Tramscape Tramway Photographs

The Red Line runs as a traditional street tramway through the centre of Dublin although motor traffic has been severely restricted in these areas.	The Green Line runs for most of its length on the alignment of an old heavy rail line closed in 1959. Only in Adelaide Street and Harcourt Street does it run in the city's streets	The next task is to decide how to link the two lines. At St Stephen's Green, the Green Line stops just as Dublin's very busy pedestrianised Grafton Street begins.

In 1949, Dublin's last "first generation" trams were withdrawn from service and conversion of the once-large network to bus operation was complete. Dublin's rapid growth in the 1990s led to increasing congestion on the city's streets, especially as the area's road system remained relatively undeveloped. One local rail line had been upgraded and branded as DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) but public transport facilities were woefully adequate to cope with the city's development and new plans were published in 1994 proposing a light rail network. It was not until early in 2000 that the main construction contract was awarded and not until the Government had finally decided to proceed with the two proposed lines, having seriously considered upgrading their requirements to a full metro. Current plans still envisage a metro in the near future, with a line from Swords via the Airport entering the city centre, mostly on elevated track but diving underground in the central area and eventaully taking over the Green Line of the current tram system which itself is built mainly on old railway reservation.

The Red Line (Connolly Station to Tallaght) and the Green Line (St Stephen's Green to Sandyford) were both opened during 2004 and immediately proved extremely successful. First to open was the Green Line from Sandyford to the south of Dublin, on the alignment of the former Harcourt rail line which closed in 1959. The 9 km line with depot facilities at its outer terminus is not totally grade-separated as there are six road crossings along its length, but otherwise the only street running is from Adelaide Street, past the buildings of the former rail terminus at Harcourt Street and along the attractive street of Georgian terraced housing to terminate on the western side of St Stephen's Green.

The Red Line is much more of a traditional street tramway running through the commercial heart of the city on Abbey Street, crossing O'Connell Street and running to a stub terminus at Connolly, the main railway station. The line is 15 km long with considerable amounts of reserved track outside the city centre, where although tracks are street laid, traffic calming measures have reduced conflicts with cars to a minimum. The depot is at Red Cow, where there is a large Park and Ride facility alongside Dublin's ring motorway. The line serves St James's Hospital and Heuston railway station in the west of the central area. Ambitious plans developed for the Irish Railways incude a heavy rail underground link from Heuston to Connolly, parallel to the new tram line but serving the densely developed areas south of the River Liffey.

Alstom provided the rolling stock for the tram system, known as LUAS and operated by Connex on behalf of the Dublin authorities who retain ultimate ownership. The modular "Citadis" design has been supplied in two forms - Citadis 401 trams in 40-metre length for the Green Line, Citadis 301 in 30-metre length for the red line. The cars are standard-gauge (1435 mm) as opposed to the Irish Standard gauge of 1600 mm which is used by the mainline railways.

The success of the two lines has encouraged the government to bring forward plans for extensions at the outer ends of both Red and Green lines, and in the case of the Red line, a city centre extension from Connolly into the Docklands redevelopment area. Unusually, the Green and Red have no physical connection. Plans suggested that the proposed metro would run under the city centre to reach the Green Line at St Stephen's Green. If the existing Green Line is to be integrated into the metro, tunneling would need to be extended further south under Harcourt Street. To capitalise on LUAS' success a surface linkage with the Red Line on Abbey Street at O'Connell Street is now expected. The Green line runs to close to the end of Grafton Street, Dublin's main shopping street on the south side, which would provide the direct route to O'Connell Street via Trinity College and the extremely chaotic Westmoreland Street. Any extension is likely to be routed via St Stephen's Green (North), Dawson Street, Nassau Street and the upper end of Grafton Street at College Green before reaching Westmoreland Street, from where the heavy traffic flows will need removing. This route will mean a number of sharp curves being built.  

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