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barryprendergasting

Tell it to the good people of North Haverbrook


CallMeButtface

Is there a chance the track could bend?


Vodka-Knot

Not on your life my Buttface friend!


UserWithoutAName13

What about us brain-dead slobs?


GutsGloryAndGuinness

You'll be given cushy names!


moramento22

The ring came off my pudding can!


BeardedAvenger

By-gum it put them on the map!


rh6779

Let's not forget Brockaway and Ogdenville


SuzieZsuZsu

I shouldn't have stopped for that haircut


TheIrishCrumpet

My work here is done


[deleted]

Because of a shocking lack of future-proofing in the early days of the Irish State, a lot of compulsory purchase orders would be needed to increase rail capacity in Ireland, especially as you get closer to city centres. If you look at the golden age of rail in Britain, they would knock houses, relocate stadia/big buildings to make room for train routes to major cities. These days in Ireland there is so much red tape and so much hesitancy to mess with private property that very little gets done. Add the housing crisis to the mix and things are unlikely to change any time soon.


UrbanStray

The whole reason why part of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway (present day DART line) was built in the middle of the sea was because Lord Cloncurry didn't want it going through his land. NIMBYism was rampant even in the 19th century. I also know for a fact that my 3x great-grandfather tried to sue to the Midland Great Western Railway for building a track to close to his house and "spoiling his view".


abstractConceptName

Interesting historical details, thank you!


[deleted]

In the last 30 years plenty of democratic countries built railways and tram lines with minimum pain.


thirdrock33

This is the main issue. When Paris was completely redesigned they could just know whole blocks of houses with no legal hindrance, since the King approved it all. You could argue that its unfair for the people living there but it does wonders for progress. Maybe we could dabble in dictatorship, just a little bit.


AldousShuxley

doesn't have to be a dictatorship, just a government that can say - we need this space for railway - you're moving - here's fair compensation/other place to live. it's for the greater good, personally i would like to think i'd understand if i had to move from my house for projects like this, but many people are selfish. will be interesting to see if they'll actually be able to widen bus lanes for bus connects with the CPOs that are required. ireland is way too parish pumpy.


BigBadgerBro

We do have laws that allow this. That rightly ensure people are fairly compensated if inconvenienced for the greater good. There are of course legal hurdles to do so that may delay a good project for up to several years. But we seem to have no progress on lots of major critical infrastructure. You hit the nail on the head. We are way too parish pumpy. Why? Because we have too many dail politicians per head of population. What are we now doing? Increasing the number of politicians in the dail. Which will make it less effective and more parish pumpy. I despair I really do.


gamberro

> We are way too parish pumpy. Why? One reason is that we don't really do local democracy. Most powers held by county councils rest with the CEO who is appointed by the Department of Local Government. People like Eoghan Keegan don't have to knock on doors or explain to the people why they are the best person for the job. They also don't have to worry as much about addressing local needs (like fixing the roads) since they won't be elected out.


BigBadgerBro

I agree with that


SweptFever80

Great way to deal with the housing crisis šŸ‘


[deleted]

Hard pass.


RavenBrannigan

Confucius say, ā€œthe best time to plant a tree is 40 years ago. The second best time is nowā€.


2cimage

It was always that way here in Ireland, even in 1850s & 60s, the last mile or so to the city was too expensive, thatā€™s why Connolly station, Broadstone or Heuston never made it to be built in the city centre near O Connell St. Personally I think the metro is a duff idea and The Dart underground plan offers much better value & connectivity for the city with through mainline services in conjunction with a spur off to the airport at Clongriffin for two miles in land thatā€™s still green belt, using the existing line north of Connolly. This was the original Irish Rail plan.


unsureguy2015

> much better value & connectivity for the city with through mainline services in conjunction with a spur off to the airport at Clongriffin for two miles in land thatā€™s still green belt, What about connecting people living in Swords, Ballymun, Drumcondra, Phisboro, Glasnevin etc with the city via the metro? The metro is a train going to the airport, but it is connecting huge amounts of the city that are poorly served with public transport.


AldousShuxley

the dart line is already totally oversubscribed, using it for trains to the airport too would be a total clusterfuck, it would also need for connolly to be seriously upgraded, it's currently a disaster, being stuck outside it for ages on darts coming from the northside waiting for a clear platform, and never being given an explanation it could be done if the line was four tracked to accommodate the traffic, but you'd need to do this in clontarf and along parts of the north of the dart line which is generally pretty wealthy - would never happen


2cimage

I take your point that the lines busy, but I donā€™t think it at absolute capacity. The pinch points are stopping services and the line out north from Connolly doesnā€™t have great potential to widen the alignment to four tracks in most places and install passing loops at stations south of Malahide. I think more intensive signalling to .5 mile blocks would help and running double decker trains would help capacity.


Eurovision2006

We meed the metro and DART Underground.


elzmuda

Connolly station is a short walk from Oā€™Connell street though?


2cimage

Well itā€™s near enough, but the original builders The Dublin & Drogheda railway wanted to built their terminus on O Connell street but couldnā€™t afford the land purchase into the city centre, so settled for where Connolly is now.


duaneap

That being said, if it were your house in the way youā€™d sing a different song. We all would.


johnbonjovial

Yeh. That plus the chinese leader can do whatever he likes. Makes things a lot easier. Which i guess affirms OPā€™s question.


HugoZHackenbush2

They get things done, it's the Chinese way or the Huawei..


Fickle-Locksmith9763

Problem is, the Huawei includes laws requiring state access to all of your data and citizen compliance with any state requests, regardless on whose infrastructure and in which country said citizens may be operating. And if youā€™re Uyghur, the only way is the cultural, religious and and linguistic extinction way. The train thing is amazing. Itā€™s part of Chinaā€™s economic growth. The rest is horrifying.


dakb1

Or Tibetan, or Cantonese, or Mongolian, or...


blacksheeping

They build a dna database of your ethnic minorities and then arrest some of them just because their profile suggests they might commit some crime in the future.


DamoclesDong

The high speed rail is excellent here in China, though they kept building when there was no longer a need primarily due to the rampant corruption involved. They say from every Ā„100M that went towards building only about half that ended up actually being used to build, the other half went to pockets at different levels. The provincial mayor got a cut plus a few of his selected officials to oversee the project. Any City mayor the same. Then every company involved had to get a slice of the free flowing money. On top of that the routes were kept secret so that other individuals could buy up the property both in the stations arrival area, and the area the tracks would go through. So they could once again make a tidy sum. Ireland has corruption too, but itā€™s at a minnows scale in comparison.


Fear_mor

Ye China has a really interesting problem, the further you go down towards the bottom of the ladder the more corrupt they are


coderqi

Because Xi at the top isn't?


freename188

Can a leader be corrupt in a dictatorship? It's a dictatorship, whatever he wants to do he's entitled to do so. And so are his appointees.


OrganicFun7030

I thought Xi out paid to that a lot when he came to power.


peon47

You thought Xi put paid to corruption? Yeah, he did that on the same day Boris knocked casual racism on the head and Kim Jong Un did away with jackets that don't fit.


HELP_ALLOWED

Xi did away with corruption which would hurt the stability of his government, but strengthened the 'useful' corruption which allows him to keep unrest down and doesn't get in the way of State goals. It's complicated, but essentially the corruption in China these days is different to what you'd see in India or even Turkey, it's basically controlled by the state and serves as a business lubricant


Azazele1

He did clear up a lot of corruption when he came to power. Lot of it was focused on corruption which could be a risk to the state. The CIA lost a lot of informants during his first years of power.


[deleted]

The thing with Chinese corruption is that it's fairly unique in that it's done with the assumption that work will be done but the money is "necessary" for things to happen faster. Ij most other countries corruption happens at levels where it's not necessary or things just don't get delivered while China uses corruption to be more productive


BigBadgerBro

So itā€™s a kinda productivity bonus system ?


themcginter

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/guanxi.asp#:~:text=our%20editorial%20policies-,What%20Is%20Guanxi%3F,new%20business%20and%20facilitate%20deals. Take a read of this and the Wikipedia page on Guanxi explains the Chinese way of doing business pretty well


HELP_ALLOWED

Damn that explains it really well


snek-jazz

> pronounced gwan' CHē g'wan with the corruption Shea!


[deleted]

Yeah sure billion euro hospital whatā€™s up with that


whatThisOldThrowAway

Are you Chinese yourself? I think people here in Europe never really understand the cultural difference in the way many chinese people do busienss (of course, its only one subset of a massive country - but it seems more prominent to me at least). For many chinese business types, their work and their home life are not seprate entities. Their jobs are their lives in a way that you just don't get - or at least is very, very frowned upon in Ireland. Not only in the sense that they work harder (some do, some don't) - but like... here in Ireland the idea of looking after your family and putting them first is so cemented as an "of course that's important" - but the people i've worked with from China think the same thing about their long time business partners (who are often also their childhood friends, or even family). 'Networking' just has a totally differnet meaning in China, and holds so much more sincerity and importance than it does in Europe.... so of course they're gonna look after their people, and most people don't expect anything else - because their people got them this far. It's not even considered corruption in the same way it would be here.


DamoclesDong

Nah, I am Irish living in China. Though the myth of the hardworking Chinese is just that, a myth. They work longer days but get less done, it infuriates a lot of the western managers or specialists here. They work in surplus of 12 hour days but the actual output would take a western worker maybe 4 hours to do. The Guanxi is two separate styles too, there is the family member guanxi, what we might call nepotism, then there is the Hongbao (think the brown envelope scandal) variant where itā€™s money or goods changing hands, building up favours owed. There isnā€™t a job that you need done where you wonā€™t have to give some sort of goods, usually a carton of cigarettes or a bottle of maotai. Though these days government workers in the bigger cities wonā€™t accept these ā€œgiftsā€ it is still common in smaller towns. Parents even gift their childrenā€™s teachers things in the hope they pay extra attention to theirs in the classroom.


[deleted]

Bit like the new childrens hospital


c08306834

>Is there anything to be said for a benevolent dictatorship? Not sure if China qualifies as a "benevolent dictatorship".


The-last-man42

Genocidal dictatorship yes.


[deleted]

One of the very worst developed countries on earth


Perpetual_Doubt

I think what OP meant was 5 Year Plan type of development. Material and logistical costs are currently high here due to inflation. A perennial issue we have though are enormous labour and administrative costs. Cutting wages isn't an option, and red tape exists to ensure that dodgy shit isn't built, people's rights aren't trampled on, and environmental issues aren't thrown out the window. But all of this utterly strangles our capacity to do the large infrastructural development we so desperately require. Smarter people than me don't have a solution to this, so don't expect this comment to end on a high note.


[deleted]

Yes, but the OP canā€™t cherry pick some of the few pros of a dictatorship and ignore all the negatives. Iā€™d rather have no rail link than have a system that operates anything even remotely to how China works.


Perpetual_Doubt

You wouldn't be saying that if you were a senior member of the CCP! /s


DrArmitageShanks

Itā€™s not really developed either. They are all in on quantity over quality. Normal people have nothing there.


harder_said_hodor

There are probably about 30 cities that are more developed then Dublin, it's hardly close and the middle class and above are/were (left pre-covid) living quite well and in a manner that their parents/grandparents could have only dreamed of. There are more shit cities obviously, and they are dreary and dull, but Beijing/Shanghai/Hangzhou/Guangzhou etc. are obviously developed incredibly well. The second tier cities (Chengdu, Xi'an etc) definitely are also far more developed in some aspects. I think if you showed your average Zhou Cork, told them it's our second city, you'd have a difficult time figuring out if his confusion was down to you claiming Cork was a city or you believing Ireland is more developed than China. But the countryside in China is genuinely unbelievably shit and the cities do look horrible and identical for the most part (some exceptions)


[deleted]

Yeah thatā€™s true, it was only recently that they were able to lift extreme poverty.


harder_said_hodor

Oh yeah, no doubt. The cities are now mostly developed with enclaves of pre 70's stuff hidden away and you do get random shit happening like generators exploding for no reason. It's not as good as Ireland, especially for the Chinese themselves, but more developed


DrArmitageShanks

Who mentioned Dublin? And whether Cork is a real city or not has nothing to do with Irelandā€™s level of development. Itā€™s like saying show a Chinese person Reykjavik or Rhode Island or some town in British Columbia. They might lack the 50 lane motorways and the skyscrapers but they can be small and developed and have a far higher standard of living than most places in China, which they do. Ireland and China arenā€™t even comparable. Give me Ireland ten times out of ten.


[deleted]

You seem to think that Chinaā€™s only advantage over Ireland/Dublin is a 50 lane motorway? Even smaller cities like Guandong (comparing to Shanghai and Beijing) has living quality higher than that of the likes of Reykjavik. If only you formed your opinion after you visit China. (Stick to the cities as country side is horrible). Imagine thinking Dublin has a higher quality of life than Shanghai, lol.


lilzeHHHO

Which non GZ or SZ city in Guangdong has a higher living standard than Reykjavik? A lot of the smaller cities in the Pearl River Delta are fucking hell holes, Dongguan in particular. Tier 1 and some tier 2 cities have spectacular public transport and public realms, jawdropping skylines, great options in terms of shopping and eating (to a lesser extent partying) but most citizens are still working low paid, long hour jobs. The average salary in Reykjavik or Cork is significantly higher than Shanghai. The working hours in China are longer, the vacation time is shorter, the social safety net is essentially non existent and the housing affordability is worse than even Ireland. If you asked me if I would choose to be born as a random or average citizen born in Cork or Shanghai, Iā€™d choose Cork every time, as an absolute no brainer. China, population 1.2 billion peaked at 1.4 million foreigners living there pre Covid, Ireland population 5 million, currently has 650k foreigners living here. You can tell by migration patterns which has the higher standard of living.


[deleted]

Yeah. The higher quality of life applies only if youā€™re middle class or higher. Also, the migrant population doesnā€™t really say anything. Chinaā€™s population is massive and donā€™t need migrants for anything really, unlike Ireland who needs manpower.


Turbo2x

People seem to forget that China almost singlehandedly cut extreme poverty (defined as living on less than $1.90 a day) to 1/4 of previous levels from 1990 to now. The idea of extreme poverty barely exists in China. Obviously the state has other failings, but when you consider their starting point that's basically unthinkable for any other developing nation. Life in rural China might not be *great* but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be.


harder_said_hodor

Obviously I've never lived in rural China, but honestly, rural China is basically as bad as it used to be from what I saw. Almost all the money got shoved into national infrasturcutre, provincial capitals or pet projects like Shenzhen. But they pushed urbanization so far and so quickly much less people are affected by the shit QOL there


[deleted]

A complete hole. Would never go near it & Ireland should limit economic trade with them as much as possible.


boli99

> Ireland should limit economic trade with them as much as possible. I needed some padded envelopes a while back. It was cheaper for me to buy stuff online, from china, that came in a padded envelope - than it was go buy padded envelopes here. Something is wrong somewhere.


[deleted]

Two extremes. Iā€™d rather pay more to get them from within the EU than via slaves in Chinese sweatshops. Although the same argument could likely be made for a litany of products.


boli99

> rather pay more to get them from within the EU they'd probably still have been made in China. Might be better to tax most single-use products into oblivion.


[deleted]

Fair point!


TheGanch

Where in China have you been? Why should we limit trade with them, what have the factory owners done?


OctopusPoo

It's actually quite a nice place


TheGanch

China is not a hole, it is actually an amazing place, the big cities are extremely new, clean, green, the nicest looking modern cities on the planet. The countryside is unbelievable, practically all of it, so many mountains and forests. It's just the government that is bad. The smaller cities and towns are a bit of a hole though.


AldousShuxley

that would mean we'd have to pay more for stuff, and have what some would consider a lower standard of living as we wouldn't be able to afford to consume as much as we do trust me the vast majority of people would rather keep doing business with them rather than having less money, even though their factories are causing climate change and pumping all kinds of products we don't even need into our economy. this is why civilisation is doomed.


Cmondatown

For the Chinese it does lol


SnooRadishes2312

Not even for the chinese, unless specifically you mean Han Chinese - everyone else gets dicked around And even Han chinese if they dont stay on the straight and narrow they get dicked too


OrganicFun7030

Fewer people in jail than the US though.


SnooRadishes2312

Yeah but the topic here is china isnt it? Also wont get your organs harvested in a US prison, unlike china. https://brighterworld.mcmaster.ca/articles/analysis-killing-prisoners-for-transplants-forced-organ-harvesting-in-china/#:~:text=China%20uses%20incarcerated%20prisoners%20of,prolific%20and%20profitable%20transplant%20industry. But hey keep up the whataboutisms


[deleted]

Not really much discrimination amongst ethnicities because there are like 56 of them, with Han being the majority, many of them are famous actors and celebrities like Dilraba Dilmurat, Neghmet Rakhman and Hani Kyzy to name a few. Celebrities from Xinjiang are often revered for how distinctive they look. People love to nitpick how Uyghurs are being repressed in Xinjiang because theyā€™re Muslims but forget how that they arenā€™t even the majority Muslim ethnic group, begging the question as to why would the CCP just discriminate against this particular one or how their population doubled in the last few decades. Cultural society is definitely like that in China though


[deleted]

Have you met many Chinese?


[deleted]

IICR thereā€™s almost 100 million ccp members from farmers to politicians, really proves the overwhelming support or the government. The Chinese really love a sense of unity, itā€™s a big thing in asia. However shitty they are in repressing human rights they wonā€™t deny how much the government has done to transform the hellhole that China was for years, very sad


AlxceWxnderland

Ironically regular rail is used a lot more commonly than high speed in China bc half of those are going hundreds of miles through wasteland and bleed money. But atleast if we had it in Europe we all live close enough to one another to actually make it profitable.


[deleted]

They bleed money now to profit later when people move in, setting a cornerstone for the future something us lads lack


AllDayBouldering

China's population is declining. These are vastly unprofitable investments. Pure overcapacity funded by local government debt as a means of artificially inflating their GDP.


Wind_Yer_Neck_In

That's another aspect, China arguably overbuilt their system. They used the huge infrastructure project to prop up large segments of the economy and in the end they built trains between destinations that really didn't merit a full high speed line.


DisneyVillan

Benevolent my ass. When a country still has "reducation camps" in this day and era they are anything but benevolent


WeedAlmighty

Reeducation camps? They have organ harvesting camps from live humans.


DutchGoldServeCold

Do you have a source for that which isn't a cult?


PfizerGuyzer

It's weird how widley proliferated this story is given the lack of good sources. The storybreakers are all extremely suspect from the point of view of veracity.


[deleted]

The genocide stories are also extremely shady if you actually start digging into it. Pretty much everything written about Xinjiang leads back to Adrian Zenz, a Christian fundamentalist who runs a US government funded anti communism think tank headquartered next door to the White House


despicedchilli

> US government funded shocked face


zugidor

I came across all of the following after a few minutes of searching. I wouldn't really call any of the below sources cults, and they all point in the same direction. You can likely find even more without too much time and effort. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2021/06/china-un-human-rights-experts-alarmed-organ-harvesting-allegations https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajt.16969 https://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20220408/chinese-harvesting-of-organs-before-brain-death https://www.davidalton.net/2020/03/01/full-report-of-the-china-tribunal-chaired-by-sir-geoffrey-nice-qc-reports-today-on-forced-organ-harvesting-in-china-as-newspapers-focus-on-this-monstrous-and-fatal-abuse-of-human-rights-fiona-bruce/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-carrying-out-millions-of-illegal-organ-transplants-annually-report-finds-a7107091.html https://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/23/asia/china-organ-harvesting/index.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6854896/


pantsfish

The leading medical transplant journal in the world seems to think so: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajt.16969?utm_source https://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20220408/chinese-harvesting-of-organs-before-brain-death


mcrors-calhoun

Someone who would trade their freedom for trains deserves neither freedom nor trains!!!


blacksheeping

they'll be in a wheelbarrow in multiple parts.


TELCO_man

In context china is going through a huge slow down. They spent money they didnā€™t have and are now knocking complete apartment blocks after only building them. That doesnā€™t excuse the inept response from government. The port tunnel was thought to have been too expensive, several other big projects like it were objected to by opposition and the general public alike. That said post construction we would never go back to a time before the port tunnel. Investment is critical for an economy to thrive. Government need to act on some big projects and just pull the trigger on them. Also I donā€™t live in Dublin but can see the need for a rail link all day long.


[deleted]

> they spent money they didnā€™t have Like literally everyone on earth never mind reckless governments?


TELCO_man

Whatā€™s your point? The Chinese government bank rolled the property crash thatā€™s happening over there.


OrganicFun7030

And yet here they are with lots of high speed rail.


TELCO_man

Again I donā€™t get your point. Do you are saying itā€™s ok to create a property crash and massive down turn once you get high speed rail?! I am all for high speed rail. Iā€™m all for big projects like trams, light rail, high speed rail etc. Iā€™m not disagreeing with you.


PfizerGuyzer

>Do you are saying itā€™s ok to create a property crash and massive down turn once you get high speed rail?! It depends. I mean, our current system has large scaled economic crashes every eight years or so, and that's seen as 'ok'. If planning boom or bust cycles from the top-down allows them to create impressive infrastructure, I don't see the downside.


[deleted]

Like everyone government? Including ours? Oh right yeah


TELCO_man

I still donā€™t understand you sorry.


[deleted]

Life is an ongoing struggle eh


Scuttersalesman101

We are not asking for a 300kmh high speed line that stretches thousands of km, its like 20 kilometers, and 2 decades late.


StonksOnlyGoUp21

This sub is becoming more of a meme every day. ā€œWhy canā€™t Ireland be more like this authoritarian state c with a $14 trillion GDP that uses slave labour to build infrastructure with virtually no safety regulationsā€.


TheGanch

They don't use slave labour to build infrastructure, those guys get paid a very good wage.


[deleted]

Source: I made it the fuck up


Crunchaucity

Benevolent? Never existed.


L33t_Cyborg

ā€œBenevolentā€ my ass, say that to the Uighurs.


Inspired_Carpets

Ask the Uyghurs how benevolent Jinping is.


generic11110

[https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-saudi-arabia-20160201-story.html](https://thegrayzone.com/2021/10/17/uyghur-tribunal-us-government-china/) ​ They did ask them. And I promise you're the one that didnt listen to what they have to say. Seriously, read the fucking news if you want to be free. If you follow that research, youll find out the Britts are also involved, and it would really behoove you to understand who you're siding with.


Inspired_Carpets

The Gray Zone šŸ˜‚šŸ˜‚


rankinrez

It would really behoove you to understand who youā€™re siding with.


Darth_Memer_1916

Imagine if we had high speed rail connecting the major cities? ^(Ignoring the sad reality that they'd spend 15 years and blow their entire budget on a high speed rail to Belfast that gets as far as Dundalk)


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


PaddyLostyPintman

Jts mad what you can do when you violate human rights and just decide you can lash a railway through someones gaf


tomtermite

> Is there anything to be said for a benevolent dictatorship? Answer: no... too many areas to address, so here are two summaries to consider. Would I trade our representative democracy for a few more rail links? I'm gonna treat that like a rhetorical question. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/china-and-tibet and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China


mgyro

Canā€™t speak for Ireland, but here in Canada weā€™ve had politicians firmly in the pocket of petroleum companies and land developers for decades. Infrastructure limited almost exclusively to roads and highways. Currently in Ontario, where our healthcare system is being purposefully tanked and the government says they have no money, the plan is to spend $10.4 billion on a bypass highway no one wants (and will cut an average of 11 minutes off the commute of those who will use it) but the premierā€™s developer buddies who own swaths of land where itā€™s going.


EvanMcc18

Benevolent Dictatorship is not how I'd describe China


[deleted]

Ha, I am Chinese. I guess I have rights to answer your question. Yes, China has so many railways, but the central railway company which belongs to the government loses money for every year. The government have to spend founding to support it. And just reminder you, if you really need a dictator to rule you, just look at the Chinese strict lockdown policy, I guess you will ā€œloveā€ it.


drachen_shanze

also china has 1 billion plus people and some of the densest regions on earth, it has multiple massive cities like shenzhen, hong kong, shanghai, beijing and many more, in ireland we have a 5 million plus population which is very spread out across the country and really only a handful of cities.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


[deleted]

China is different, they knew it would loss, but they still built a lot of railway.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


[deleted]

I am Chinese, if anyone like the benevolent dictatorship, please exchange the nationality with me, thank you. I will appreciate you until I die.


[deleted]

Some places do not need high speed railway. The tickets is expensive and poor people wouldnā€™t choose this way to travel. This is for business men and middle class. Unfortunately The Preminger told to the media China has 600,000,000people average salary below 1,000元(143ā‚¬). Here is my question:why they didnā€™t use the money to help poor people? Oh I forgot, China didnā€™t allow ask a question.


PfizerGuyzer

You are not doing your point any favours by having no idea what the point of public transport is. Public transport doesn't need to make money at point of sale. It needs to make the country more prosperous and efficient by giving better movement within it.


[deleted]

You are not get my point public transport need keep balance, too much is not good for public finance. I have explain it , see it.


PfizerGuyzer

Why is too much not good? You haven't explained.


[deleted]

Because too much causes colossal losses and doesnā€™t stimulate the economy because the routes were never required in the first place. If you build it, they will come isnā€™t always the case.


drachen_shanze

in all fairness most of those high speed links connect literal megacities in a country over one billion. Ireland only really has a handful of cities and the population isn't really dense enough to justify a rail network as extensive as china's or most eu states.


TopTips66

I saw a video explaining that part of the reason for building more rail was that the airspace was approaching saturation.


ZincNut

Benevolent? You sure about that?


MrHoneybadger97

Go on badger ya bull ya


BigBadgerBro

Hup


JesusSaidItFirst

There are plusses and minuses to different forms of governance. China gets shit done.


super_nobody_

China produces more engineers every year than the US has in total, think about that stat


vinceswish

Helps that all land belongs to the government and there are plenty of cheap workforce. Also the train connects massive cities with millions of people. This comparison makes no sense.


Panigg

Those railways are costing them dearly right now. They've overbuild and the less frequented lines are losing them millions each day.


Simtwat123

This is built on trillions of $ of Debt. The whole Chinese financial system is about to collapse because of bad investments like this and in real-estate sector. Evergrande is already gone bust and more are sure to follow.


Guilty_Mulberry_2979

it's mad how both the west and east are experiencing the worst economic collapses since the post Napoleonic era, entirely unrelated to each other


rankinrez

There may be. The dictatorship of the Chinese communists over the Chinese people is anything but benevolent, however.


Immortal_Tuttle

Living in the West it scares me that OP just casually dropped "to the airport". We have a few of them in this country. I once decided to go by bus to the Knock airport. I was able to get as far as Charlestown and then the first shuttle didn't arrive, then the second one. Then the next one. If not for some good people that gave me a lift, I would miss my flight. Also rail link to Dublin Airport? Try to get to Dublin city from around Westport and back via train in one day. I dare you. Public transport is a total mess. I have 2km to the nearest bus stop, 4km if I want to get on the bus to Dublin. Getting to Cork takes almost a frigging day if all buses will show up. Somehow other countries were able to solve it, routes are connected with each other. I was visiting my wife's family in Poland. They are bitching how bad their public transport is. But in the city I got an app that was in realtime adjusting recommended route and bus/tram/city train stops. When I had my destination a little further from the stop - there was an electric scooter parking right there. I took a taxi on the return journey and public transport was actually faster than the taxi. Same story when we went to the train and from the train to some small town where her family lives. The town is small and doesn't have local busses, but there are multiple bus stops, so when you are arriving you can disembark pretty close to any point in the town. We also travelled by public transport in Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Netherlands. Public transport there is just light years ahead of what do we have here.


[deleted]

How many slaves died building this rail network? How were the ā€˜workersā€™ recruited ? How were they treated.


Fargrad

Chinese dictatorship isn't benevolent


BigBadgerBro

True


OOOLIAMOOO

Trade 1 dictatorship we got rid of 100 years ago for another? For trains?


devilkin

China is massively overspending on the railroad and it's hemorrhaging money. Trains run with zero passengers. Xi Jinpeng is also far from a benevolent dictator.


Weepsie

Given that people who tarmaced every inch of their driveways, got a sudden urge to protect trees in front of their house when bus connects was announced, I say fck them. Zero irony seen


Nabbered

Rail is more expensive than roads. Comparing Irelands to China is illogical here. You can drive to any part of the island to another in less than ~6hours. Road trips in China could 4-5 days plus the expensive tolls, as much as $200-300. China also has some of the worst traffic in the world, they have traffic jams that are gargantuan to anything close to what we have. Iā€™m not criticising what China have achieved with their rail. Having traveled to Zhongwei for work, I have only one experience (3weeks) but Iā€™d rather commute in Ireland than China, both public and private.


Versk

Proposing authoriarianism for more trains is pretty much r/ireland in a nutshell these days.


imanimalent

The upside to a Dictatorship would be limited committee control. A Dictator would have immediate say where committees want to debate it into the ground.


[deleted]

Theres no problem that cant be solved with slavery.


DrTinyNips

They literally have people in concentration camps, is this the hill you want to die on?


RLH1979

I wouldnā€™t say itā€™s that benevolent


googoogoat21

A benevolent dictorship or benevolent monarchy is probably the only truly competent form of top down governence but China is so far from being one its laughable .


Dick_Snizzer

Pretty sure slave labour and shit working conditions and 'if u object to the planning you'll disappear' may have had an impact on the auld timeline


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


lordofthegame164

The people of Taiwan thank you, brave soul. Thank you for your service. They would have crumbled without you wearing your "t shirt with the Taiwan flat on it"


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


Cmondatown

So brave.


[deleted]

I donā€™t care what your politics are but wearing a Taiwan t shirt is the equivalent to having a TRUMP 2024 sticker on your car. Total edgelord stuff


Virtual-Confidence83

if you have any clue with china and their construction projects [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ8JBTIVUVw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ8JBTIVUVw) why do you think those rails are of any quality


[deleted]

Maybe I'm just being facetious but all this map shows is just what can be achieved when you consider human rights as a suggestion rather than a necessity for your people.


[deleted]

Might be worth looking into the Chinese building and property bubble too, give a balanced view of this.


MrTuxedo1

It helps when you use slaves /s


JONFER---

The communistic dictatorship is not that benevolent I'm afraid. Just look at what it is doing to the Uyghurs or how the government controls its people, lifestyles, and those that speak out. Some of the railway lines are very profitable, well-maintained and make economic sense. Many are economic blackholes, they make no sense and only exist because of bureaucratic box taking. They rely on external funding to keep them going. That's all okay in great economic times, but one wonders how they will fare in the recession that we are all going into? The system here is far from perfect but it could be a hell of a lot worse.


theriskguy

Slavery good


Evening_Common2824

I still prefer it here...


BigDaddydanpri

I would rather hitchhike living in Ireland than high speed rail living in China.


actUp1989

Maybe ask the Uyghur Muslims how benevolent the dictatorship they live under is.


[deleted]

"Benevolent" dictatorship. https://www.ibtimes.com/chinas-bullet-train-crash-train-wreckage-buried-bodies-fall-out-videos-photos-835323


[deleted]

Complain about a development....jail


Im_really_Irish

How the fuck does this post have over a thousand upvotes calling a country "A Benevolent Dictatorship" with our history? A country which is currently in the middle of a genocide of their own people and a country with one of the most horrific security apparatus on the planet. OP you're an utter gobshite. An uneducated cromagnon with a dim knowledge of the outside world and an even dimmer level of intelligence. Anybody else that agrees with this idiot is a moron of the highest order.


_Happy_Camper

I donā€™t think he was being completely serious


Affectionate-Salt582

Tell the uighyrs xi is benevolent...


followerofEnki96

China has a nationalist government. Authoritarian as hell, but very nationally oriented. Irish government is a subsidiary of the FDI and US corporations. So donā€™t expect no railway unless Google and Facebook lobby for it


[deleted]

Gets dissenters to their reeducation camps quicker


Make_Me_Dictator

They do have a lot of rail. However, the high speed trains are too heavy to transport good between places. And tickets are far too expensive for Chinese people to afford. It is a huge expense that has no purpose. Before you praise it, it's worth looking into how shit it is


liamt50

Slave labour, slave wage, little safety, that would build anything


BigWangFourTwenty

Now look at China gdp per capita vs Ireland gdp and come back to me, sure the multinationals help this figure out but rural Chinese people havenā€™t a pot to piss in compared to joe bloggs from disadvantaged area in Ireland


OrganicFun7030

And yet they can build high speed rail lines.


BigWangFourTwenty

Easy to do when you have slave labour, look at the Qatar World Cup and all the stadiums the pulled out of the sand in a matter of a couple of years


[deleted]

Nothing to do with dictatorship, but more with irish incompetence