Western Rail Corridor (all disused sections)

jmlfc wrote: »

Look forward to the pics.
Coolaney to collooney is well over grown now, horses, trees, bushes, weeds, you'd need a train with you to carry the tools to clear as you go forward..

The biggest problem in the "Sligo sector" of the line is the crass stupidity of the council planning department. Trees bushes weeds etc can be cleared. Its the planning permission for new houses in the past 14 years since the millennium for new houses virtually sitting on the line and house extensionsin the same proximity that will cause problems for Railway or Greenway. Sligo planning department though were particularly inept throughout the "boom" - when new housing was seen as a revenue stream to fund more jobs in the council. One only has to look at the various mini town plans around the county to see their ineptitude. Ballisodare must rank as a case study of stupidity and lack of ability in a county planning department, they made a complete mess of that village, there are so many cases of poor planning in Sligo it is untrue. Re the Railway though whilst the county plan had the grand strategic objective of re-opening the line, the planning department continued to give planning permission for houses as mentioned above within yards of the line and also for houses on either side of the line within fairly close proximity that needed direct access over the line to get into the houses, these new private driveways cross the route and will only add to the problems of re-creating the railway line (which we know will never happen BTW), they are less of an impediment to a greenway but re a railway? The council have done their own hatchet job on making sure that will never happen. Of course no one will be held responsible. I was just following orders guv'nor

westtip wrote: »

The biggest problem in the "Sligo sector" of the line is the crass stupidity of the council planning department. Trees bushes weeds etc can be cleared. Its the planning permission for new houses in the past 14 years since the millennium for new houses virtually sitting on the line and house extensionsin the same proximity that will cause problems for Railway or Greenway. Sligo planning department though were particularly inept throughout the "boom" - when new housing was seen as a revenue stream to fund more jobs in the council. One only has to look at the various mini town plans around the county to see their ineptitude. Ballisodare must rank as a case study of stupidity and lack of ability in a county planning department, they made a complete mess of that village, there are so many cases of poor planning in Sligo it is untrue. Re the Railway though whilst the county plan had the grand strategic objective of re-opening the line, the planning department continued to give planning permission for houses as mentioned above within yards of the line and also for houses on either side of the line within fairly close proximity that needed direct access over the line to get into the houses, these new private driveways cross the route and will only add to the problems of re-creating the railway line (which we know will never happen BTW), they are less of an impediment to a greenway but re a railway? The council have done their own hatchet job on making sure that will never happen. Of course no one will be held responsible. I was just following orders guv'nor

The closer you get to collooney the worse it gets. The willy nilly of the council planning permission granting is unbelievable, so too is the policing of it by the council. There'll never be a railway agsin there, but ten years on a decision would be good either way for some sort of usage.

A lot safer to promise (at some future date) better roads,rail and cycleways for all than to talk about wind turbines and pylons... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0aNxzF7MAk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

eastwest wrote: »

Have a look at the video that Sligo-Mayo Greenway campaign have linked on their facebook page, showing a parallel situation in New Zealand and how it was handled. It's painfully logical, and makes you wonder what our local politicians are at.
I'll try to find the direct link but it's posted here: https://www.facebook.com/sligomayogreenway

Found it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYlCFyDzpdU

Irish Rail in Crisis and West on Track propose further extensions

"on the Western rail corridor passenger numbers were an incredible 8 passengers per train"

http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10257655/

Leo Varadkar is this statement the final death knell can we have it finally please Leo on Primetime tonight

But I think it is absolutely the case that if we were building our railways now. We probably wouldn’t build a lot of the ones we have now not just that one (the western rail corridor), there is a whole number of ones we wouldn’t have

This is Leo said tonight on Primetime when asked about a railway carrying 8 people per train, lets wait for the bleating from West on Track tomorrow!!!!!

All over Europe, and in other places too, 19th century infrastructure like canals and branch railway lines has been put back into use for amenity and leisure use, with job creation a useful side effect.
This has also allowed these assets to be maintained in public ownership for future generations, in case that a use can be found for them in their original guise. The Grand Union canal in the UK is one example; it now carries sand and gravel to a concrete plant outside London, taking tens of thousands of truck journeys off the roads. If it had been abandoned a few decades back, this wouldn't be possible.
It makes no sense to abandon these assets to a few greedy squatters. In the case of the closed and disused Claremorris-Collooney light rail line, we will lose the asset entirely if we don't take steps to protect it.
The government and the EU have made it very clear that a rail link on that route is not an option. Wishing it were otherwise (or lobbying politicians who are happy to respond with vague promises) won't change that.
The proven way to protect these assets is by leisure use. Despite what the 'railway or no way' brigade say, that won't preclude the development of a railway on the route if the situation changes in the future.
You'd have to wonder at the opposition to the greenway proposal; it's grounded in denial of realities and in some very peculiar political thinking.

Interesting look at this asset here: http://www.industrialheritageireland.info/TikiWiki/tiki-index.php?page=Claremorris+to+Collooney

Follow through on the links to the survey at the bottom of the article,

Very detailed well done sir!

I haven't noticed this posted up on the West on Track website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07kR1YDn9lM

They just don't get it do they!!:D

westtip wrote: »

I haven't noticed this posted up on the West on Track website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07kR1YDn9lM

They just don't get it do they!!:D

It's really time for Sinn Fein and/or west-on-track to call time on their ridiculous and dead-in-the-water scheme to connect the Derry expats in Shannon with the town they love so well.
Varadkar couldn't be clearer; snowballs and hell are the words that come to mind.
A bus, and not a very big bus, will do all that they need doing.

Grandeeod wrote: »

No. And they never will. But at least we hear a stupid politician calling it right for a change. And lets never forget that it was driven by a selfish Western agenda. The unfortunate part is that we blew 105 million plus on a waste of time and subsidise it like no other. NICE!

Hey GD much as I agree with you - just remember the Sligo Mayo Greenway campaign calling for a halt to this selfish Western Agenda is driven by folks from the West (Not Dublin Four Economists - as some parties may claim), so yes there is some foolhardiness in some of the "selfish Western Agenda" but actually it (The WRC) was just a foolish agenda that some folk in the west have always said is foolish. Less of this "Anti Westism"! GD

Sorry to derail this thread, but I did not want to bump any older threads relating to the WRC.

I am doing an economics assignment on the WRC and was wondering if anyone here could point me in the direction of statistics specifically relating to this piece of rail.

The '8 passengers a train' statistic is bandied about a lot, but where can I find this information? All I have is general rail use so far.

Thanks if you can help!

IRcolm wrote: »

Sorry to derail this thread, but I did not want to bump any older threads relating to the WRC.

I am doing an economics assignment on the WRC and was wondering if anyone here could point me in the direction of statistics specifically relating to this piece of rail.

The '8 passengers a train' statistic is bandied about a lot, but where can I find this information? All I have is general rail use so far.

Thanks if you can help!

As far as I can recall, this was initially done by RTE; they simply put a reporter on the train up and down several times in one day and counted heads. The figure hasn't been refuted by anyone though, and I believe that stats backed up their report.
Either way, Varadkar's comments last week that building this line was a mistake pretty much reinforces the one inarguable fact -- the first phase of the so-called WRC has been an abject failure and this mistake won't be repeated by any government in the foreseeable future.
I'll try to find the link to the RTE piece, or maybe it's on the WOT website? ;-)