Inside The Phoenix Park Tunnel

Under the Phoenix Park lies a little-known railway tunnel.
The almost 700-metre-long passage was built in 1877, but has never been used for daily passenger services save for the occasional special service for GAA matches prior to the construction of the Luas.
It is generally used for freight or transferring trains between Connolly and Heuston.
Following refurbishment works, Irish Rail will run a service through the tunnel from Kildare to Dublin Heuston line straight through to Drumcondra and on to Connolly.
We got to hop on a train moving through the tunnel earlier this week, while TheJournal.ie's cyclist-in-residence Daragh Brophy roughly traced the path above ground: jrnl.ie/3015929
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[@stephencorbally.9394]

Fantastic job. All involved. Great to see the park tunnel being used now. That's bloody brilliant

[@RYNT1157]

Worked back and forth through that tunnel over many years with heavy liners , fertilizers , the Ammonia train , GAA specials with up to 14 coaches into Connolly plus Night Mail. With A class and small GMs it was a heavy pull up through the curved tunnel and as you exit it at Cabra it's then you felt the drag. Been into all the North Wall yards .Worked over to Connolly in 2012 with the Eucharistic SPL from Cork with a conductor from Heuston but it all came back and rolled into platform 5 like the old days. All Cork to Heuston Services on a Sunday used to go into Connolly in the 1960s.

[@davemccabe992]

but has never been used for daily passenger services save for the occasional special service
which is of course nonsense , there was several regular scheduled services in the 70s and 80s IE would always like to have you believe they " suddenly " discovered the tunnel last year !!!

[@michaeljohndennis2231]

Irish Rail needs to work with Dublin Port and ferry operators/cruise lines to convert the existing freight lines operating in the port for use by passenger trains to improve the SailRail customer offering, with possible extension of the line and working with LUAS for an extension to the Port - coming from the existing Irish Ferries/Stena terminals it is a real hassle to even get to Dublin Docklands station let alone Dublin Connolly or Hueston, where the Port Tunnel allows access for freight onto the M50 - aside from the recent shelving of the high-speed rail tunnel between Holyhead and Dublin, the Irish government’s proposed EU climate change driven restriction or ban on short-haul flights between Ireland and the U.K. on top of the concept of 15 mins cities could very well force the issue and focus minds on this going forward

[@stiofanmccumascaigh7758]

Wow. Was this tunnel 'discovered'? Did the ancient tuath de dannan build it?

[@Desmondohara]

Worse. The English! ;)

[@spacetweek]

So it has been massively delayed then.
"will begin early next year"
It was supposed to start in October 2016, then November, now it's next year!

[@sambarsoum3125]

spacetweek It's open now. What's the big deal.

[@spacetweek]

It did end up opening in Nov 2016 after all, not sure why they said otherwise

[@chrisclark1761]

Pretty outrageous that it wa snever used for regular passenger services.

[@MetroVick]

And those pesky freight trains use it (ough, I used the "F" word!