Limerick-Foynes Rail Line

aside from the fact that offloading freight in one port, and shipping it by land a few 100km to another port to send it back out to sea, doesnt seem to be a sensible thing to do even if it were possible.

I did a bit of searching and there seems to be the possibility of Zinc and lead mining in a stretch of land from Kildare to Tipp with test drilling and decisions being made at the moment, so if that works out there might be one or more potential customers from those mines.

You'd wonder too would Tara then send their shipments through Foynes if it becomes a major Ore handing port.

A fair few "ifs" in there though, and who is to know whether the mines simply send their ORE to Dublin and ignore Foynes. Sure, Foynes had a rail line until relatively recently and it didnt seem to get much use so why should that change now ?

Can do both. It doesn't have to be single track either. Limerick Junction line is being doubled in any case

I can't see heavy rail passenger services to Adare or beyond being viable, the population is too low and it wouldn't bring people to where they want to go. It would be just running trains on the line for the sake of it. Presumably there would be regular freight trains to justify the reopening so limited scope for meaningful passenger services on the single track.

There are plans to redevelop a large area in the city called Home - Colbert Quarter | Limerick. I know they show the rail line in plans but having heavy rail, particularly freight, trundling through is not suitable for such an urban regeneration. A new heavy rail link should be provided along the southern side of the M7 and crossing the M20 to allow freight trains bypass the city centre to/from Foynes. Then you could create a light rail line from Raheen Business Park (possibly Patrickswell with a P&R) along the R526 serving residential areas and UHL, swinging round at the Crescent Shopping Centre and using the old heavy rail alignment into the city. It could extend out to UL/Castletroy, maybe even M7 J28 with a P&R.

Neither I presume it's an existing railway line and was in use until about 15 years ago to an extent. You have to understand there is a green in transport so they just worked away.

80 million and it will be lucky if one train a week operates on it.

Limerick County Council declared the Foynes line a protected structure in the mid-2000s in an attempt to force Irish Rail to maintain it but it was contested on the basis that any heavy works would then require planning permission.

No, because the line was never officially closed.

not really, as the line is there anyway so a bus service would be more money when you can simply provide a train on a line that is re-existing anyway, if the money is being spent to reopen it may as well provide a passenger service that can be increased with time.

sure having to reverse is not ideal but it's not the big deal it would have been years ago when trains were loco hauled.

There's a direct curve into the station so no reversal required.