New Limerick/Galway train service

MargeS · 25-03-2010 10:28pm #1

I see Iarnrod Eireann are advertising their new train service beginning on March 29th. The last service leaving Galway on weekdays is 17.25hrs. It seems a pity that there isn't a later service to accommodate anyone who would like to use the service to commute for work.

happyoutscan · 25-03-2010 10:37pm

Nothing surprises me about Irish Rail, a last train at that time is just plain dumb.

Mars Bar · 25-03-2010 10:48pm

2 hours and €28! :eek:

This is not going to work at those prices...they have to be competitive.

City Link Bus, €12 for student and 1 hr 30 mins.

ArraMusha · 25-03-2010 10:58pm

there simply isn't the population to sustain this rail link (unfortunately)

If it had a high speed from shannon to Galway it might have worked but no chance of that now.

bills · 25-03-2010 11:04pm

2 hours to get to limerick is crazy considering how long it takes in a car!!

KevR · 26-03-2010 11:43am

ArraMusha wrote: »

there simply isn't the population to sustain this rail link (unfortunately)

If it had a high speed from shannon to Galway it might have worked but no chance of that now.

Indeed! Irish Rail expect it to run at an annual loss of €2.4 million.

They have themselves to blame unfortunately. They should forget about trying attract long distance Galway-Limerick passengers; the train can't compete with buses and cars. Focus on commuter passengers at both ends.

Posted this in other threads:

KevR wrote:

Oranmore station with a Park and Ride.

A totally seperate Bus Park and Ride has been mooted for Oranmore - I think this would be a huge mistake.
There will be 12 trains each way everyday going through Oranmore station.

Galway City commuter traffic from the M6 and N18 has to pass Oranmore (in future it will be M6/M17/M18; projections of 26,000 each way/52,000 total daily!).

Build an integrated Bus & Rail Park and Ride at Oranmore. There would trains going to Galway City Centre anyway (it's not like they'll need to put on extra trains) and they could have some buses going to the industrial estates on the East Side.

The buses would have to be properly timetabled to meet commuter demand and to make interchanging with trains easy.

Ticketing would be entirely integrated - for example you could get the train from Athenry to Oranmore and then change onto a bus in Oranmore with a single ticket.

For special events, such as big matches at Pearse Stadium (where there is absolutely no parking available, the Park and Ride and buses could be used for getting people to/from the stadium. Buses could be sent to the racecourse during race week and there would be no need for the Christmas P&R at the racecourse.

I think between the towns of Oranmore, Athenry (both 12 trains each way), Craughwell, Gort (both 5 trains each way) and Ballinasloe (7 trains each way) and people parking in Oranmore, IE could get decent numbers of commuters on their trains and buses with an integrated service.

KevR wrote: »

Galway City Council are now going to look into a Park and Ride at Doughiska. :rolleyes: :mad:

So we will have:
An under-used Galway-Limerick rail service because there is no desire to tap into the commuter market at either end.

A standalone Bus P&R in Doughiska which will not get much use. Bear in mind there are huge levels of employment in the vicinity of Doughiska (Parkmore, Ballybrit and Ballybane industrial estates). If someone has battled their way as far as Doughiska in the traffic they are not going to pay to use a P&R for the last kilometre or two of their journey.

Possibly even another standalone Bus P&R at Oranmore.

A disjointed/unreliable/infrequent city bus service.

No Railway station or Rail P&R at Oranmore and no station at Renmore.

A few bus lanes in random places which don't have an adequate service running on them.

In roughly 3 years there will be 26,000 cars passing Oranmore in each direction (52,000 total) on the M6 everyday. 12 trains will be running through the Oranmore area in each direction everyday; but it looks like there will be no station and no proper P&R....

A station in the Oranmore area would be within walking distance the Oranmore Business Park which is pretty big/busy. It would be impossible for a train station to not be walking distance - if it's far from the business park, it's too far from the town!

The trains will be useful for people going to Galway City Centre. So for those going to the industrial estates on the East Side, there should be buses provided. Integrated ticketing and proper timetabling to allow easy interchanging would be essential.

The development plan of Oranmore town should involve curtailment of the town expanding to the South. Future development should be to the North of the town near the railway station. Oranmore could become a hugely attractive place to set up a business/industry or to live in - near the M6, complete avoidance of Galway City traffic, a train station giving easy access to Galway City Centre, reliable buses to East Galway industrial estates.

Two new stations, Oranmore and Renmore.
Oranmore Station:
Large Park and Ride facility
Connecting bus service which goes Oranmore Town Centre --> Oranmore P&R Station --> Ballybane Ind Estate --> Ballybrit Ind Estate --> Parkmore Ind Estate --> Oranmore P&R Station --> Oranmore Town Centre

Renmore Station:
Connecting bus service which goes something like Renmore Station --> GMIT --> Mervue Ind Estate --> Liosbaun Ind Estate --> Wellpark Retail Centre --> GMIT --> Renmore Station

As far as future developments on the Western Rail Corridor are concerned, I wouldn't be against re-opening of the Athenry-Tuam line at some stage after Galway-Athenry has been double tracked with a commuter set going Tuam --> Athenry --> Oranmore --> Renmore --> Galway Ceannt.

The Tuam to Claremorris line should not happen. It will never be sustainable. Rail in the West of Ireland has to focus on commuters rather than long distance passengers and it needs to be properly integrated with connecting bus services for it to work.

KevR · 26-03-2010 4:42pm

Correction, there will be 14(!) trains passing through the stationless Oranmore and Renmore every weekday. I said 12 in my post earlier.

Captain Darling · 26-03-2010 5:06pm

bills wrote: »

2 hours to get to limerick is crazy considering how long it takes in a car!!

Aye, there are speed restrictions on the line due to the many level crossings on the route.

The Government sought the funding for this line to be opened, they bowed to pressure from lobbyists and then gave Irish Rail the task to do the work. Opening the Claremorris/Tuam Galway section would have made more sense, but the voices shouting for the Ennis section were the loudest.

ceatharloch · 31-03-2010 11:52am

OK - sorry for the provocative title, but it may well be
true. A distance of 70 miles that takes 2 hours. Thats
an average of 35 miles per hour (in old money!).
For comparison, if I was in France, I could travel 265
miles in 2 hours on a train (Paris-Lyon), or put another
way, in 2 hours I could go from Belfast to Cork.

Why is it so slow? The answer it seems is:

1) The trains don't go fast! Another poster on the forum says,
because of the bad track quality, maximum speed is 50 miles/hour.

2) The trains stop _everywhere_, at small towns and villages.
I've never done an exact calculation on this, but my reckoning is
each stop costs 5 minutes in total travel time (.....about
1.5 minutes to slow a heavy train, 2 minutes actual stop, 1.5
minutes to get it back up to speed again).
On the Galway - Limerick line there are 6 stops. So thats 30
minutes just for stops.

The solutions:

Solution to 1):
Well, thats a much bigger political debate, money, etc. Make
the train line better, make the trains better, etc. So thats
a much bigger fight (for another day....)

Solution to 2):
Well, hey presto, the solution to 2) costs nothing: Simply,
run some (not all) non-stop trains between the two cities.
That will shave 30 minutes off the trip (well... 70 miles
distance, for a train at 50 mph - should be travel time of
85 minutes).

For more details (and a longer rant!!) read on!
______________________________________________________________
So, what seems to me to be the best service would be:

1) Frequent "commuter" type trains into/out of the two
cities, at rush hours. I know for a fact many people
who work in Galway city live near athenry/craughwell/ardrahan
even Gort. So run a commuter service (every 20 minutes) from
7am to 9am from Gort in to Galway!
(I guess, at the other end, there are commuters from
Sixmilebridge/Ennis going to Limerick, so do the same there.)

2) Then, intercity services spread throughout the day, half of
them "non stop" and half "stop everywhere". e.g. 3 in each
direction of each type.
(At a limit - maybe the "non-stop" one should stop in Ennis).

What IE does not seem to get on a national basis is what has been
happenning successfully in Europe for years: Trains do not
have to stop everywhere, and moreover they SHOULD not all
stop everywhere. The point is, that by running trains that stop
in small places (and hence providing a _good_ service to the
small numbers of people that live there), you provide a
dis-service to the large numbers of people in the larger (cities),
by having long journeys. This might not be so crucial, if the
trains themselves were electric high-speed, that even by stopping
everywhere, could easily beat the car/bus. But in Ireland, the
train that stops everywhere will never beat the car/bus (at the
moment there are non-stop buses running Galway-Dublin in 2.5
hours, beating the fastest trains 2.9 hours).
And the bottom line is, even with all the other nice aspects of
train travel, if it can't beat fairly significantly the car/bus
(or ....dare I say it... the aeroplane), people won't use it in
numbers.

Lastly.

Of course there will/would be protests from the people who live
in smaller places at trains flying right through their place.
But just, do the numbers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_towns_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland_by_populat
ion

Galway: 72,000 people
Limerick: 90,000 people
Ennis: 24,000 people.

and all other stops en-route have less than 3,000 people.

duckygalway · 31-03-2010 11:56am

Irish Rail is a joke - the price you pay and time it takes are ridiculous across the board!

31-03-2010 1:03pm

It is a bit unfair to compare Paris - Lyon (combined metropolitan population of around 14,000,000) which is a dedicated high speed track to the Victorian Galway - Limerick line.

And the frequency of trains you are suggesting would put it on a par with parts of Paris.

ceatharloch · 31-03-2010 1:42pm

Yes, it is as such an unfair comparison, I was only stating what is possible: and
this technology has been around for 10 years. But it is fair I think to expect IE to
go some distance towards this (half way?! that would be 130 miles in 2 hours,
which wouldn't be too bad.....)

Most of Paris metropolitan area (RER) has train frequency of about 7 minutes all
through rush hours (e.g. 6am to 9am).

If one had a 2-carriage train running every 20 minutes gort --> galway 7am to 9am,
I'm convinced those 6 trains would be fairly full.

Deleted User wrote: »

It is a bit unfair to compare Paris - Lyon (combined metropolitan population of around 14,000,000) which is a dedicated high speed track to the Victorian Galway - Limerick line.

And the frequency of trains you are suggesting would put it on a par with parts of Paris.

Fenster · 31-03-2010 1:53pm

Is Galway-> Limerick really 28 euros? Is that single or return? Their site would not let me check fares online.

siltirocker · 31-03-2010 2:00pm

I think people looking for an Oranmore station on the western rail corrider seem to forget that the line is nowhere near Oranmore, it goes through Athenry/Craughwell direction etc.

Maybe a link to the city from the Dublin corridor might work though.

Mars Bar · 31-03-2010 2:51pm

Fenster wrote: »

Is Galway-> Limerick really 28 euros? Is that single or return? Their site would not let me check fares online.

It won't let me check now but it let me check about 3 days ago and it was €28 single. Hopefully they are changing that or else they are waiting for ya to queue up and then make ya pay that extortionist amount of money while you are in shock.

I really hope I am proved wrong though.

31-03-2010 2:52pm

The Oranmore station being suggested is on the Claregalway road (by the cinema / scrap metal site)

A train every 20 minutes would mean a capacity of around 350 per hour - there are only about 350 cars per hour on the N18 below Gort.

An adult single or day return seems to be €20. Not bad - I might go for a spin to Limerick myself.

Mars Bar · 31-03-2010 2:54pm

I'm horribly wrong and gladly so!

Prices and timetables:

http://www.irishrail.ie/news_centre/news.asp?action=view&news_id=686

civis_liberalis · 31-03-2010 2:56pm

I've said it before and I'll say it again...

swe_fi · 31-03-2010 5:07pm

Had €105 million to spare, bought
- 36 mile refurbished rail track
- Couple of slow old trains, yo
- Kitted out 5 platforms with furniture (wow!), signage (wow!), shelter (wow!), Automatic Ticket Vending Machine (unreal!), lighting, car park, PA, Customer Information Systems, help point and CCTV...

How in 2010 can this distance take 2 hours with a train and the last train leave at 6?? I would be embarrassed to be associated with this. Politicians, local or representatives defend it all you want but I am sorry this is pathetic.

If it was a scenic route and a puff puff train with cool stops along the way I would accept & even enjoy it but it is bland commuter trains.

Flop for me.

Robbo · 31-03-2010 5:22pm

I ended up getting the 9:35 train today from Limerick to Galway just for ****s and giggles because I was without a car and I had some awkward bags. I won't be doing it again in a hurry.

2 hours and 5 minutes it took. There was actually a reasonable crowd on it. A few trainspotters who hopped onto the platform in Athenry to crack one off whilst the driver had to swop ends and about 30% of the train were on OAP travel passes. There were various "Care in the Community" types weirding the place up.

The train was one of those nasty 2700 Class Commuter jobs which was louder than war and as wobbly as Michael J Fox playing Muhammed Ali at Jenga. I was using the GPS on my phone to see what speed it was doing and there were brief bursts at 100 km/h but generally around the 80 km/h mark.

If you have the choice, for gods sake take the bus.

kraggy · 31-03-2010 6:12pm

Monthly return €35? To go 70 miles?

Screw that.

31-03-2010 8:07pm

Steyr · 31-03-2010 11:07pm

Now they would really have cleaned up if they added Shannon Airport.

ErnieBert · 31-03-2010 11:48pm

Cringe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CcbiWSo-Kg

KittyeeTrix · 01-04-2010 1:41am

ErnieBert wrote: »

Cringe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CcbiWSo-Kg

At least now I know why my monthly train ticket from Athenry to Galway costs soooo much
Goes to feeding them thick politicians in fancy hotels!!:mad::(:mad::(

KevR · 01-04-2010 3:23pm

fluffyorganic1 wrote: »

At least now I know why my monthly train ticket from Athenry to Galway costs soooo much
Goes to feeding them thick politicians in fancy hotels!!:mad::(:mad::(

That and the fact that they are going to build another loss making station at Crusheen instead of building a station at Renmore which would boost passenger numbers by a huge amount and allow them to reduce fares.

KevR · 01-04-2010 3:44pm

siltirocker wrote: »

I think people looking for an Oranmore station on the western rail corrider seem to forget that the line is nowhere near Oranmore, it goes through Athenry/Craughwell direction etc.

Maybe a link to the city from the Dublin corridor might work though.

I think "nowhere near" is a bit dramatic. You could walk it.

Anyway, I'm one of those who wants a station in Oranmore and I do realise that some people would be put off using the train by the distance to the station. That's one of the reasons I propose the following connecting bus service which goes:
Oranmore Town Centre --> Oranmore P&R Station --> Ballybane Ind Estate --> Ballybrit Ind Estate --> Parkmore Ind Estate --> Oranmore P&R Station --> Oranmore Town Centre

The main purpose of the bus service is to offer people a decent choice of public transport to the East Galway City Industrial estates where there are huge levels of employment. Not everyone works in Galway City Centre so a standalone Rail P&R in Oranmore just won't cut it; there has to be an integrated bus service with integrated ticketing.

The secondary purpose of the bus service is to connect Oranmore Town Centre with the the train station.

Also, when the Oranmore station does get built, they will have to dezone all land to the South of Oranmore town and rezone the land to the North of the town for development. Nothing (no housing estates, no one off houses, no warehouses, no factories, no shopping centres/retail parks) should be built to the South of Oranmore for the next couple of decades at least. Future development should be fully focused around the railway station.

Oranmore has a much bigger population than Craughwell. There are thousands of cars passing Oranmore on the M6 and N18 everyday on their way into Galway City. There is space for a big P&R. If Oranmore gets a proper station it will outstrip Craughwell by miles in terms of passneger numbers.

Victor · 03-04-2010 5:31am

can someone confirm these station addresses?

Athenry Station Road, between Church Street and Tuam Road, Athenry between railway bridges, approximately 250m from town centre.

Craughwell Possibly on laneway at railway bridge on Ardrahan Road (R347).

Ardrahan On Kinvarra Road (R347) 500m west of Ardrahan.

Gort On laneway, between railway bridge and bridge over Gort River, on Georges Street (N18 )approximately 500m from centre of village.

Ennis Station Road (R469 - Quin Road), west of railway bridge approximately 1km from centre of town

Sixmilebridge Afterbury (railway) Bridge, Shannon Road (R471), approximately 600m from centre of village.

KevR · 04-04-2010 12:26am

Victor wrote: »

can someone confirm these station addresses?

Athenry Station Road, between Church Street and Tuam Road, Athenry between railway bridges, approximately 250m from town centre.

What is a town centre usually defined as? Read somewhere that it's the GPO or main post office in the town. If so, then Athenry station would be approximately 350m from the town centre/main post office.

Also, I'm not sure that the main entrance into Athenry station is via Station Road. There is a pedestrian only entrance on Station Road with a few on-street parking spaces outside. The main entrance is the other side (town centre side) of the tracks.

Approach road into main station entrance and both station car parks are marked in black.
The blue line is the platform which has the staffed ticket office; also has ticket machines.
Red line is the other platform which only has ticket machines as far as I know.

PS -

Victor wrote:

between railway bridges

It probably doesn't matter but only the Tuam Road crossing is a railway bridge; Church Street is a level crossing.

pointofnoreturn · 04-04-2010 12:27pm

I'm not impressed either, haven't taken it yet, but when I'm in Galway again I think I'll think twice, I don't know how Irish Rail or even CIE do there maths, they mess up every planning and money calculations. It really depresses me when you can see potential ruined buy idiots! and the politicians are even worse supporting this I saw nation wide and it explained quite well the history and restoration they did and it's a classic example of a "trainspotters dream line" just for fun service and the OAP, no commercial sense there.

Anytime I take a real train service in Europe they are new and quite rail carriages traveling from avg 100km/hr up to 160km/hr. And thats considered slow! high-speed starts at 200km/hr+
The Limerick-Galway line should have focused on speed and making the journey in 45mins to 1hr! @ €12 with 1/2 fair offers for monthly travelers. Time that suit working commuters and at-least an express service every 2hrs or so, with regional services every 25mins.

Yeah think the rescission would have put a bit of innovation into the people on this project but I fail to see that even without stepping on-board

KevR · 05-04-2010 12:39am

KevR wrote: »

Red line is the other platform which only has ticket machines as far as I know.

Correction - I was in Athenry station today and there is no ticket machines over on the platform which is marked as red on the above map. All tickets must be purchased from the blue platform (staffed ticket office or ticket machine). There's a new pedestrians bridge, stairs and lifts do getting back and forth from one platform to the other shouldn't be a problem for anyone; although in my opinion, it would be worth installing a ticket machine over the other side also to save people having to go back and over.

New Limerick/Galway train service

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