[Merged] Western Rail Corridor - won't be long now

sligoliner

These people have some interesting ideas - they are going to run the railway themselves and Irish Rail won;t be involved. Similar to how regional railways are run in Europe. A co-op. One more nail in the CIE coffin. It's great see Irish peple waking up to the fact that the railways belong to the Irish people and no CIE management and unions. Very exciting development:


Campaign to reopen rail line gains momentum
By Chris Ashmore



The biggest campaign to reopen a railway line in Ireland is under way. In the past three weeks, more than 30,000 people have signed a petition calling for the "Western Rail Corridor" from Sligo to Limerick to be reopened.

The West-on-Track campaign has caught the imagination of people living along the route with local authorities, chambers of commerce, trade unions and development groups from over 20 towns supporting it.

Since the campaign was launched last month, hundreds of signs have been erected along the N17 Sligo-Galway road with slogans like "Give us back our railway" and "Relieve the East - Revive the West." More than 5,000 posters have been distributed to retail outlets and businesses and 10,000 car stickers handed out, while 15,000 postcards addressed to the Minister for Transport have been printed.

Although 31 miles of the route - at the northern and southern ends - are part of already operational lines, some 114 miles in between are currently disused. The section from Collooney in Co Sligo to Claremorris, Co Mayo, was shut in 1975 and that from Claremorris to Athenry and on to Ennis in 2001. Much of the line is overgrown.

However, thanks largely to the efforts of Fr Micheál Mac Gréil, who has campaigned tirelessly for reopening the line, the track was not lifted and every mile is still in public ownership.

In the Strategic Rail Review (SRR) published earlier this year, the cost of renewing the Sligo-Limerick line, including tracks, stations, signalling and level crossings, was put at €572 million.

But that figure is disputed by Mr Frank Dawson, Galway County Council's director of services, who has carried out an extensive analysis of the line's potential. He maintains it could be reopened for €215 million.

"The total capital cost of the Western Rail Corridor is overstated by €327million (266 per cent). An error of this magnitude simply cannot go unchecked," he said.

Mr Dawson added that just 15 diesel railcar units on 60 m.p.h. track, rather than 72 locomotive hauled carriages on 80 m.p.h. track as the SRR budgeted for, would enable a comprehensive cross-radial service to be operated as well as commuter services for Limerick, Sligo and especially Galway, which could have new suburban halts at Oranmore and Renmore.

He claims that the track could be upgraded at a cost of €825,000 per mile rather than the €2.4 million per mile quoted in the SRR.

"It seems illogical that here we have an asset which is not being utilised. It could be open in six months if the green light was given. People are bursting to get the train," notes Colman Ó Raghallaigh, a member of the West-on-Track campaign steering group.

He stresses that changing lifestyles and demographic changes make the line far more viable now than when it lost its passenger services. The need for more balanced regional development and the provision of better public transport in rural Ireland have struck a chord with communities along the route.




© The Irish Times

silverside

dream on methinks.

Any sign of a business plan? You could build a lot of road for 300 million, never mind the ongoing costs. Maybe, just maybe, light rail could work in the Galway and Limerick suburbs.

Why not just upgrade the road between Galway and Shannon? Then hourly express buses could be run from Sligo to Limerick/Cork if the demand is there.

dmeehan

and what if you wanted to ship freight? stick it on the express bus?

silverside

no you would stick it in a container on an artic.

Chances are you would be going from one industrial estate to another so it would have to go by road some of the way anyway.

How much freight uses the 'western corridor' anyway? I'd guess most of it just goes to/from the ports on the east coast anyway.

Ok you can argue it's a chicken/egg situation, but if the government wants to invest in development of the western seaboard there are more practical ways of doing so than this. Of course they don't want to say this out loud so they mumble about 'feasibility studies'.

It's like in Australia where John Howard promised and built a railway, at huge expense, through thousands of kilometers of desert to link two large towns (Alice and Darwin) to the rest of the country. Never mind that people were surviving perfectly well with road transport - it was a political choice, as it will be again here (either way).

dmeehan

building more and more roads is not a solution

how many artics can one train replace?

silverside

ok I don't want this thread to degenerate into a trains v roads discussion. However there is a certain minimum level of usage required to make trains economically viable. Given the way the population is spread out over the west coast I don't think this is achievable. I admit the western corridor is intuitively a nice idea, as was restoring the canals, but that's no reason to do it.

e.g. if you wanted to get a load of spare parts from shannon to ballina do you think it would be cheaper to load/unload them onto a lorry, then onto a train, or to road freight them directly?
Road building is not an end in itself but roads should be a certain minimum standard, which some of the main routes in mayo and clare are not.

sligoliner

no railway anywhere in the world is economically viable and if lorries and bus companies were forced to pay for the use and upkeep of the road let me tell you they would no be "viable" either.

If you believe that a public service is a profiit making industry and should be trated as such, then lets charge people to use traffic lights and footpaths as well. This railways must be "viable" was spawned in the minds of the US car industry in the 1950s who got the US government to build them a highway network that cost 315 billion dollars and has been described as "inter-state socialism". Roads are not viable either - it';s just that we have been conditiond to pay for them for free use and railways we have been conditioned to do the opposite.

silverside

Yes I agree that roads should be charged for - ideally by road tolls and fuel charges. This is on the way in.

However I don't buy the idea that 'railways are a public service, hence the government should throw money at them'.

If there is a public subsidy to be provided to rail transport, let's quantify it, and then decide if it's a worthwhile investment. At the moment this is done explicitly by providing a 'public service subsidy' to CIE for it's rural bus routes, and to regional air routes. In my opinion if you take the cost of the western corridor, divide by its projected usage, you get a huge per-passenger cost which doesnt match any corresponding public benefit in terms of reduced congestion or increased economic development. The dublin metro is another kettle of fish - there are clear economic benefits in having good public transport where it will get heavy usage, and in that case the goverment should borrow to invest.

sligoliner

Let pull the sweet deals on aviation fuel and charge it for the environmental damage it does and let's see how "viable" Ryanair is then. Let's pull the plug on the €500+ per passenger government subside to fly "commercial" airlines into Donegal.

Why do railways which carry, passengers and freight in gigantic numbers, produce the least pollution and cause the least damage to the environment get to be the only one targeted by this "profit" and "viability" excuse? Railways in present day Ireland have never been more viable nor had more potential to really improve the quality of life and free up our roads and reduce gridlock in urban ans rural areas. have youever seen the traffic in Galway, Limerick and Sligo? and there are new roads all over and around them places.

how come the "population density" carry on is NEVER applied to roads? The fact is that far too many people in this country are lost in the American-centric notion of the car is the future, the eternal king and symbol of freedom (even when you are stuck in traffic getting fact, listen to Gerry Ryan talking bollox and isolated from the rest of humanity to the point where road rage is the only recourse) and the railway are the past. In Europe, it's not like this.

We pay the price in the country for assuming that everything British and Americna is the only thing that works or matters. Go to Switzerland or Denmark - their railway are economically profitable either - but they are not looked upon as having to be this way. There is no other country in Europe with the amount of lorries on the road that Ireland has. Most of our small towns and scenic regain are crammed with artics. The Western Rail Corridor is viable for reasons other than generating income for the Department of Finance. Do you want to live in an good Economy and nothing else, regardless of how destroyed our environment and quality of life is by traffic and pollution? Then I suggest you move to the USA.

We good hospitals, schools, roads and railways in the West of Ireland. The banning of one-off rural housing is important as well.

Open the Western Rail Corridor now and save a nightmare in 20 years time that will cost a whole lot more to sort out.

sligoliner

1987 the then government decided that there would be no further investment in the railways in Ireland. Then the Celtic tiger comes along and imagine no DART, commuter services, ARROW and inter-city service. Rail travel has never been more popular or necessary in Ireland.
But it’s not “viable” – well according the the government back in 1987 and a lot of people since… Thank God nobody paid them any attention and the railways were not ripped up. Could you only imagine the traffic now! Build that six-lane motorway along Sandymount Strand destroying it forever and close the DART– Ray Burke and Haughey were 100% behind it.
Jackson Way anybody?
This country need to grow up fast regarding the viable of all modes of transport and how they can work together and get away from this “in with Roads, out with Rail” Lord Beeching mentality. Never worked anywhere.

sligoliner

When was the last time a passenger on a train in Ireland was killed in a crash? 1991

How many people in the West opf Ireland between Sligo and Limerick have been killed by cars and lorries since 1991?

When was the last time a motorist was killed by a cyclist?

When was the last time a train killed a cyclist?

Does the auto industry pay for for the thousands of funeral and hospital bills it generates in Ireland every year. Do the trucking compaines pay for all the pothole on our scenic roads that are made too dangerous for cyclists?

What was that some people were saying about railways being a burden on society and constantly have to justify themselves?

www.platform11.org

FinoBlad

rename this thread, sligoliner rants to himself

sligoliner

do you have anything to add other than slaggin people off?

sligoliner

Thinking ahead

Taxation ideas suggested in a groundbreaking book more than a century ago are increasingly being seen as a solution to current problems. Victor Keegan reports

Thursday June 26, 2003

A US social reformer who died more than 100 years ago would probably be smiling if he could see the way in which his ideas are slowly starting to take root.
Henry George was the author of the world's first best-selling book on economics, Progress and Poverty (1879). It hugely outsold Das Kapital, and was cited by HG Wells and George Bernard Shaw as the main reason for their conversion to socialism.

In it, George advocated what has been described as the least unfair tax: a levy on land values. The idea is to tax increases in land values that have nothing to do with the individual efforts of the owner, as when a new underground system such as the Jubilee line raises the value of land and property for miles around.

Unlike taxes on incomes, a tax on rising land values is a levy on unearned income. What could be fairer? Variants of the land value tax are starting to come back into fashion as a result of the government's search for increased revenues at a time when it perceives, rightly or wrongly, that the electorate will not tolerate higher income taxes.

This week, the Social Market Foundation, an independent thinktank, called (among other things) for an annual property tax of a proportion of the value of a house. This is not quite what George had in mind, but it is moving in that direction.

Earlier in the month, one of the academic papers published as part of the Treasury's five tests on euro entry suggested a Danish-style property tax of 1% on the market value of most owner-occupied houses.

It suggests that changes in the property tax could become a powerful tool to manipulate the economy if Britain enters the eurozone and has to surrender control of interest rates to the European Central Bank.

The biggest potential for a land value tax has already been endorsed by Bob Kiley, who is in charge of transport in London, as a means of financing the proposed Crossrail project across the capital.

The capital cost of the project would be paid for by the community whose land values have risen as a result of it, leaving the operating cost to be met out of fares.

This follows on from estimates by Don Riley (author of Taken for a Ride) that the Jubilee line, which cost £3.5bn, led to an increase in the value of land nearby of £13bn.

You don't have to buy all of George's ideas (he wanted the land value tax to replace all other taxes and claimed that it would abolish unemployment) to believe that it is an idea whose time might soon come.

No one likes taxes, but this is the least unfair of them all (which does not, of course, mean that it will be popular with the Daily Mail).

George was influenced by earlier sages such as David Ricardo, Tom Paine and John Stuart Mill, who wrote: "The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title."

They would all have been very surprised to know how long it has taken for the idea to start taking root. It is only now, when ideas for raising new taxes have been almost exhausted, that people are starting to look at the best ideas from the past.

· Victor Keegan is editor of Guardian Online

dmeehan

is this "land tax" proposed to be an annual tax or a once off say when the land is sold on?

sceptre

Originally posted by dmeehan
is this "land tax" proposed to be an annual tax or a once off say when the land is sold on?

Annual tax. You'd already be paying capital gains tax (though not currently on your principal residence).

antoinolachtnai

the thinking is a bit wooly in that piece. On the one hand it talks about a property tax, and on the other hand it talks about recovering part of the windfall arising from infrastructural development.

These are separate but related things.

a.

sceptre

Originally posted by sligoliner
how come the "population density" carry on is NEVER applied to roads?

To be quasi-fair, it is.

There's no motorway linking Donegal and Cork just as there's no train line connecting the two places (just like Galway-Limerick, Galway-Cork, Cork-Limerick (the Limerick-Cork train line obviously doesn't count as direct, especially given that there isn't a direct train service)). Motorway development is (apart from the bit crawling around Dublin) limited to linking the major cities with Dublin, just like the few rail lines that IE wants to keep using.

I fully appreciate that IE management don't know what they're doing, don't care and that there isn't enough effort or investment put into rail though.

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/breaking/1095555?view=Eircomnet

Campaign today to open rail line in west
From:ireland.com
Saturday, 26th July, 2003

12:26:56: Communities in counties along the western rail corridor will be taking part in a day of action today as part of the West on Track community campaign for the reopening of the Sligo-Limerick railway.

Events are scheduled for Collooney, Tubbercurry, Swinford, Charlestown, Kil- timagh, Claremorris, Tuam, Athenry and Gort with a further event in Ballyglunin on Saturday, August 2nd.[/B]

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/1103033?view=Eircomnet

Protesters call for reopening of western rail link
From:ireland.com
Monday, 28th July, 2003

Many towns in the west of Ireland face an uncertain future, it is claimed, unless the Government redresses problems of poor infrastructure and inadequate rail services in the major urban areas.

The claim was made by independent TD, Dr Jerry Cowley, at a campaign rally in Charlestown.

He compared the vast amounts being spent on infrastructure in the Dublin region with the almost total neglect of much of the west. Towns such as Charlestown, he said, faced an uncertain future, unless the Government redressed the situation.

On Saturday, protesters walked to the disused railway tracks at Charlestown station, which played a part in inspiring John Healy to write his acclaimed Death of an Irish Town, nearly 40 years ago. During the rally there were repeated calls for the reopening of the railway between Sligo and Limerick.

The rally moved to a local car-park where speaker after speaker criticised the Government for its neglect of the west of Ireland and demanded that the reopening of the western railway line be part of an initiative to counter that neglect.

"Walk the Walk, Don't Talk the Talk," declared flyers which had been posted along the route by West-on-Track representatives.

Similar protests took place around the same time in other towns served by the western railway line - Tubbercurry, Swinford, Kiltimagh and Claremorris.

One of the rally organisers, Mr John Healy, said: "We've got a good quality of life here. The cost of living, housing is affordable. My guess is that if the trains came back, this place would experience a boom, the likes of which has never been seen here before."

Former schoolteacher, Mrs Delia Henry (93), was one of the first to sign a petition calling on the Government to reopen the line."My late mother, Winnie, was on the platform the day in 1895 when the first train puffed into Charlestown and she was there in 1962 when the last passenger train brought people to Galway for the visit of President Kennedy."

That was a happy occasion but Mrs Henry remembered many other occasions which were not. "Thousands emigrated during the forties and fifties which were hard times," she said.

"They left from the small station here in Bellaghy. Mothers would scream with emotion at seeing sons and daughters leave. We young ones watching would cry too with the sadness of it all, even though we might have no connection with those leaving."

Mrs Henry believes the line could play a valuable role in bringing commuters to major work centres such as Galway and Sligo, 56 miles and 25 miles away respectively.

Mr Eamon O'Hara, a retired electrical dealer, remembered the first black and white television sets arriving by train in the 1960s. These were treated as gingerly and respectfully as if they had been tabernacles for local churches.

"The old ways are gone but there is still a great need for a railway line," said Mr O'Hara. "There are great facilities in Charlestown, including Knock Airport three miles away. If the railway line was reopened, Charlestown would be an excellent commuter base for those working in places such as Galway, Sligo and Castlebar."

Local Sinn Féin councillor, Mr Gerry Murray, said it would cost €215 million to reopen the line, a paltry sum compared to the amounts being "squandered" on projects in Dublin.

"A staggering €200 million is being set aside for the refurbishment of the Abbey Theatre. The Government seems to attach greater importance to the cultural infrastructure of Dublin than it does to the physical infrastructure of the west of Ireland."

Qadhafi

Reopening of western rail link sill an option, says Brennan.
Tim O’Brien
The Irish Times
18-September-2003
***************************
The Minister for Transport, Mr Seamus Brennan, has said he may reconsider the Strategic Rail Review’s findings that there is insufficient reason to reopen the Western Rail Corridor.

Speaking to a delegation from the Border, Midlands and Western (BMW) Regional Assembly, the Minister said he was anxious the option of re-opening the western rial link as a spur to economic development in the west be kept open.

Mr Brennan told the delegation- which travelled to Dublin to discuss development imbalances in the west – he was aware that transport was a key driver of growth and roads spending in the west had not been as fast as in the east.

Following a presentation from the BMW delegation on the importance of the Western Rail Corridor as a catalyst to development along the western seaboard, the Minister said he hoped to commission a new study into the potential of the rail link

The route from Limerick through Ennis to Galway and on to Tuam, Claremorris and Castlebar is still in place, although the crossover tracks at Athenry were taken up by Iarnród Éireann earlier this year.

The Minister, however was unable to put a specific date on when the study might be carried out or when the rail link might reopen if the new study indicated that there was sufficient potential.

The Strategic Rail Review, which was set up earlier this year, did not recommend the re-opening of the Rail corridor on the grounds of insufficient business for the railway, but this has been described as a “catch 22” situation by development groups and members of the assembly.

Galway Chamber of Commerce spokesman Dr Chris Coughlan commented that, should the ESB have taken a similar view to the Strategic Rail Review, then much of the West would will be without electricity.

The Minister also told the delegation he acknowledged how expenditure on national roads projects in the BMW regions, but said this would be increased in future years. He reiterated the Government’s commitment to achieving balanced regional development.

Victor

http://www.transport.ie/viewitem.asp?id=4525&lang=ENG&loc=1345

Transport Minister Establishes New Structure To Progress Western Rail Corridor Proposal

16 December 2003
The Minister for Transport, Séamus Brennan T.D, met yesterday (Monday, 15th December 2003) in Dublin with two organisations and local public representatives campaigning for the re-opening of the Western Rail Corridor from Sligo to Limerick to full service as a passenger and freight railway.

Minister Brennan met for two hours with a delegation from the West= On=Track group (Fr. Mícheál MacGréil S.J., Colmán Ó Raghallaigh, Martin Cunniffe, Helen Rochford Brennan, John Joe Conwell (Portumna), Peter Bowen Walsh): Inter County Rail (Councillor Michael Connolly and Martin Joe OToole) and Deputy John Carty TD and Senator Mark MacSharry.

The Minister was presented by West=On=Track with a copy of the recently completed report-Western Rail Corridor-Project Costings and Financial Projections. * (See Note).

Following the meeting Minister Brennan said that he welcomed the very thorough and comprehensive report.

"The Strategic Rail Review study was a very serious document that concluded that the Western Rail Corridor was not at present a viable proposition. I would like to stress that the Strategic Rail Review is not Government policy, it is a useful and valuable input into that policy.

The future of the Western Rail Corridor is very much on my agenda. I believe it warrants a longer and harder look. If the re-opening of this line is ever to happen then we have to come at it in a hard headed, practical way. I am committed to a policy of rebalancing the West coast with the East coast and obviously the Western Rail Corridor could play a central role in achieving this. We need to crunch the figures and reach a stage when we know exactly the investment involved.

Following this very informative and helpful meeting I have instructed officials in my Department to set up a structure that moves the process forward. It will be an engagement structure that will look at all the issues going forward. It will give a direction and a clear focus to future progress.

Under this structure we must examine how we can put together a plan that would examine re-opening the line in stages so that eventually it will all add up to the big picture that is the Western Rail Corridor. In the end it comes back to a leap of faith and vision. I know this will eventually happen. I believe in railways and in expanding them and not in closing them down. The way to go forward is to start looking at re-opening sections. But we can not throw money at projects. This is taxpayers money and in investing it we must be careful, prudent and practical.

The local authorities along the route have an important role to play. They must look again at their rezoning policies and settlement policies for the future. The reality is that we must have critical mass along the route if this plan to re-open the Western Rail Corridor is going to work".

Minister Brennan said he would be making a journey to the West early in 2004 to view for himself the exact position as regards the condition of the tracks, stations and alignment along the Western Rail Corridor.

Qadhafi

Anyone who honestly thinks that road is the solution to transportation is a bit stupid. Just look at England, they built more and more roads but it was never enough. Bus is a big improvement but you need other forms of transport and rail is a great option. It looks likely that the limerick sligo rail line will be opened in the future and about time!

antoinolachtnai

Well, it all depends on things like cost and population density. Rail is great for moving large volumes of people between a small number of points. Unfortunately, the Irish population is quite dispersed and this makes it a lot more difficult. The population of the West of Ireland is tiny, which doesn't help either.

I accept that if we are to increase the population of the West of Ireland, then we have to put some infrastructure in there to attract people.

My worry is that we would end up with something half-hearted. If the line isn't at least twin-track and capable of speeds of well in excess of 80 miles an hour, then there's not much point at all, because it won't really be any faster than road, and it will be much less flexible.

We'd be better building a three-lane busway in the meantime if we're that short of cash.

Qadhafi

What west on track(W.O.T) seem to be arguing for is a re-opening of the railway on a phased development. That seems a smarter idea than a proposed motorway.

Its a lot cheaper than any construction of any road. Once the road is up and running, people have to go and buy cars,tax,insurance and petrol just to get from A to B.

The quailty of journey is better than any car or bus and rail can accomadate freight better.

Although there is a tiny population in the West, if there is no infastructure there then its unlikely that people will want to live there.

There seems to be large support for the rail project, rather than a huge big motorway running along the west.

An 80mph dual track service would be nice, but its not what W.O.T wants. Its usually not the case of all or nothing with infastructure, anything done is better than nothing and time will probably prove than people will use rail over road any day.

antoinolachtnai

Rail is amazingly expensive to set up and maintain, considering what you actually get. The expertise you need is all too specialised. That's the problem.

If you have the density, or can foresee the density, fair enough, you should do it. But you do have to do it right to get the full benefit of a rail service.

I think it is very debatable whether 60mph rail on a one-track line is better than a bus service. For one thing, a service on a one-track system is going to infrequent, and it is difficult to add new services.

For another thing, it is pretty unreliable. If even a minor incident happens on one of the tracks, then the whole service has to be completely shut down until the problem is sorted out.

Another problem is that it makes it pretty much impossible to mix express and local services. Even with two tracks it is quite difficult, as we have found out in Dublin. If you do mix express and local services on a single line, then the local services end up not being frequent enough to be really attractive, and the 'express' services become slowed down and delayed to the extent that they aren't really express anymore.

Most people in the West of Ireland will not live near one of the stations on the line. They will still have to make a bus or car journey to use the service. They may decide that they would be as well driving or taking the bus for the whole distance.

I don't think there is any realistic prospect of freight being carried on the Limerick-Sligo line. The line is quite short, does not connect with any major ports, and doesn't have too many businesses involving heavy goods immediately alongside it. If there is only one line, the freight traffic would definitely inconvenience the passenger traffic. It would not be sufficient to have the freight running only at night on a short track, since this would mean that the freight wagons would be underutilised.

But seriously, why not consider putting in a three-lane busway as a medium-term alternative? It could easily carry up to 1000 passengers/hour in both directions at speeds of 60 to 70 miles per hour (and even more passengers at peak times, although perhaps at lower speeds). It would be cheap to buy new rolling stock. You could have a mix of express and local services. You could build nice stations along the way which would be as comfortable as train stations, and you could put in real time information to make travel more predictable. In addition, buses could travel on directly to towns and villages near to the line, giving more possibilities for routes.

The whole thing could be built and maintained using local labour and contractors, with no need to ship in specialised materaials, equipment or skilled personnel from the UK or the Continent.

Finally, as the population of the West of Ireland grows, the busway can be replaced with a two- or three-way rail line on a staged basis as finances allow.

I'm not saying this is definitely the answer, but I think it is worth putting up there and considering.

Antoin.

sligoliner

I would like to nominate antoinolachtnai for the most stupid post in the history of this board and suggest that he send his CV to Irish Rail, he would make the perfect operations manager.

NeRb666

We need a metro line from Dublin city centre to the airport before something like this should even be considered.

Victor

Originally posted by sligoliner
I would like to nominate antoinolachtnai for the most stupid post in the history of this board and suggest that he send his CV to Irish Rail, he would make the perfect operations manager.

Attack the post not the poster.

Horace Cope

sligoliner wrote: »

These people have some interesting ideas - they are going to run the railway themselves and Irish Rail won't be involved. Similar to how regional railways are run in Europe. A co-op. One more nail in the CIE coffin. It's great see Irish people waking up to the fact that the railways belong to the Irish people and no CIE management and unions. Very exciting development:

It's worth reopening this thread for this - I have seen seen the perfect solution for these people wishing to run the service themselves...;)
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-46828430/manila-s-trolley-boys

cgcsb

A northern extension of the WRC mentioned today in the Times

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/irish-rail-set-to-get-nta-approval-for-100m-worth-of-rail-carriages-1.3753805

firmly tongue in cheek one hopes given the scale of work required just to bring the current intercity network to some standard considered acceptable in the remoter parts of Eastern Europe.

Infini

Not being bad here but this thread is 15 Years old! Mightve been better starting new one....

cdaly_

Though perhaps apposite given the "won't be long now" tagline in the title...

Qrt

cgcsb wrote: »

A northern extension of the WRC mentioned today in the Times

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/irish-rail-set-to-get-nta-approval-for-100m-worth-of-rail-carriages-1.3753805

firmly tongue in cheek one hopes given the scale of work required just to bring the current intercity network to some standard considered acceptable in the remoter parts of Eastern Europe.

Galway line needs to be double tracked ASAP It’s actually beyond a joke.

Lord Glentoran

Qrt wrote: »

Galway line needs to be double tracked ASAP It’s actually beyond a joke.

Sure don’t some of the cyclists want to hobble the Galway line by wanting a cycle path in parallel with the existing single line?

Del.Monte

Qrt wrote: »

Galway line needs to be double tracked ASAP It’s actually beyond a joke.

The Athlone/Mullingar line needs to be reopened.

theguzman

Del.Monte wrote: »

The Athlone/Mullingar line needs to be reopened.

Isn't it turned into a greenway?, ensuring it will never again revert to Railway status, the Lycra Nazis and tourist ripoff industry ensuring another piece of critical infrastructure is destroyed.

loyatemu

Lord Glentoran wrote: »

Sure don’t some of the cyclists want to hobble the Galway line by wanting a cycle path in parallel with the existing single line?

I don't think so - it was suggested as a route for the Galway-Athlone greenway, most cyclists would rather not cycle beside an operational railway.

dermo888

sligoliner wrote: »

I would like to nominate antoinolachtnai for the most stupid post in the history of this board and suggest that he send his CV to Irish Rail, he would make the perfect operations manager.

How is it stupid, or are you so obsessed with your own railway line that you'd happily promote a rambling mainly useless branch line, wandering through underpopulated countryside to the detriment of the rest of the network?

dermo888

Qrt wrote: »

Galway line needs to be double tracked ASAP It’s actually beyond a joke.

Double tracked AND electrified.

London Correspondent

The whole MGWR route to Galway was originally built double track so the section from Athlone Midland station to Galway should be doubled with relative ease. The trickier part is the section from Portarlington to Athlone, which was built as single track albeit with passing places. Perhaps extending the passing loops where practical would make a big difference. As to electrification - there should not be a debate on whether or not to do this. It really should be a matter of when.

To really make a difference, albeit at significant cost, would the mothballed Mullingar to Athlone section be worth reinstating? It is a shorter route direct to Dublin. There is provision for double track however the greenway would need to be rerouted. Also as there is quite a bottleneck coming into Connolly is it worth considering building a spur from Maynooth or Leixlip to Hazlehatch to reconnect with the mainline into Heuston as was suggested here some years back?

dermo888

London Correspondent wrote: »

The whole MGWR route to Galway was originally built double track so the section from Athlone Midland station to Galway should be doubled with relative ease. The trickier part is the section from Portarlington to Athlone, which was built as single track albeit with passing places. Perhaps extending the passing loops where practical would make a big difference. As to electrification - there should not be a debate on whether or not to do this. It really should be a matter of when.

To really make a difference, albeit at significant cost, would the mothballed Mullingar to Athlone section be worth reinstating? It is a shorter route direct to Dublin. There is provision for double track however the greenway would need to be rerouted. Also as there is quite a bottleneck coming into Connolly is it worth considering building a spur from Maynooth or Leixlip to Hazlehatch to reconnect with the mainline into Heuston as was suggested here some years back?

1. Athlone Midland to Galway is a section - from memory of 86 Kilometers. Doubling and Electrifying that - your not going to get much change from 300 Million Euro.

2. Portarlington to Athlone - doubling that oddly enough will be relatively easy because the countryside is flat, flat and bland. Its pure boring open country.

3. Rebuilding Mullingar to Athlone. I'm afraid that horse has bolted, although its not a bad idea as a single track relief line. But despite it being shorter, its a twisty alignment along the Canal. The stretch from Athlone to Heuston is a racetrack by comparison with 160kph capability, and in time, in the future, 200kph from Portarlington to Heuston.

L1011

Mullingar-Maynooth would need doubling even if traffic levels that could be carried by a single track Mullingar-Athlone were added to it. And as said above its a very poor alignment, electric trains will be able to take it slightly harder but not at the speeds of the Portarlington route.

London Correspondent

The key here is to get to Galway quicker than by car. Getting the line electrified would be a major step but even using hybrid trains would be a positive step.