All Island Rail Review final report analysis – how are those buffers looking?

Brian took a brief look at the final report a couple of weeks ago, but real life has stopped me taking much more than an even briefer look up to now.

Last year, I did a fairly in-depth review of the draft report, which Mick generously described as “proper scepticism.”  I’m not going to repeat the analysis today, rather I’m going to look at what has changed between the two, but will it be enough for me to change what I still call my cynicism to optimism?

The final review has 32 recommendations – the two new ones, for accessibility and ten year reviews, are shown below.  Fermanagh remains excluded.

The key changes from the draft report are summarised as:

• A specific new recommendation to continue to invest in improving accessibility on the rail network, including rolling out step-free access more widely. The Review also commits to undertake Equality Impact Assessments when schemes are taken forward for future development.
• A new recommendation for both jurisdictions to undertake a refresh of this Review once a decade.
• The Report has been amended to clarify that the proposed new railway between Derry~Londonderry and Portadown should be designed to accommodate line speeds up to 200km/h, as was the intention in the Draft Final Report.
• The Report has been amended to reflect plans to improve connectivity to the South- East – as outlined in the latest Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy – to include the extension of the DART network to Wicklow.
• The timeline for delivery has been adjusted to bring forward the reinstatement of the North Midlands railway between Portadown and Armagh from a long-term to a medium-term horizon.,
• Maps have been amended to include a proposed new station at Craigavon.
• Some technical wording has been adjusted to reflect the high-level nature of the Review (e.g. removing references to in-cab signalling).
• A reference has been added to the Executive Summary on safeguarding alignments identified for future railways and stations.

One of the things I missed first time round was why they selected particular towns.  The threshold was set of 10,000, which includes Enniskillen, Cookstown, Newtownards, Downpatrick, Dunshaughlin, Ashbourne, Swords and Carrigaline (near Cork).  Newtownards is ruled out because it is a commuter town (surely a strategic review should include connectivity for commuters instead of deferring to regional transport plans?), Cookstown was ruled out due to the Sperrins, despite once having had branch lines from Magherafelt and Dungannon, and Enniskillen is ruled out because it is so remote from population centres – specific work was done identifying that a line from Omagh to Enniskillen would not have sufficient demand to be viable.  Notably, the only Donegal town with a population over 10,000 is Letterkenny.

The reference under opoortiunities to improve passenger experience at stations and trains have now been updated to include cleanliness and accessibility for all users regardless of disability.  I think cleanliness had originally been taken as read, but this is now said about accessibility:

• Improving the accessibility of the railway, particularly for those with mobility needs. This should include step-free access to and within stations and, where future interventions allow, step-free rolling stock.
• Providing better information about accessibility on on-line platforms and using audio-visual announcements on trains and at stations.

The Portadown-Armagh railway society is rewarded for its hard work (seriously – these guys have done their homework) with reopening to Armagh promoted to the medium term, ie the 2030s.

The more cynical among us would have to note that the new hourly service Belfast-Dublin will continue to crawl along behind the DART, and it will get worse when DART+ is introduced to Drogheda.  Not very good for strategic connectivity, unless the relief lines shown in the report are built so that express trains can be expresses (see the featured image at the top, with thanks to Brian for telling this wordy writer how to handle images!), with even worse problems on the Rosslare line.

Ultimately, it’s all very well to talk about the impact on congestion:

• Analysis for this Review indicates it would: reduce congestion on the island’s road networks, reduce accidents, improve air quality, reduce noise, and reduce the carbon footprint of the transport sector. There would also be reduced carbon emissions from railway operations, and mode shift would add further carbon benefits.
• The recommendations could deliver a significant boost to the productivity of the economy in both jurisdictions through promoting agglomeration – that is, productivity arising from pooling and sharing of resources and knowledge across labour markets and between cities and major economic hubs.

It is also all very well to talk about electrification and decarbonisation, but a year ago I was cynical about the chances of seeing much progress north or south.  In that year, we have at least had the return of the Assembly, but until money is committed to implementation, I will continue not to stand too close to the buffers the review appears to be approaching, and I will definitely not hold my breath.

Andy has a very wide range of interests including Christianity, Lego, transport, music, the Alliance Party, chess and computers. Anything can appear in a post.

Andy tweets at @andyboal