottish independence and shorten the distance to most of England, just add a Bridge between Sodor and the Isle of Man, and then start the tunnel from there.
Assuming this even happens, I would run the Scotland to Dublin service starting at Edinburgh, running to Glasgow Central and then reversing to go down the Ayrshire Coast (assuming a link is built between Ayr and Cairnryan?), serving both per hour instead of alternating.
Uh would many people use it? I’d just fly
- Status