The project's cost is being put at 60m to 100m and the company hopes to have the new high-speed service in operation by 2010. The move will reduce the journey time on the route by up to one hour.

The proposed hourly service would have just two stops between Dublin and Cork, with alternate trains serving Portlaoise and Limerick Junction, or Thurles and Mallow.

Iarnrod Eireann engineers are examining the track on the route to assess what adjustments need to be made to allow the trains to run at speeds of 200km per hour.

Any sharp curves on the route will need to be eliminated and modified power packs will have to be fitted to locomotives. The carriages currently used by the company on its inner-city routes are already capable of handling very high speeds.

The company is tendering for outside contractors to help assess the track, and when that process is completed, it will put the proposed works out to tender.

The use of high-speed lines on the route will be made possible by the 300m Kildare route project which is due for completion in 2009. This involves the creation of 10km of new track, which will take commuter trains off the line used by inter-city services.

The possibility of developing a high-speed service on other lines is also being mooted, with the Dublin-Belfast service being the most obvious contender. Such a service would reduce the journey time between the two cities to well under one-and-a-half hours.

The situation is complicated by the fact that Iarnrod Eireann is responsible for the line only as far as the border.

However, the project could be implemented as part of a cross border arrangement.

The launch of a high speed service between Dublin and Cork would be a massive marketing boost for rail services in the country.

France was the first European country to introduce high-speed trains in 1981 when it launched its TGV . . . 'train a grande vitesse'. Its trains travel at up to 320km a hour in commercial use. Belgium, Italy, Spain and Germany have since developed their own high-speed lines.