Irish Railway Record Society

LUAS

RAILWAY PROCUREMENT AGENCY

RED LINE OPENING

The official opening of the Luas Red Line, from Tallaght to Connolly station, took place on Tuesday 28 September. Speaking at the ceremony, which was held adjacent to the Tallaght terminus, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern T.D. commented that the Luas system was a powerful statement of the Government’s view of the Dublin ’s future. He said that the Red Line, linking as it does the three main transport hubs (Connolly, Heuston and Busaras), the Financial Services Centre, two large hospitals and educational facilities, would change the perception of the city.

Following the ceremony five trams, 3012/11/26/22/07, were used to convey the invited guests to Connolly station. The Taoiseach and Minister for Transport travelled on the first tram from the Tallaght terminus, 3012. The published journey time from Tallaght to Connolly is 43 minutes, but it had become clear during the period of trial running that this could not be achieved initially. The special trams from Tallaght took in the region of 50 – 55 minutes to reach Connolly station.

Services were opened to all intending passengers immediately after the last of the guests’ trams had completed its journey. Services operated free of charge until close of business on Sunday 3 October. It is estimated that in excess of 225,000 passengers availed of the offer.

SERVICES

Green Line A full 5-minute interval service between St. Stephen’s Green and Sandyford requires 11 trams to be in operation. However, following the St. Stephen’s Green collision on 17 September (see below) two trams, 4002 and 4012, had to be withdrawn for major repairs. As a consequence there was only one spare vehicle and if this and another vehicle were undergoing maintenance then there would be insufficient vehicles available for the full service to be operated.

Such an occurrence was noted on 4 November when four trams were unavailable for traffic, 4002 and 4012 as outlined above, as well as 4001 and 4013. The use of just ten trams resulted in a 10-minute interval occurring once every hour. For example, at St. Stephen’s Green there were gaps at 15.48-15.58 and 16.43-16.53, while at the Sandyford terminus gaps were at 16.15-16.25 and 17.10-17.20.

To partly compensate for the loss in capacity and to provide an additional vehicle to allow the full 5-minute interval service be operated, it was decided to transfer a 30-metre tram from the Red line. There were surplus trams available on the Red Line as the full level of service was not yet being operated. The transfer took place during the night of 11/12 November when 3002 was conveyed by low-loader from the Red Cow depot to Sandyford.

Red Line   At the start of December the level of service was increased from the initial 10-minute interval to a 7¹/₂-minute interval. End to end journey times have been reduced from the 50-55 minutes at the start of services, initially to 48 minutes and by the start of December to 46 minutes. The target time is 43 minutes.

TRAFFIC

Approximately 70,000 people travelled on the Red and Green lines on Friday 17 December, the busiest day up to then on the Luas system. Over 6 million passengers had travelled on Luas by the end of December. This is in addition to the approximately 655,000 passengers who travelled free of charge to celebrate the launch of the Red and Green lines. The two lines carried 1.8 million passengers in the month of December alone.

The arrival of Luas has provided a major boost for businesses in the city centre. Grafton Street has seen a 20% increase in pedestrian traffic since the Green line opened at the end of June. Thursday nights have seen a 30% increase in late night shopping, compared to the previous year.

Commenting on the figures, the Chairman of the RPA stated that the ‘feedback from traders, residents and the public at large has been wonderful and indeed the requests are flooding in for new extensions to various parts of the City’. The RPA expects to carry in excess of 20 million passengers in 2005, when enhancements to the Red line will increase its capacity.

Green Line   The Green line, which links Sandyford with St. Stephen’s Green, has now been open since the end of June. The average weekly passenger numbers on this line for the period is 160,000. Passenger numbers per day grew from 20,000 a day in August to 30,000 per day by mid-December, with over 4 million journeys by the end of the year.

On Mondays to Thursdays there are clearly defined a.m. and p.m. peaks with traffic after the latter falling quite considerably. However, on Fridays, traffic levels remain high until late in the evening. Saturday is the busiest day on the Green line.

Fare compliance is high with only about 1% evasion being detected. For those caught without a valid ticket there is a standard penalty fare of €45.

Red Line   By the 13th week of operation, the average number of passengers carried was 180,000 per week and by the end of the year more than 2 million journeys had been made.

LUAS EXTENSIONS

Line AB   The Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen T.D., has announced that he is to bring plans for a surface connection between the Green (St. Stephen’s Green-Sandyford) and Red (Tallaght-Connolly) Luas lines to the Cabinet. It is envisaged that the new link would start from an end on connection with the Green line at St. Stephen’s Green, then run via Dawson St. , Nassau St. , Grafton St. , College Green and Westmorland St. , before crossing O’Connell Bridge to make a connection with the Red line at the O’Connell St./Abbey St. inter-section. There would be two stops on the line. The Minister stated that the €70m line should be completed in approximately two years.

The original CIÉ light rail scheme was for a single route linking Tallaght to Balally (later extended to Sandyford), including a surface section from Abbey St. to St. Stephen’s Green. The latter section was rejected by the Government and was replaced by the line to Connolly station. The Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) will re-examine these plans and modify them to suit the changed environment since they were originally drawn up.

Already objections are being raised to the proposed line. Dublin Bus, a CIÉ Group company, has stated that a sizeable proportion of its routes would be affected by the line, while Trinity College has raised concerns about suggestions that part of its boundary wall would have to be moved or demolished. The RPA feels that the bus/tram interaction can be achieved without compromising either operation and has dismissed suggestions that it intends interfering with Trinity’s wall.

Line B1   Since the public consultation process relating to the extension of the Green Line from Sandyford to Cherrywood, line B1, commenced in late 2000, the RPA has been receiving representations from interested parties. Initially the consultation process focused on the selection of best overall route alignment and then on the design of the line, including track alignment, location of stops, car parks, etc. More recently the RPA has engaged in a significant amount of discussions with developers in the vicinity of the proposed route to ensure that the plans for the line facilitate developments. The discussions also focused on how these developers might contribute towards the construction of the line and are at an advanced stage. The RPA has also been work-ing in close conjunction with the local authority,  Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.  The council has put a development levy in place and funds raised by this will go towards the establishment of the line.

In the RPA’s preferred option, the route of the extension would commence where the Green line currently enters the depot site. Leaving the course of the former Harcourt Street rail line the proposed extension would then run along the east side of Blackthorn Avenue before crossing Burton Hall Road at grade. The line would then ramp up to a bridge over the Leopardstown Road roundabout and then enter the Central Park business park complex where there would be a stop. The line would then cross the M50 motorway on a bridge to a stop at Glencairn. The route would continue along the east side of Murphystown Road , before turning southwards to reach Ballyogan Road .

Following the northern side of Ballyogan Road there would be stops at The Gallops, (at Glencairn Crescent), Leopardstown Valley, (at the shopping centre), and at Ballyogan Wood, the last named being additional to the stops proposed in the original scheme. The line would then cross the M50 for a second time before rejoining the Harcourt Street alignment just north of the Glenamuck Road overbridge. There would be a stop called Racecourse at this location. This stop, also additional to the original proposal, would initially only be used on days when there were meetings at the adjacent Leopardstown racecourse.

Carrickmines stop would be situated immediately south of the platforms of the former Carrickmines station. There would be a 350-space Park+Ride site here. The next stop would be at Brennanstown, adjacent to Brennanstown Vale, after which the line would pass under the new ‘ Spine Road ’ serving the Laughanstown/Cherrywood development site. Laughanstown stop would be a short distance south of where the line would cross Laughans-town Road . Approximately 120-metres south of the platforms here there would be a trailing crossover. This would allow services run to the Laughanstown stop if there were to be a delay in completing the final section through the Cherrywood development. South of the Laugh-anstown crossover, the line would diverge again from the Harcourt Street rail alignment. This would allow the proposed extension to better serve the Cherrywood development.

The remainder of this article appears in IRRS Journal number 156, published February 2005.

Copyright © 2005 by Irish Railway Record Society Limited
Revised: June 14, 2005 .