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Railways

The railways in this country have been largely replaced by the roads, mainly because the road can provide door to door service, whereas the railway postulates only centres of distribution It is obvious that the wear and tear and damage inflicted in carrying heavy goods along roads is excessively great when compared with that of carrying the goods by rail, but the other side of the question is no so generally recognised.

The wear and tear on a railway due to increasing traffic is much less than that on a road. The difference can be seen in the fact that the main line to Cork has a rail life of some 50 years and a sleeper life of some 35 years as compared with a rail life of 10 years and a sleeper life of 20 years for the very much busier English railways. The excess of traffic in England is far greater than the relative difference in cost of upkeep. The result is that few railway lines in this country are run to anything like their full capacity and yet the cost of upkeep such as the replacement of sleepers remains virtually the same as if we had a dozen trains for every train we actually run. The result will, in our view, be the gradual closing down of many of the smaller branch lines in the country as and when the lines become unfit for use and heavy expenditure on repairs falls due.

We base our plan for Dublin upon a hoped for increase in population and prosperity during the next 50 or 100 years. If this were to increase rail traffic proportionately the railways might again come into their own, but we are convinced that the tendency will rather be the other way - in the direction of an increasing insistence upon door to door service.

We view the future, therefore, as one holding possibilities mainly in high speed railways connecting relatively distant large towns, or at least distributing centres for heavy goods and cattle. The absence of iron and the paucity of coal mines in Ireland put the railways in quite a different position from those in England since coal and iron form the backbone of England's goods traffic.

We are confirmed in this belief as regards passenger traffic on account of the greatly extended air facilities which we envisage. It is our view that, a generation ahead, Dublin and Cork for example will be so well provided with air services, doing the journey in under the hour that even a very fast railway journey of three hours will be unable to compete with the air for professional and business purposes. For these purposes flying is already the normal means of transport on the Continent and increasing technical efficiency will make for higher air speed and lower cost as time goes on. We believe, therefore, that the future of the railways will be to act as main arteries for heavy goods and cattle traffic linking up the large towns and distributing centres but that future passenger traffic will be of modest dimensions while for short distance goods traffic the use of the railway will virtually disappear. It has in fact almost disappeared already.

Even the long distance goods traffic will be in danger from road competition unless the rails succeed in keeping the costs down to a favourable figure. The railways should be capable of competing successfully in this direction more especially on account of the heavy rates necessitated by wear and tear of heavy traffic along the roads.

Short distance passenger traffic will not suffer from air rivalry because air termini will, of necessity, be too far removed from the city centre. Even if aircraft were produced capable of landing nearly vertically and thus reducing the size of landing grounds we believe that the same will apply.

For long journeys the private car cannot compete with the air nor with express trains for speed and comfort, but in suburban traffic it has already ousted all forms of public transport to a very large degree. Unless Dublin is to grow quite excessively there should be no reason why private cars should not give adequate access to the city even if they were ultimately excluded from the actual centre. The provision of proper public parking facilities should, however, obviate this restriction. We see, therefore, no reason to assume a reversal of public use from the private car back to the railway or omnibus.

In considering suburban traffic we, therefore, compare the railway with the omnibus omitting for the moment the effect of the private car. We assume the elimination of the tramway which may or may not be partly replaced by the trolley bus.

Short distance passenger traffic by rail will depend upon how far it can compete with "door to door" requirements in so far as these can be met by the omnibus. Only those people who live within walking range of the station will use the railway for daily journeys. But while the railway station is fixed the omnibus can provide ever increasing facilities by road to meet the growing needs of developing areas. We conclude, therefore, that the passenger "catchment area" is a small one which tends to decrease as development takes place and this is only partly compensated by cheapening of fares.

So much for the outer end of the daily journey in and out of town. When we come to the city end we find again that the railway is badly placed as compared with the omnibus. We must remember that nobody will use the railway if this means changing into an omnibus if he can without much greater inconvenience get an omnibus which will take him the whole way. In order to give the railways the best chance it is, of course, imperative that they be adequately linked with the centre by omnibus traffic and if we consider the existing termini and compare their rigidly fixed positions with the routes taken by the omnibus we find not only that the omnibus brings passengers ultimately to the O'Connell Bridge centre but that it allows people to alight anywhere along the route. The only stations which, from this point of view, are placed in comparatively suitable positions are Westland Row and Tara Street. Amiens Street is not so good for it generally necessitates a change into an omnibus for the completion of the journey. Kingsbridge and Harcourt Street also usually necessitate a change.

Here we would mention another factor, not perhaps obvious at once, but of the highest importance. It may be largely psychological, but the average person has a dislike to having to mount large flights of stairs such as exist at each of our termini (except Kingsbridge) and at Tara Street.

The existing central stations are well spaced as regards the distribution of passenger traffic, but all the railways are elevated and as such they are injurious to the amenity of the city centre besides occupying valuable space. They cannot be carried further in. To take them any further out on the other hand would obviously place the railways still further at a disadvantage in relation to the roads not only for local passenger traffic but more especially for what we regard as the true function of the railway of the future - the collection and distribution of heavy goods and cattle and also for express passenger traffic.

We have referred to the probability of the discontinuance of certain local lines, but the only one actually affecting our problem is that running from Harcourt Street to Bray. It has been suggested that this might be turned into a motor highway. In this connection we would point out that the railway runs largely along high embankments and for long stretches is cut into the granite, thus any widening would be prohibitive in cost. It is a double line track and is therefore only 28 feet in normal width, as over bridges, which would be inadequate since it would give less than three lines of traffic with no room for footways or margins in cuttings and over bridges or embankments. We see no reasonable possibility of such a proposal ever taking effect.

On the other hand the line is definitely of value and might he used as a light electrified railway, the electricity being, of course, stored in the train. This is now taking place.

This brings us to the possibility of eliminating or reducing the unpleasantness of the exceedingly wide tunnel-like bridge leading to Harcourt Street Station which spans Adelaide Road. It might be suggested that the terminus could be moved further South and the bridge eliminated altogether. This is open to many objections. It would reduce the value of the station from the passenger carrying point of view if only because it would remove it further from the passenger's destination. It would also cause a very undesirable cross-traffic in Adelaide Road which at present is obviated by the bridge. These considerations are sufficient to indicate that the Harcourt Street Terminus should remain where it is, although the possibility of reducing the width of the bridge and in fact building a more seemly bridge sufficient only to take a light railway could be explored. The difficulty is that the bridge is covered with sidings and loading banks where the trains are cleaned. A simple method of dealing with the bridge, perhaps hardly coming under the head of a Town Planning proposal, would be to form a gap in the centre to let light and air into Adelaide Road underneath.

Harcourt Street station takes a high place among the architecturally noble buildings in Dublin although its setting is open to improvement. It is not our view that this station could be used for any other purpose.

The possibilities we have explored do not suggest any modification of our plan as outlined, because we have already ruled out all reasonable possibility )f carrying the railways further into the city than they penetrate at present.

If it were possible to centralise the railway traffic we do not consider that it would be wise to do so the effect would be to accentuate traffic difficulties by concentrating them at one point instead of distributing them at several points.

Turning to the Westland Row-Amiens Street route we are faced with what everyone admits was a mistake in the form of the loop line bridge. We have investigated every means whereby this could be eliminated, either by tunnelling or by forming a bridge elsewhere, and we have come to the conclusion that its elimination is not possible by any means which could be regarded as feasible from the point of view of cost. That it ruins the view of the Customs House from O'Connell Bridge is obvious, but its rebuilding the other side of the Customs House at fabulous cost and with considerable loss of berthage would merely ruin the view from the other side and it would still be unsightly in close juxtaposition to the Customs House. We do not consider that there would be any ultimate possibility of a fixed railway bridge at Guild Street with the docks removed into newly reclaimed areas. A fixed road bridge would work in with our road plan but if it were made also into a railway bridge it would throw the stations at Westland Row, Tara Street and Amiens Street out of use. Our view of the probable future of Irish railways does not justify any belief that such a proposal could form part of a preconceived plan.

An interesting suggestion has been thrown out to the effect that a combined Amiens Street and Westland Row terminus could be made by spanning the Liffey and using the Loop Line to run trains over the river in the O'Connell Bridge direction. This central terminus would be very conveniently placed in the heart of the city and Westland Row would sink to the importance of Tara Street. This new station being at high level would leave space for car parks and omnibuses underneath. We cannot visualise a time when the railways would be in a position to undertake so grandiose a scheme and even if a time came when this was no longer true there is nothing in our scheme which would hinder its adoption or which would be contrary to its efficient use.

Kingsbridge, like Harcourt Street, is a building of architectural interest adding to the dignity of the river at that point. The same reasoning as was used concerning Harcourt Street as regards extending the line towards the city or building another terminus further out applies.

We, therefore, conclude that the planning of the city for the next 50 years cannot take into account any extensions of railways nor any change in the location of the termini.

We have not so far dealt with the finances of the railways but their probable future, as it appears to us, does not suggest that at any time will they be in a position to spend millions on alterations. Any such costs would presumably fall on the Corporation (with possible State assistance) and we do not recommend that the Corporation should embark upon any such expenditure which would compete with the very full programme of expenditure in other directions which we outline in our scheme.

The Town Planning Committee cannot regard with any complaisance the continued existence of the Loop Line railway bridge. Aesthetically it is a blot on the city and we examined with the Consultants, and the City Architect, alternative means of providing a cross river connection with the railway Systems. In the Sketch Development Plan, the Consultants propose a lift bridge for road traffic between Guild Street and Cardiff Lane approximately. The City Architect's suggestion for superimposing a railway bridge on the lift bridge to take the place of the Loop Line Bridge, was submitted to the Port and Docks Board and the Railway Companies. The former body stated the proposed bridge would be a serious interference to the navigation of the river. The Great Northern Railway Company pointed out that the headway necessary to allow shipping to pass through would have to be about 100-feet from high water level. This would involve such steep gradients for the lines on the North and South sides of the river as to be unworkable in ordinary railway practice for a line of this kind. In view of the adverse opinion by these two Authorities, on the practicability of the proposals, the Town Planning Committee did not pursue it further. (Town Planning Committee).