The Irish Times view on faster trains: can’t they arrive quicker?

Jaded Irish Rail passengers can be forgiven for rolling their eyes at another promise of a faster and more efficient service at some time in the future. This week it is the turn of the commuters on the Dublin to Cork line to be offered a glimpse of the sunlit uplands where trains will run every half hour and commuting times will fall to less than two hours. Unfortunately, it will be at least 10 years before they get there.

The proposed improvements to the spine of the rail network were outlined in a 2024 All-Island Strategic Rail Review Report. This week Irish Rail provided an update on progress . The company has commissioned € 5.2 million worth of studies to determine how best to implement recommendations in respect of the Dublin to Cork line.

The decision to prioritise this route is pragmatic. The rail company believes that it can deliver significant improvements by working with what it has rather than building new infrastructure with all that entails, the tortuous planning process for Dublin’s MetroLink being a case in point.

Irish Rail says it can expedite the introduction of faster trains by upgrading the existing permanent way, improving the signaling system and other measures that do not require additional land and by implication will have an easier passage through the planning system.

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On this basis the prospect of the number of peak-time trains doubling within three to five years seems realistic. The fuller plan – which will see electric trains running every half-hour, making commuting from towns like Thurles much more viable – seems less so.

Absent the implementation of further reforms to the planning system, such as limiting the scope of third parties to bring judicial reviews, even the mid-2030s timescale proposed by Irish Rail seems optimistic.

Irish Rail cannot be faulted for working around the process. But the fact that critical national infrastructure that will improve the lives of almost all of us is hostage to a dysfunctional system is a further illustration that the planning tail wags the national dog.