Railfreight Worsens Traffic Congestion

PandaMania

Can anybody explain to me the logic of timber lorries, in some case travelling up to 40 miles laden with timber into the centre of towns such as Ballina and Sligo is supposed to free up road space and save us from the horror of the lorry?

I was driving through Finskillen Industrial Estate in Sligo the other day and thank God the new road is opened because there was total gridlock in central Sligo from two timber lorries delivering their logs to be loaded on trains. The same situation is happening in other towns were timber is being loaded and deliver by trains.

This is simply nuts. It defeats the whole selling point of rail freight for a congestion solving and enviormental aspect (timber lorries are the noisy bastards). Surely it would make more sense to have sidings on rural sections of the Sligo, Westport and other lines near the timber felling areas and deliver them by lorry to there instead of clogging up Irish towns. There should also be spurs built directly to serve the end customers who get the logs.

The current practice is self-defeating and perhaps the greatest reason why railfeight doomed in Ireland - it simply serves no benefit really. When the Cabra cement terminal and Sligo container depot closed the areas around these location saw less lorries and they became envioronmentally improved as a result of the railfreight closure.

I would be totally against tax-breaks for railfreight in its current form as it would just make the centre of our towns and cities more miserable and filled with tens of thousands of extra lorry movements. Rather, I would prefer to see capital grants (I am sure IE can spare a few bob from all their property deals) targeted toward timber rail loading areas on rural sections of the current rail network and if perhaps container loading and unloading facilities on the outskirts of towns and cities, were the end delivery can be made to the business parks from the outside in, rather than from city/town centre to industrial estate.

Having said that there is little hope for railfreight in Ireland to ever be a success, but if IE are to continue transporting logs, they get their lorries out of the towns and load the trains nearer to the forests. IE should really have cabon levies placed upon them for the ammount of lorries their railfreight adds to centre of Irish towns.