Western Rail Corridor (all disused sections)

westtip wrote: »

However, I wouldn't call the greenway a by-product. I was writing on the old thread about the economic benefits of the greenway idea long before even the Great Western Greenway was opened and before greenways became part of the public consciousness. My original thought for a greenway on this route came when I was driving on the N17 between Tubbercurry and Charlestown one day and looking to my left saw the old railway and thought that is never going to re-open why on earth don't they put a cycle path on it, I was unaware of the word "greenway" at the time. A friend of mine sent me in an article in the Irish Times back in 1997, 17 years ago, written by Tourism Economics Lecturer Felim O'Rourke, Felim had mapped out all the old railways in the West saying they should be a network of cycle paths.

Im not dissing the idea of a Greenway. I'm merely referring to it as a by-product of a disused railway. That's what it is.

Grandeeod wrote: »

How poorly built was that!

Very. Lowest cost construction possible - which is why it isn't practical to even consider it as a modern railway, route speed wise. If they wanted a road-competitive railway from Sligo to Galway they'd need to build a new alignment.

cgcsb wrote: »

When building the Ennis Athenry section we had a relatively blank canvis. It should have been designed to accommodate 200km/h, with 160 being achievable with current rolling stock.

But there was no "blank canvas", unless you want some major CPO's, there were restricted to the existing route alignment.

corktina wrote: »

there was no need for 200 km/h on this line, it's too short and the stops enroute would mean it would rarely if ever acheive this speed (or even 160)

What was needed was a realisation that most of the intermediate stops are irrelevant in terms of rural transport and should have been left to the Bus Service. With a fast Lim/Ennis/Gort/Oranmore/Galway service and a chord avoiding Athenry, 70 mph would probably have been sufficent..(.even Gort station is right on the 51 bus route and could have been left out.)

both the intermediat stations left out and building/rebuilding to the highist possible speed are what should have happened. if more then 70 could have been got thats what should have been aimed for, if not well thats unfortunate, but better then nothing. the right thing to have done is just reopen the line and have just limerick ennis athenry galway, if numbers were good then consider reopening intermediat stations. if not then the current mess could have been avoided.

westtip wrote: »

Which is what has been said all along, and is what WOT never saw. They were always campaigning for bad infrastructure that would not deliver, constantly they have talked about this "vital piece of infrastructure" but its not because as many of us have said tarting up the old railway by laying new tracks was never going to deliver good infrastructure but merely the reinvention of the old line, with poor alignments, gradients and a poor route choice. Asking for the old line to be re-opened was a sop. Ennis Athenry was as LV said "built for entirely political reasons". Had WOT campaigned for a true WRC going Limerick, Shannon Airport, Galway; they would never have got it due to the land costs for a new route. Using the old route created the slow train that was inevitable and the failure that was inevitable. They were sold a sop, but at least the failure (predicted by many at the start) of the old rail route, has finally put pay to any more nonsensical talk about the railway being opened north of Athenry. 2014 was the end of the Western Rail corridor, this parrot is most definitely dead. 2015 is a new beginning. Happy New Year Folks.:D

While I agree absolutely that the WRC will make a decent Greenway, I don't share the same sense of jubilation as you. I am always accutely aware of the fact that this folly will be seen as a massive massive failure in railway terms and the long term damage to developing the rail network will be far reaching as a result. 2014 may be the year that saw the end of the WRC, but 2015 may be the year where the bean counters and mandarins that run this country, develop an anti railway bias and hold up the WRC as ultimate proof that railways aren't worth reopening anywhere. Not a huge issue at the moment. But once it enshrines itself in political circles, it could take a lifetime to change.

westtip wrote: »

GD I agree completely, its not a sense of jubilation that WRC has been buried, as I have said so many times asking and lobbying for the WRC was very damaging to rail investment, and may have damaged the rail lobby forever. The reason I lobbied against he WRC being extended any further was a genuine interest in transport planning, I have always seen it as a bad use of resources and not really solving any transport problems for the west. I would love to have seen the 110 million wasted on Ennis/Athenry invested where the need is greater. For the West as said in other posts 110 million spent on improving West to East rail travel (Galway Dublin, Westport Dublin and Sligo Dublin) would have benefited the west greatly. You are right, the campaign to restore the WRC has done untold damage to the rail lobbyists in Ireland. Every campaign for rail investment now be compared to this forlorn campaign and held up "do we want another white elephant like the WRC?"

Best of luck with the Greenway and thank you for being honest enough to realise what that bunch of eejits WOT were along with their bunch of "now silent" supporters who have ****ed over rail development in Ireland. Believe it or not, something similar is going on with Metro North in the capital. I'm astounded by the sheer ignorance from people who are happy to sit online and partake in even more crayonism, while absolutely nothing gets built.

Sorry continuing

Suggesting WRC could have be realigned for so called high speed flies in the face of any realism and is pure fantasy

The line was built for interprovincial mixed passager and freight , IR reopened the line with the lowest weight rail. But nothing would justify getting the line speed above its original Victorian speeds.

In fact IR chasing speeds is a chimera, its hideously expensive , yet with station dwell times , number of stops , train paths for slower trains , real point to point improvements are nearly impossible

IR would be better raising average speeds to 70 mph over the while network , providing lower cost reliable services on comfortable trains ( good running carriages , proper seats , catering ) ie all the things that are difficult to put on a bus. Making a train like a bus is a waste of time.

The future for intercity rail is extremely bleak with current thinking

Note

A greenway running along a disused railway WILL prevent it ever being open again by the way. The width of a train plus a safety margin will mean its will be a practical impossibility to run both. That's not to knock greenway but let's not engage is more WRC. wishful thinking

If its a greenway then take up the track , make it a good greenway , the railway WILL NEVER be reopened anyway

Someone asked what's the future for railways in Ireland

The answer, is outside of commuter Dublin , none. You simply cannot compete with motorways on a small country.

corktina wrote: »

see the pic on post 5017, the formation is very wide indeed and there would always be room for rail alongside a greenway with special arrangements at pinch points.

You might have a look at the Irish Rail Gauge to see the width and height consumed by standard rail vehicles. Its considerably more then the rail width. Then add a considerable safety margin.

The reality is that its wishful thinking. If you distrust me, try walking along side a single track operating railway in ireland today.

short of making a one foot wide greenway, the track will have to go and the greenway properly established. Anything else is more WRC wishful thinking.

Ive seen proposed Mulligar athlone greenway drawings, its nonsense to suggest you could realistically run a railway alongside it.

Make it a greenway ( or don't ) but at least lets abandon more wishful thinking.

L1011 wrote: »

It was - but Irish gauge light rail.

Its a heavy rail line, primarily built to haul mixed freight ( mainly cattle) and some passengers. Trying to justify the WRC cock-up by saying the reason its failing is its not the TGV is just laughable.

Its also worth pointing out that IE managers from the West (working in Dublin) like Myles McHugh (now retired) actively supported this and then we had your man Dawson from Galway CoCo who's Daddy drove a train on the line, doing the same. It was akin to a local coop. Ah well they got 100 million out of the pot.

cgcsb wrote: »

We're spending 700mil on a motorway to Tuam, a new railway alignment, or partially new rather, is a substantially lower cost. Surely it should merit consideration to meet the transport need between the two cities.

no it wouldn't , rail and road capacity considerations aren't equal. its not a case of one displacing the other, that was lost sometimes in the 50s

westtip wrote: »

I accept the motorway is overspecced and overkill for the population in the west; good quality seamless road, dual c/w or even 2+1 (remember that) would be perfectly ok, or even the single lane with wide hard shoulder, but a seamless road that bypasses the likes of Claregalway is essential. Transport needs in the west of ireland, due to our housing planning and dispersed population and communities is totally driven by road transport, like it or not, that is a fact of life, a new alignment for a railway may be worth considering, the existing alignment though is not suitable for a modern railway to deliver an acceptable journey time.

The argument about road types is not really relevant to the rail argument. merely because we spend XXX on roads doesnt mean we should automatically spend yyy on rail. Thats was the fallacy of the greens and why IR suddenly got millions to waste on railcars having just previously spent millions on 100mph+ locomotives

The issue is justification. There is no justification for new rail lines in ireland, we can hardly fund the existing system, which ultimately boils down to the inability of Intercity rail to attract large numbers of passengers particularly in smaller population areas.

Much as a rail fan like me, hates to admit it. Motorways and good quality roads will provide significant benefit to large numbers of travellers. Expensive rail upgrades in reality target a very small proportion of travellers. ( outside of high capacity commuter areas)

Arguably one could argue that the greater Dublin areas commuter rail, more LUAS, DART inter connector, are all ham strung by rail budget divisions in fiascos like WRC, intercity upgrades etc.

a new alignment for a railway may be worth considering, the existing alignment though is not suitable for a modern railway to deliver an acceptable journey time.

The fact is that WRC and others lines show, once Ireland built high quality motorways, really it has spelled the end of intercity rail transport. The Dublin Galway rail line issues show this.

I mean if you shut the waterford dublin intercity rail link, you simply wouldn't notice the extra loading on the adjacent motorway. The same is true for Dublin Limerick.


The fact remains, WRC issues are not really related to the " alignment " , thats a red herring, short of a massive ridiculous high speed 100mph+ line, point to point journeys for a traveller will always be better on a motorway and high quality road network. Ireland simply has little or no congestion once outside a few specific urban pinch points.

Rail simply doesnt offer the inter city traveller any particular advantages, has some severe dis-advantages and thats not helped by decades of mis-management, mis-diected investment and management by civil service and external "strategic" reviews

Again, why attempt to bulldoze , and back fill , construct greenways around narrow bridges etc, for a railway that will never be re-established. Either the greenway is justified or its not.

If in the future, some alternative reality requires the re-establishment of a railway, it then might be built on a new alignment as some have justified here !. ( not )

I just see more WRC/WOT fuzzy thinking.

monument wrote: »

Your problem is that you're now shifting goal posts. You were just a few posts ago trying to make out that a greenway could never fit along the WRC or on any railway alignment in Ireland while keeping .

You're also showing that you don't have a clue about the WRC/WOT advocates -- they are firmly against the fact that a greenway can fit beside a railway on the WRC. Just to be clear here: I'm not saying a railway should be built, but just that if people want to hold onto the idea of a railway in the future, that the greenway can be built in a way to accommodate that.

As for "Either the greenway is justified or its not" -- The real world works this way. It's not a dictatorship, if you want something done you work with people, you meet them half way where you can. You have to deal with Realpolitik.

It's not a case of only having to "construct greenways around narrow bridges" or nothing else -- you can put the greenway away from the tracks where there's space and under the narrow bridges for now and leave it open to divert the greenway in the future.

I'm not agreeing with you about the width of the alignment. I've never seen it stated that the Burma road was built with wider slignments then elsewhere.

But that's not the point. WRC is dead, limerick Galway is on a life support machine of artificially low fares and excessive tine tabling to save political face. Hence there is simply no foreseeable future that will see a rail lnk on the Sligo end.

Given that people need to stop worrying about rsil isses. And fixate on recovering possession and building a good greenway. It makes no sense to spend any extra money "'securing" a rail line that wil never reopen. What's keys is not to loose the track bed.

Greenway are justified because the gov and it's agencies have seen the success of them in other countries. It's not a matter of " working with people", it's a matter of establishing policy and funding that policy. There no need to mollycoddle the fiasco that is WOT and it's supporters given the disastrous performance of the existing WRC.

If in some future mythological country, the rail line is justified , then an alternative greenway could be established ( beside the railway or elsewhere ) and the rail track relaid.

The already highly congested road network on, around, and within the M50 would notice it.

Not at all, the numbers travelling by train after you take out the non car owners are too small to make any difference

We were told that express bus services between Cork and Dublin would have that route on its knees before now -- yet, here we are.

You might not see any advantages, but actual rail passengers do.

Well we have seen what has happened on the Dublin Galway route. I forsee IR seeing the same issues on all it's lines that shadow motorways, especially with the removal of city gold upmarket services on the trains. It's easier to switch to the Beemer and press the cruise control.
Things will only get worse as we see more automated driving aids appearing in cars.

But yes , removing intercity rail, doesn't mean abandoning Dublin commuter rail, that's needs to be enhanced.

corktina wrote: »

i stopped reading at the"LUAS gauge is 4'6" "

why ?

corktina wrote: »

becauase there is so much wrong info in your long winded posts.

explain ?

westtip wrote: »

Boatman I have cut out quite a lot of the post this quote is pulled from, If you read any of my many posts on this subject over the last few years, I think you will see we are singing from the same hymn sheet in regard to the WRC alignment!

I know, its a sad day, when one unjustifiable excuse after another is advanced to justify the farce that was the political justification exercise that was WOT/WRC. The main basis of which was " Ye's have all that track/trains in dublin, give us some"

eastwest wrote: »

effectively the political wing of West on Track --

Now that FG no longer support the WRC, and it is highly doubtful that FF will fall into that trap again, is the voice of the political wing of west on track?
Gerry "not up for discussion" Murray:

Remember this one folks lest you forget: He certainly got it right when he said the western rail corridor is not on the table and was not up for discussion - but perhaps not the way he thought!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7G_Zd47HRc

Just a thought. but as this thread has gone so completely AWOL re its subject matter, and as the Western Rail Corridor no longer exists as a subject worth discussing, except in the minds of a tiny minority, should we call it a day. Should we now ask the mods to close the thread and start a new on on the Western Rail Trail?.... As I say just a thought