If you could create underwater tunnels for rail travel...

[Waverley125]

depends really. I'd support the tunnel as part of a greater 'High Speed 3' package, which would do London-Heathrow-Bristol-Cardiff (all on one line, as cutting Bristol-Cardiff journeys to 15 minutes will be a big plus in the Southwest) line, which would extend to Swansea, and to the tunnel mouth.

If built for a 200mph cruising speed, the total mileage to the tunnel portal would be about 265 from London. If you assume 2 stops and braking penalties, lets call that 95 minutes. Doing the tunnel at 60mph, 1 hour, then 95 miles to Dublin. So a total mileage of 420 miles, which with a 200mph cruising speed and 1 hour in the tunnel, would probably take 3 hours. That's very competitve with air, given the quickest flight time is 1hr 10, from Luton, plus 40 minutes getting there, being at the airport an hour before departure, and the 30 minutes getting into Dublin at the other end. Total journey time: 3hr20.

 

[Clip]

Doesnt take me 40 mins to get to either City/Luton or Stanstead airport. Though it would take me the same amount of time to get from Eaast to West London so its all about where you are based really.

And the same would go for cost. People like cheap. Return from £50 from southend? Yup Id take that. how much return for the train? £100+? if not more. They would want to see a return on the investment pretty quickly would they not?

 

[Waverley125]

Well Eurostar does fine, even against airlines, and the key to Rail against Air, is that it provides centre-to-centre journeys. 40 mins is how long it takes to reach Luton from London city centre. Plus most people arrive 2 hours pre-flight, and take longer getting into the city at the other end.

Rail tunnel would also provide a much more competitve (i.e. 2hr30) journey to Cork against current air routes, as well as serving Bristol & South Wales, and destroying the existing rail 'n' sail and car ferry operations, both via Holyhead and Fishguard.

 

[Clip]

Eurostar does well because it travels between 2 Capital cities that are financial behemoths in their own right. I just cannot say the same for Dublin, nor that it attracts as much footfall as Paris does on the E*.

I know its kind of a fantasy thread and I am playing the doom-monger but a little bit of realism is always good to have when discussing these things.

 

[Waverley125]

sorry Clip, but Paris, in European terms, is a financial powderpuff compared to London, Frankfurt, Stockholm or Lisbon. Though it does attract a good amount of tourists, this is also the case for Dublin, which, as I said earlier, is the busiest transport route within the EU both for Tourism (the number of people visiting Dublin on day/weekend trips is staggering) and for Business (Ireland is the UK's single biggest trading partner). Add in Cork, and London-Bristol/Cardiff/Swansea flows, and you've got a serious number of passengers making the journey.

 

[OxtedL]

I may have missed it, but where is your source for this "busiest transport route" lark? Ditto "biggest trading partner"? Putting it in bold doesn't help anyone.

Have you considered that the figures are likely to be skewed in that we have a shared border with RoI whereas everything else we import/export has to do an interesting leap across the sea?

Ignoring this issue, have you actually compared the population sizes of Paris and Dublin? Or that Everything coming from the continent has the option of being routed through Dover-Calais (which is a lot of stuff) whereas the ferry routes to Ireland are much quieter, and it is this which makes the Channel Tunnel close to viable?

 

[Waverley125]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Airport#Passenger_numbers

Busiest 3 routes, all London Airports, total travel London-Dublin 3.5 million people PA. Add in Bristol, 3.7 million. Another 800,000 on the London-Cork route, so let's call that 4.5 million in total. Let's also not forget the 'tourism boost' of people getting the train to Ireland whle using London as a base. Certainly an effect we've seen in London, with Paris do-able as a day trip, or excursion, from London and being much more convenient than flying.

Also you forget that the train is better placed to compete against a ferry on the much longer Irish sea route (i.e. 3 hours crossing time on a ferry v 1 on a train), and that the Holyhead & Fishguard ferries are much less easily accessible than the Dover ferries, given Dover's right at the end of a motorway, whereas Holyhead is along a long, winding, and often congested A Road, and Fishguard is 60 miles down a single carriageway.

 

[Clip]

Indeed the figures do indeed show that the top 3 sirports are indeed London airports. Where your arguement falls down by using these figures is that 2 of them - Gatwick and Heathrow are also hub airports which Dubliners themselves will be using for connecting flights back to Dublin from their holidays. These people would also find it a lot easier to stay within the confines of the airport rather then get out and have to travel to west london to use a train to get to Dublin.

Unless you can convince me that those figures are only for passengers making London - Dublin flights then your arguement for this link is failed based on passenger figures.

 

[Badger]

But they're still travelling from Dublin to London, even if not staying there. Heathrow, at least, could have a station at it.

 

[Waverley125]

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/dublinlondon-air-route-busiest-in-europe-334846.html

London-Dublin busiest air route in Europe, twice as many passengers as the next busiest route (London-Frankfurt), and second busiest city-city air route in the world (after New York-Los Angeles, iirc)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/feb/24/uk-trade-exports-imports

Ok, had it wrong on trading partners, Ireland is only 5th, but it's behind countries we are, or soon will be, connected to via HSR i.e. Germany, France, the Netherlands. It also is our biggest trading partner per capita, having 50% the trade we do with Germany with only 7% of the population.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

But they're still travelling from Dublin to London, even if not staying there. Heathrow, at least, could have a station at it.

Indeed, a London-West Country-Wales line would have to go past Heathrow anyway, it's a logical interconnection.

 

[Clip]

Passenger gets off a Jumbo jet at Heathrow walks through the transfer bulding and gets on a plane to Dublin. Doesnt have to get their bags or anything as all done for them.

Passenger gets of Jumbo and has to get bags- pass through passport control, navigate to the station, wait for train, get on train then go to Dublin and repeat getting off process.

I know what people would then be doing is using connecting flights from other european airports from Dublin instead. Like those with lots of runways.

Also your Independant story is from 2001. And again it does not give figures if these were used mainly by Irish holiday makers(very VERY likely) or business people/normal tourists(small percentage)

EDIT: A quick wiki discovers that the route has dropped somewhat in the years since the indys story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_passenger_air_routes

 

[giblets]

If the proposed Heathrow Spur to HS2 was built, this would overcome some of the issues mentioned about transfer times, and could easily be built into the system.

The biggest question for me would be the whole Holyhead or Fishguard route argument. The Scotland route would take traffic so far round the houses for anyone other than those in Scotland to be unacceptable.
I also think a lot of people are forgetting the large Irish communities in Liverpool and Manchester, who would see little/no benefit to the Southern route (approx 1.5m air passengers, plus large numbers of ferry passengers (see below)

The actual stats for ferry routes (as would be influenced by the shorter travel times, and the tunnel would presumably also take cars)

(2011 figures in thousands)
Roslare Route..............................723
(Fishguard and Milford Haven)
Dublin/Dunloaghare Route..............2,383
(Liverpool, Holyhead, Mostyn)
Scotland-Northern Ireland.............1,857


For London-Dublin there is not a huge difference between the two time wise

Fishguard- Roslare (London-Dublin 2 1/2 hrs)
You go South, and you need to build a high speed extension (what is the current line speed beyond Swansea?) all the way to Fishguard (80m), as well as road links, then a brand new rail route all the way up from Wexford to Dublin (which I don't think there is huge demand for) (both road and rail required) and on to Belfast (200m). This route would also become difficult for any cities in northern England (with their large Irish communities). However, it would support a business case for high speed travel to Swansea.

Holyhead-Dublin (London-Dublin 2 1/2hrs)
Currently the busiest Ferry route due to the shorter distance to Dublin and from Northern English cities.
Go North, and in Ireland, you only need Dublin-Belfast (which is relatively busy), and the rail route along North Wales (80m) needs upgrading. The road would need upgrading, but not to the same extend as Swansea-Fishguard.
This would also make travel from Northern England easier

Scotland-Northern Ireland (London-Dublin 4-4/1/2 hrs)
The second busiest sea route, and the shortest tunnel, requires Belfast-Dublin rail. Also road and rail to stranraer from the west coast mainline. Would be the lengthiest for London travel (and negate adavantages for air travel), great for Scotland though. Expanding the road and rail route on the Scottish side is difficult with the terrain.

So how can your proposed tunnel to Ireland move passengers and probably freight more efficiently then Air can now?

Air freight is somewhat expensive, and there is an awful lot of convention freight that uses air and road already (you could link Felixstowe in easily too).

 

[TrainBoy98]

"At the nearest point America and Russia are less than four kilometres apart" maybe explains that my fact books are faulty.
I like the idea of Scotland/Liverpool to Ireland, and an additional Severn Tunnel. I like everything proposed though including Portsmouth to Ryde, it slipped my mind completely.

This could be true by means of the distance between their claimed water space. There could only be 4km between them but this isnt land to land its international water to international water.

 

[Waverley125]

Passenger gets off a Jumbo jet at Heathrow walks through the transfer bulding and gets on a plane to Dublin. Doesnt have to get their bags or anything as all done for them.

Passenger gets of Jumbo and has to get bags- pass through passport control, navigate to the station, wait for train, get on train then go to Dublin and repeat getting off process.

I know what people would then be doing is using connecting flights from other european airports from Dublin instead. Like those with lots of runways.

Also your Independant story is from 2001. And again it does not give figures if these were used mainly by Irish holiday makers(very VERY likely) or business people/normal tourists(small percentage)

EDIT: A quick wiki discovers that the route has dropped somewhat in the years since the indys story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_passenger_air_routes

yeah, Wikipedia figures for London, Bristol & Birmingham-Dublin still show 4.3 million Annual users though, plus, as Giblets notes, another 700,000 by ferry through wales, and 800,000 flying to Cork. I think 6m pax annually can probably support a tunnel, hmmm?

Also, it's just not true that every single one of the passengers going to London, or even a majority, is changing planes. Where would they change to? Go through the destination lists and find somewhere you'd need to change in London to get to. There's not many of them, I'll tell you that.

Plus, as giblets says, airfreight is expensive, intermodal containers can be taken much quicker and more efficiently by rail into Ireland than by slow ferry.

 

[Clip]

yeah, Wikipedia figures for London, Bristol & Birmingham-Dublin still show 4.3 million Annual users though, plus, as Giblets notes, another 700,000 by ferry through wales, and 800,000 flying to Cork. I think 6m pax annually can probably support a tunnel, hmmm?

Also, it's just not true that every single one of the passengers going to London, or even a majority, is changing planes. Where would they change to? Go through the destination lists and find somewhere you'd need to change in London to get to. There's not many of them, I'll tell you that.

Plus, as giblets says, airfreight is expensive, intermodal containers can be taken much quicker and more efficiently by rail into Ireland than by slow ferry.

Yup Ill take the air freight one but I will not have it about the passengers..

You ask where will they change to? Well seeing how Dublin airport only has 5 inter-continental routes routes from the airport then I would suggest that everywhere else in the world wouldnt you?

Ive just checked for a flight to singapore - popular destination. Just for connecting flights using Heathrow there are 55. Now im guessing thats pretty much the same for any international destination that is not on their route map.


And I have gone through the destination list and used their route map HERE and that only shows 5 inter-continental routes. So again I would say that there are plenty of those using that route to go onwards to anywhere in the world.

 

[TrainBoy98]

Having watched a "Thomas" episode, the suggestion was that most arrivals on Sodor came via the Docks - I didn't spot a connection to Barrow on the far east of the Island - does anyone know whether it was another cut we can blame Beeching for?

In a few of the episodes it was mentioned that Gordon (No. 4) was going to the mainland with a 'special train'. Also in one episode, Flying Scotsman comes over with a train with the queen onboard from barrow.

But yes, im sure beeching wouldve scrapped most of Sodors' rail network...

Maybe this idea isnt too bed. Im gonna work on a proposal for Sodor. Maybe thats where we could put all the Pacers after retirment?

 

[OxtedL]

yeah, Wikipedia figures for London, Bristol & Birmingham-Dublin still show 4.3 million Annual users though, plus, as Giblets notes, another 700,000 by ferry through wales, and 800,000 flying to Cork. I think 6m pax annually can probably support a tunnel, hmmm?

No, not really.

6m passengers isn't a particularly big number when you look at the phenomenal cost of building the tunnel in the first place. Eurostar was carrying that many practically straight away.

You certainly would not get all of them using the train - they may have established travel patterns that are difficult to break or the plane may remain considerably more convenient than the train.

Even if you could somehow steal 50% of travel between Britain and Ireland (which I think is optimistic at best - what about people who want to take their cars? A chunnel style shuttle almost certainly is not viable as it has much further to go and is serving much less demand. Although it could be much quicker than the ferry perhaps), you still aren't taking account of the fact that International travel is much more convenient via Heathrow.

 

[Waverley125]

Yup Ill take the air freight one but I will not have it about the passengers..

You ask where will they change to? Well seeing how Dublin airport only has 5 inter-continental routes routes from the airport then I would suggest that everywhere else in the world wouldnt you?

Ive just checked for a flight to singapore - popular destination. Just for connecting flights using Heathrow there are 55. Now im guessing thats pretty much the same for any international destination that is not on their route map.


And I have gone through the destination list and used their route map HERE and that only shows 5 inter-continental routes. So again I would say that there are plenty of those using that route to go onwards to anywhere in the world.

Well, no. You're still assuming that of all the people flying from Dublin to London, none are actually going to London, they're all going to Singapore....that's mental, and it's not true.

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/5/Connecting_Passengers_at_UK_Airports.pdf

This report shows, 100,000 exchange passengers through Heathrow from Dublin, going to Singapore. So there's still the 2 million others going to London.

As for 'a chunnel couldn't work'. I think it probably good, certainly if you built it north of Swansea at the end of the M4, and widened the line to the tunnel portal rather than the road. Significantly quicker than the ferry:

London-Terminal: Ferry-5 hours Rail-3.5 hours
Interchange time: 30 minutes
Crossing time: Ferry-3 hours Rail: 2 hours

so, 6 hours to get to Rosslare by Chunnel, 8.5 hours by ferry.

I'd also be happy to have a Holyhead-Dublin tunnel built, on a spur from HS2 around Crewe, and that could obviously also take traffic from Manchester, Liverpool & Birmingham as well as London.

 

[Clip]

Well, no. You're still assuming that of all the people flying from Dublin to London, none are actually going to London, they're all going to Singapore....that's mental, and it's not true.

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/5/Connecting_Passengers_at_UK_Airports.pdf

This report shows, 100,000 exchange passengers through Heathrow from Dublin, going to Singapore. So there's still the 2 million others going to London.

.

And that is only 1 destination. Again. If Dublin only has 5 intercontinental routes(of which only 1 looks a popular destination BTW) then it makes sense to believe that London airports are places where they fly into to go to far flung places as they cannot get there direct from Dublin.

Unless you can categorically state that the vast amount of foot passenger traffic for flights between Dublin and London is not for connecting onward flights then my views on this will not be changed.

I know we have a lot of Irish people in London but not enough to warrant a tunnel under the sea.


In fact looking at the busiest routes HERE for 2011 only Stanstead Birmingham and Malaga which are the ones most visitors to the UK itself would use due to the prices being cheaper and a holiday destination and also NY as they fly direct there, each one is a major hub for changing to fly somewhere else so my view on the majority of people flying to London/Gatwick using it to change is not going to alter whatsoever.

 

[Waverley125]

Yes, the only intercontinental route via London that's popular is Singapore. Because Dublin already has flights to Europe, to America, and to the Middle East.

Also, your argument is a negation-I can't prove something isn't, or never has been, true. But I'm guessing if 6 million people a year want to get to London from Ireland, then a substantial amount of them may actually want to go to London. Just maybe.

Also, the entire model you're basing your argument off is flawed, i.e. that there's a certain number of Ireland-London journeys, and how does a rail tunnel redistribute them? This is false. Since Eurostar opened, the number of journeys has not merely stayed stable, it has increased, because Rail is seen as a more attractive and convenient method of transportation. It also opens up new journey opportunities that don't currently exist, for instance Dublin-Paris by rail, and South Wales-Dublin (currently poorly catered for with irregular flights from Bristol and a slow ferry from Fishguard). The biggest growth in London-Paris journeys recently has actually been London tourists day-tripping to Paris on Eurostar, something they can't currently do to Dublin (and quite well might) because it takes too long. Moreover, Ireland's population is slated to hit 8 million in the not too distant future, and 10 million not long after that.

The Irish themselves also want it for freight, as they're looking at a major container port being built in the Shannon Estuary, probably at Foynes or Tarbert, to relieve Rotterdam, for which they'll need a major heavy rail link through to Europe.

 

[Clip]

My entire model is not flawed it is based that the majority of journeys between the 2 cities are going to be for holiday makers using connecting flights to places that they cannot reach from their own airport. It just makes more sense then to say that the vast majoirty are used for this reason only and a smaller minority for holidaying in london.

Its expensive to use airports like Gatwick and Heathrow so holiday makers are using the smaller regional airports of Stanstead and Birmingham and Manchester and soon Southend to visit England and thus using Gatwick and Heathrow for intercontinental destinations.

 

[Waverley125]

actually it's only slightly more expensive to fly Aer Lingus into Heathrow than it is Ryanair into Stansted-it's also a hell of a lot more convenient.

Also, have you not been listening, the amount of trade done between Britain & Ireland is HUGE! The idea that Irish peeople are making 2 million journeys a year, all to Heathrow, all to go somewhere else is ridiculous.

 

[Clip]

actually it's only slightly more expensive to fly Aer Lingus into Heathrow than it is Ryanair into Stansted-it's also a hell of a lot more convenient.

Also, have you not been listening, the amount of trade done between Britain & Ireland is HUGE! The idea that Irish peeople are making 2 million journeys a year, all to Heathrow, all to go somewhere else is ridiculous.

See you are making up things . I never said all. I said most.

People are mainly interested in the bottom line when travelling by air within Europe. Whilst Im not going to sit there and trawl through every flight path and price I would suggest that most tourists would use regional airports - as is bourne out by the figures to regional airports that do not have intercontinental connections. Yet the one airport that does have intercontinental connections has the highest numbers of passengers.

And being a major trading country does not automatically mean people ping back and forth by plane to do such business. Thats why we have other ways of communicating nowadays.

There is no way that my arguement about this can ever be said to be ridiculous. It makes more sens then to think that 1.5 million people pay a higher fare to go to Hethrow than pay less to go to a regional. Common sense and peoples quest for 'The cheapest' bears this out and as we both dont have figures that accurately show you can keep thinking what you think and ill keep thinking what I think.

 

[Waverley125]

1.5 million-yeah, all going to places you can't get to from Dublin. Where would that be, exactly?

Also, remember that Frankfurt and Schiphol actually offer better intercontinental connections, and that Dublin already has flights to New York, Boston, Chicago, and every major city in europe.

I highly doubt there are 1.5 million Irish flying to Beijing ever year.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
also remember the cost of getting into London from Stansted, Luton & Gatwick is higher than that of Heathrow, and that many people (myself included) want to avoid using the cheap and nasty 'budget' airlines, and would much prefer an Aer Lingus/British Airways service to Heathrow than a Ryanair or Easyjet one to Gatwick or Stansted.

 

[giblets]

I'm still intrigued about this obsession with purely London-Dublin travel. With HS2 in place, there would be plenty of other opportunities for travel. Currently this is not done for Eurotunnel as A: The trains have to pass/change through London anyway, B: they lose the time advantage vs jets, and C: passport control, which would not be the case for the Ireland link.

Again, the other destinations:
Passenger Numbers for Belfast int'l '(in thousands)
L'pool.........422
Stanstead...356
Gatwick......341
Heathrow....289
Luton........144

Then there is Belfast City:
Heathrow....522
Stanstead...328
Gatwick......215

that's an extra 2.6m people who could potentially use the tunnel (and at similar travel time as air travel).

Never Mind the Other UK destinations that are served from here, and Dublin (Brum 540, Manc 520, Bristol 323, Liverpool 308), there is another 1.6m people.

So we have just found another 4.2m people who could use the route...sorted.

 

[Clip]

1.5 million-yeah, all going to places you can't get to from Dublin. Where would that be, exactly?

So you are forgetting or not reading what I have posted before with the route map of Dublin airport*?

Do you think people holidays just revolve around the United states or Europe?

Tell you what i give up.

You can fly to everywhere in the world from Dublin airport. There are direct flights every day/week to every major country and capital city the world over. Dublin is, in fact, one of the major hub airports and offers more destinations around the world than Heathrow offers.

I can imagine the millions of Irish people who travel to Enfidha every year - which is one of the intercontinental routes. Its THAT popular.

Every person who flies to London is a tourist strictly for the uk or a businessman.They have no need to use both Heathrow and Gatwick as hub airports because they can get everywhere from Dublin.

*For those who are as bored of this as I am and think that 19 flights a day to Heathrow through the week are only for tourists and business people who want to stay in the UK may be pleased to know that the other 4 routes are the middle east the states and Morocco.

There we go - you can get every where from Dublin if you want the mid east the states Tunisia or Morocco.

No changing for you guys.

 

[Badger]

For those who say a train replacing a plane won't work because trains don't have the luggage interchanges/capacities, and don't go into the air terminals, what exactly is there to say that future trains can't?

I know it's a controversial subject but imagine a situation where we had to scale back air travel due to global warming, or energy consumption, or something like that, feasibly you could have trains running from Dublin to Heathrow that have luggage coaches that interchange in the same way that plane to plane luggage works (there's not much difference between a train and a plane's cargo holds once they're on the ground and in an airport, surely).

Not saying specifically just for Dublin of course. It's something to consider though (and this route (not necessarily the same train) would also potentially serve Cardiff, Bristol, and Belfast).

I'm not sure entirely how it would work but I bet it could. Journey times would be similar too, if not improved.

That's purely a "what if we had to" of course.

In my opinion any air services that can be replaced with a train with the same timings and capacity should aim to do so.

 

[Waverley125]

I've never said that some people flying Dublin-Heathrow aren't changing. I am contending your assertion, never backed up with any kind of fact, that most of them are, and that 2 million pax Heathrow-Dublin just gets written off potential traffic.

 

[Clip]

I've never said that some people flying Dublin-Heathrow aren't changing. I am contending your assertion, never backed up with any kind of fact, that most of them are, and that 2 million pax Heathrow-Dublin just gets written off potential traffic.

I didn't write it off though. Dont start making statements that I did. I have said that the majority of people using this route would be for changing. And your just thinking of English/Irish people. I talking people from around the world who want to visit Ireland. No direct flights mean they need a hub airport... ahh sod it im repeating myself.


Id also like to point out that you yourself have not backed up your opinion with any hard fact either so don't try and use that against me as its a cheap shot and really not worth your time nor effort of putting it in when you have nowt either is it.


Oh and it shows you dont bother reading the facts that I do put in front of you - its only 1.5 million pax that use that route. And bearing in mind 100K of them are connecting to Singapore(from a pop of 6 million) thats just under 10% of all the journeys made on that route to just 1 place.

Now think of all the other popular destinations that you cannot get direct too from Dublin, oh sorry, I forgot, according to you there isnt anywhere you cant get to direct from Dublin, so my idea of using Singapore as a measurement and nearly 10 other destinations at roughly the same numbers would never come close to 1.5 million people would it. My apologies.

 

[Eire Sprinter]

Could always try a Co. Wexford to Pembrokeshire bridge...

Like this...

http://www.architecturefoundation.ie/vb06/spread/hp_spread.pdf

It quite likely would be cheaper than a tunnel.

Doubt it will happen but generations into the future who knows...