So, over the next few years, it is planned to more than double the capacity of Dublin's commuter rail network. Pretty much all of the commuter rail network meets at Connolly station (closest thing Dublin has to a central station; for historical reasons it kind of has two barely-connected ones), which has only three through platforms and is already overloaded at peak times. Worryingly, no-one has even started talking about upgrading Connolly yet. The commuter rail network upgrade is split into four largely concurrent stages, and none of them _on their own_ are likely to break anything, but when they're all done it seems completely impossible that Connolly could cope.
There are worse things than expensively and slowly upgrading a station. Such as not doing that even though it will obviously be needed by, at latest, 2028 or so.
(I _think_ maybe Irish Rail's rationale is that people on the western and south-western commuter lines will transfer to Metrolink a few stations before Connolly, but see above; Metrolink stubbornly persists in not existing.)
To be clear, thus far that cost is _before anything is built_ (except for one station box which will not now be used because it's in the wrong place for the current design). It does look like it will finally go ahead now, but it had been a long, long road to get there.
How dare you
The MetroLink, planned since 2000 ... has consumed €200 million of public money
Amateurs, the UK's HS2 is estimated to cost £100 billion
Indeed. One of the train stations here in Berlin is currently about 20 years behind schedule and costs were €154 million 5 years ago: https://newsroom.strabag.com/en/press-releases/group/2022-10...
Actually worst-run European nations would be, what, probably Hungary if you're only counting EU and Russia if you're not limited to EU?
So, over the next few years, it is planned to more than double the capacity of Dublin's commuter rail network. Pretty much all of the commuter rail network meets at Connolly station (closest thing Dublin has to a central station; for historical reasons it kind of has two barely-connected ones), which has only three through platforms and is already overloaded at peak times. Worryingly, no-one has even started talking about upgrading Connolly yet. The commuter rail network upgrade is split into four largely concurrent stages, and none of them _on their own_ are likely to break anything, but when they're all done it seems completely impossible that Connolly could cope.
There are worse things than expensively and slowly upgrading a station. Such as not doing that even though it will obviously be needed by, at latest, 2028 or so.
(I _think_ maybe Irish Rail's rationale is that people on the western and south-western commuter lines will transfer to Metrolink a few stations before Connolly, but see above; Metrolink stubbornly persists in not existing.)
To be clear, thus far that cost is _before anything is built_ (except for one station box which will not now be used because it's in the wrong place for the current design). It does look like it will finally go ahead now, but it had been a long, long road to get there.