Ireland’s government has approved the construction of a new National Train Control Centre which will enable the planned expansion of rail services in the coming years. Construction works are scheduled to start this year and will be the new centre fully operational by 2024. The building will be constructed to comply with Near Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) standards. It is planned that the construction of the facility will be complete by the end of 2021.
The new centre will underpin both the planned and potential future expansion of rail services across the entire rail network and will facilitate the planned expansion of DART services.
The project, which has a value of EUR 135 million, will be funded under the Project Ireland 2040 programme and will be delivered by Iarnród Éireann.
The new National Train Control Centre will be located within the Heuston Station complex and will facilitate the co-location of Dublin City Council’s traffic control centre and An Garda Síochána’s metropolitan area traffic unit on the one site. The new facility will replace the existing Central Traffic Control centre based at Connolly Station which which currently controls 75% of the rail network (1500 km). The remaining 25% is controlled at a number of local locations throughout the network and cannot be integrated with the existing CTC due to the capacity constraints.
“I am delighted that Government has approved this hugely significant project which will deliver a new National Train Control Centre. This is a real statement of intent from Government as we set out to massively expand rail services in the coming years and look to encourage more people to make the switch to sustainable mobility,” Minister for Transport, Shane Ross, said.
The development of the new centre complements the increased funding already being made available to support an enhanced maintenance and renewal programme delivering improvements in track, signalling and communications infrastructure across the network.
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