Railway?

byte

Something I believe Donegal has lacked in, is a rail link with other parts of the country.

I know there was a railroad back in olden times but of course, that has since been uplifted and long gone.

Does members here think we are really lacking by not having a railway.

Is a railroad important anymore?

Would we have more interest from companies setting up in Donegal, if we had a railroad going through the county?

I don't think it should be that hard to line a rail from Sligo to Derry, through Donegal, possibly via Ballyshannon, Donegal Town, Twin Towns, Letterkenny, and onto Derry. Then maybe rail spurs could be added later to Carndonagh etc, linking to Letterkenny?

Of course, many possibly think it is now near impossible to lay a railway, with all the changes in infrastructure around urban areas, since the last railline was in use.

I'd like to hear people's opinions on this.

smashey

I think it is an absolute disgrace that we have no rail-links. Infrastructure in this county is terrible. It would certainly bring a lot of benefits, especially tourists. Look at how many tourists Kerry gets and a large part of that is accessibility from Dublin. A lot of tourists would like to get of the plane and take the train to their destination. This rules Donegal out of for a lot of them. I have said before that every time I see something about the western rail corridor, it disgusts me that Sligo is as far north as it would go.

Civilian_Target

Pffft - who the hell is going to build a railway to donegal. Its miles away from everywhere and it has a very low population density. It would be just as completely pointless an exercise today as it would have been in olden times.

A good road would be nice though.

Civilian_Target

And BTW smashey, the Northern rail corridor runs to Derry. It's not a whole lot better off for having a railway though, is it?

Dun

And I'm sure that's absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it tours most of northern Derry and Antrim before going to Belfast.

Civilian_Target

If you're a tourist, surely that's a bonus!

They have new trains on the line now anyway that reduces the journey time substantially.

retalivity

fcuk the trains, i like donegal as it is, unspoilt and tourists as a minimum

nanook

guys

there is a miniature railway in finntown if that any help

Paddy20

nanook wrote:

guys

there is a miniature railway in finntown if that any help

Nanook,

The railway from Stranorlar {County Donegal Railway's} really was "minature", narrow guage, my grandfather and father both worked there.

It may have been small, but the memories are big.

Trips to Strabane, school excursions to the seaside, playing on the steam engines when no one was looking, just wonderful.

As for the economic benefits, they are legion. Heavy goods containers moved by rail relieves road congestion. I believe closing the D.C.R. was a disaster both socially & economically for this part of the North West.

Bring back the railway, it makes sense from all perspectives.

That's just my 2cs worth .

P. :cool:

nanook

paddy the origonal post was a joke, i think the line in finntown is about 3-4 miles long.

But correct me on this, is there not the remains of the old railway line in barnesmore gap, something tells me there is

smashey

Civilian_Target wrote:

Pffft - who the hell is going to build a railway to donegal. Its miles away from everywhere and it has a very low population density. It would be just as completely pointless an exercise today as it would have been in olden times.

A good road would be nice though.

Well, the population density of Kerry, Mayo and er Leitrim wouldn't be any greater than ours but they all have working railways. The fact that we are miles away from anywhere only heightens our feelings of isolation, and it is this type of comment that has been putting us down for years. We are far away from everywhere else, so what? We didn't decide how Mother Nature shaped this island of ours and as we pay the same taxes as the rest of the country, we are just as entitled to want what everybody else has and that is proper services with regards to transport. Shouldn't our location mean we should expect a little bit more effort at least?

Civilian_Target And BTW smashey, the Northern rail corridor runs to Derry. It's not a whole lot better off for having a railway though, is it?

Try telling the people of Derry that the railway link was being taken away as it didn't make any contribution to their city. I think you would get a fairly short answer from them.

retalivity fcuk the trains, i like donegal as it is, unspoilt and tourists as a minimum

Well, as Fruit of the Loom closed it's doors this week, with Clubman soon to follow, there doesn't seem to be a mad rush of multi-nationals setting up here, maybe, just maybe, the tourist route might be the way to go.

Paddy20

nanook wrote:

paddy the origonal post was a joke, i think the line in finntown is about 3-4 miles long.

But correct me on this, is there not the remains of the old railway line in barnesmore gap, something tells me there is

nanook,

Of course I appreciate your post was [tongue in cheek], However, there are massive grants available from the EU for renewing 'state of the art' infrastucture such as rail-links which would prove economically and/or sociallly beneficial to the North-West.

Perhaps we need a 'People's campaign to make it a reality' with state of the art infrastucture ?...

Investment in rail has never been higher in the UK, and who built their rail & road network's !. We did.

Personally, I would back a campaign for a new North-West railway's campaign, particularly between Sligo & Derry.

Maybe, 'byte' has struck a vitally important issue that needs to be highlighted by threads such as this ?....

As for the existing Barnesmore remains of what was historically the most picuresque [Narrow gauge] steam train network in Europe, we now need a radical new - mindset change - from our politicians, who with a little imagination,and the will and political foresight , could change our North-West for the better permanently for generations to come.

Civilian_Target

Listen lads. I hate to break it to you, but running a railway to Donegal is a complete waste of time. The only type of railway worth deploying these days in twin-track continuously welded rail, for express trains. For the price of building such a track to Donegal, you could practically build a motorway. And there's no-where near the capacity required to operate such a railway anyway. CIE will tell you that the Sligo railway isn't economicly viable after you get past Longford town, even it's viability past Navan is questionable. They've been trying to close down the railway to Ballina & Westport for years, it's a complete waste of money, and Kerry's not a whole lot better.

Fact is, railway's need a lot of people to support them. There are 5 commercially viable railways in the country: Dublin Suburban, Dublin->Cobh, Dublin->Belfast->Bangor and Ennis->Limerick Jcn and Dublin->Galway, everything else is subsidised (and rightly so) for social reasons. You'd need to be running 8 trains a day each way to make it viable, and that means at least 2000 travellers a day each direction. There's only 160,000 people in the whole county! It makes no sense

There's hundreds of better ways that Donegal could invest the money you'd spend building a railway, on things like business development, indigenous development, tourist facilities, outdoor activities, generation of clean power ,competent town planners, roads, a more frequent express bus service as well reinstatement of a good rural bus service, a fully equipped hospital, whatever - you could get all of the above for the price of a railway and it would make a much larger difference.

And of the record, the DCR was a narrow gauge, single line railway. Whoever built it was absolutely insane. It's only truly useful function was shipping quartz from the base of Muckish.

Paddy20

Civilian Target,

Railways are a national issue, both economically and socially.

Some regions may be profitable while others are not, that is democracy , but overall rail-links are vital IMHO, and you {with all due respect} have completely lost the plot.

IMHO, Byte & Smashey are on the ball

The North-West has been treated with disdain, and is regarded by politicians as the 'Cinderalla' of the Republic, as if we do not belong in either the North or South of this beleagured Country. With no one accepting real responsibility.

A general election is looming, and it would be great if we had a people's lobby campaigning on this issue, I for one would back it both privately and publicly.

P. :cool:

muffler

Civilian_Target wrote:

Listen lads. I hate to break it to you, but running a railway to Donegal is a complete waste of time. And there's no-where near the capacity required to operate such a railway anyway. CIE will tell you that the Sligo railway isn't economicly viable after you get past Longford town, even it's viability past Navan is questionable. They've been trying to close down the railway to Ballina & Westport for years, it's a complete waste of money, and Kerry's not a whole lot better.

So using the same logic it would be your opinion too that Letterkenny general hospital should not have cancer treatment and care facilities because not enough people in Donegal have cancer.

Im very disappointed at your negative and immature response

The bones

Our beloved Taoiseach - very pleasant chap- knocked on my door in drumcondra some time back on one of his meet the people outings, anyway i asked him about a number of things about "up home" and i proposed that we would never see a railway again in donegal and he stated clearly "never".

Sad but true.

He talked about Derry airport as basically serving letterkenny and which would'nt be feasible if it wasn't for govt subsidies and said they were doing a big job on "de roads" as donegal was "a great place but very hard to get to".

Paddy20

Paddy20 wrote:

Civilian Target,

Railways are a national issue, both economically and socially.

Some regions may be profitable while others are not, that is democracy , but overall rail-links are vital IMHO, and you {with all due respect} have completely lost the plot.

IMHO, Byte & Smashey are on the ball

The North-West has been treated with disdain, and is regarded by politicians as the 'Cinderalla' of the Republic, as if we do not belong in either the North or South of this beleagured Country. With no one accepting real responsibility.

A general election is looming, and it would be great if we had a people's lobby campaigning on this issue, I for one would back a people's campaign demanding a new rail link for the North-West.

A people's 'POLL' might help, but that is up to the thread starter 'byte', and congratulations on one of the best threads ever posted on this forum .

P. :cool:

byte

Well, as I didn't start a poll when I first posted this thread, I can't edit it and add a Poll now.

Besides, I don't think there are enough users of the NW board, to make the Poll any way accurate.

If you wish, by all means start a Poll of your own. And thanks for the praise

Civilian_Target

muffler wrote:

So using the same logic it would be your opinion too that Letterkenny general hospital should not have cancer treatment and care facilities because not enough people in Donegal have cancer.

Im very disappointed at your negative and immature response

Nope - whole different kettle of fish, but I think Donegal should only have basic cancer treatment facilites and there should be a specialised live in place somewhere in the country where they have expert medical care and good accommodation so that people can receive the best treatment possible - something thats not feasible if you delegate little bits of cancer treatment to every region.

Fact is, Ireland's a small country guys, and the place really in need of a rail network now is Dublin, where there's too many people to fit on the trains. Clearly none of you have ever tried to board a train at Castleknock station at 8am on a weekday [EDIT] It's like trying to fit 6 people in a phonebox[/EDIT]. Donegal's going to have to wait.

Some regions may be profitable while others are not, that is democracy , but overall rail-links are vital IMHO, and you {with all due respect} have completely lost the plot.

A railway would be benefitial to Donegal - I totally agree on that point. But, price it up. Take a look. It would take over a billion euros to build something worthwhile. Do you think if someone said to you "We have a billion euros to invest in Donegal" would you think "Hey - a railway" (or "Hey, a compleletly pointless bridge across Mulroy bay", whatever) or would you think "Hey with that billion euro we could have all of this stuff..."

• Regional bus services to parts of the county unserved by public transport
• Improvement of the Letterkenny-Lifford and Donegal North Coast road
• Proper urban redevelopment in Letterkenny
• Proper telcoms infastructure
• Clean power
• Upgrading of LYIT
• Improved facilites at our county's secondary schools
• Urban redevelopment in deprived rural villages around the county
• ...

And yet you would rather a ****ing railway for the same money. You, with all due respect, have completely lost the plot. A grand (And possibly symbolic) gesture, yes, but also a mostly pointless infastructural project. Get a grip on yourselves. Railways (especially of the single track variety) in semi-rural areas are far from vital, they bring few economic gains (except where hauling turf) due to the fact that freight is mostly possible by road. And tourists mostly fly in and get tours to Kerry because that's what's advertised. Kerry cashed in while Donegal's politicians slept.

donegalman1

I was of the opinion that much of the base (maybe not the tracks) was still in place in the North west, particularly in Barnesmore Gap.

A line from Letterkenny to Sligo would facilitate a connection to Dublin. A new connection to Galway would open up the west then entirely.

Its not just about our own travel or tourism but would benefit haulage, followed on by industry.

The days of siting airports in remote areas must be gone but at least a rail connection would benefit everyone. Its harder to get to Carrigfinn from Letterkenny than Dublin.

Then, I agree, we could look at spurs off to outlying areas.

Roads are fine and we do need them but the likes of rail transport are vital if we are to get industry and tourism to the North West.

Imagine the savings to industry. Roads would also benefit taking some of the trucks off, much of road damage occurs as a result of HGVs... ever travelled to dublin behind a fleet of lorries also, therefore journeys by road would benefit. Not to mention the chances of saving lives, Rail travel is much safer. Adn finally the benefits to students and tourists and those in general who do not drive.

The fact is Industrialists look at Donegal, see no infrastructure and look elsewhere. If Shannon Airport could be subsidised so could Donegal. We are in dire need of massive development of some sort, whether imediately viable or not. Many times before we were told Carrigfinn and Derry Airports were not viable so there's no point in using them now to fobb us off.
With regard to Dublin, most of the infrasture projects there overran so much we could have had a railway!

Tourism wise Kerry is Better Marketed, even though we're closer to Dublin. The Troubles also played a part in this but try organising a trip from Donegal to Kerry or Vice Versa and see how far Bus timetables will get you. The Sligo line might be more viable if it were connected to Donegal.

I agree about the Derry to Belfast line being a bit of a tourist trail but I also know people in the North who take their kids once a year on it to Portrush and relay stories just like Paddy20's


Doubt if CIE would be my preferred choice to run it though!

Paddy20

byte wrote:

Well, as I didn't start a poll when I first posted this thread, "I can't edit it and add a Poll ".] Sorry 'byte' Wrong !.

You can add a poll any time you wish, on your thread, give it a bit of thought.


It is your thread, and where it goe's from here is up to you.

We need an ultra-modern rail- network, conecting all of Ireland internally and externally to the rest of Europe, that is why they built the Eurotunell to the european mainland undersea from mainland UK, and who did the work, mainly Irish tunnelmen from the North-West..

Why do we not force a connection from the North-West of Ireland to mainland Europe ?...

byte, it is your thread, it is nationally important, and I suggest a poll, once again !..

P. :cool:

byte

No, I can't add a poll. In fact, I'm not even able to edit the post, let alone add a poll. Anyway, I don't think a Poll is neccessary. Just vibrant discussion?

As for the thread, it's not mine, I just started it

Maybe the mods can edit the thread to add a Poll?

muffler

byte wrote:

Maybe the mods can edit the thread to add a Poll?

I will leave this to nanooks expertise and also his judgement. Im not sure with the limited number of posters here that it will serve any worthwhile purpose.

Still it may gauge the support for the idea. (I love the puns:D )

jimmeh

I think the whole romantic idea of bringing back the railways is nice, but to be honest the money would be better spend upgrading road and telecoms infrastructure, motorways and FTTH would attract alot more investment that a railway. possibly upgrading the city of derry airport or building a more centralised one for donegal.

Paddy20

byte wrote:

No, I can't add a poll. In fact, I'm not even able to edit the post, let alone add a poll. Anyway, I don't think a Poll is neccessary. Just vibrant discussion?

As for the thread, it's not mine, I just started it

Maybe the mods can edit the thread to add a Poll?

Byte & Muffler,

Only a few weeks ago I added a poll to one of my threads at 'nanooks' suggeation, not that the poll had much of a response, but at least it was possible .

jimmeh,

Derry airport has alredy been approved for runway expansion, and the funding is in place. . You can not seriuosly be suggesting that a North-West rail link is not worthy of consideration , at least it's feasibility ,should be considered by a publicly appointed specialist 'task force' ?..

P.

jimmeh

just came across this, thought it held some value to this thread.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5034912.stm

Paddy20

jimmeh wrote:

just came across this, thought it held some value to this thread.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5034912.stm

jimmeh,

While I glanced at your interesting link. I have no doubt that we have local T.D.'s & County Councillors who are intelligent enough to appreciate that the economic & social need for a modern rail network encompassing all of Ireland, especially here in the North-West is obvious.

If they had the will, it could become a reality before the E.U. golden goose Ireland funds are spent in new member states ?...but will the politico's cop on before it is too late,?.... your guess is as good as mine, and I am not optimistic given the lack of help our region has historically not received .

P. :cool:

Civilian_Target

Right - I've had about enough of this. There are clearly some of you living in lala land instead of the reality of the North West.

The cost of a one track railway line to Letterkenny from Sligo, the minimum you could possibly build, would be at least €700-€800 million. For a useful, two track line (although this may be an exercise in pointlessness since the Sligo line is single track towards the end anyway) you're talking over about €1.1bn. To put that in context, that's 2% of the goverment's total budget for the entire year, and the same amount that's spent on road improvement nationwide, to be spent providing a railway to service a maximum of 100,000 people, providing trains to Dublin, via Sligo (Dublin - Sligo is a 3 hour journey already, so you can expect this one to take more like 4.5 hours, which is slower than driving), about 4 times a day. All of which CIE will operate at a loss, since there's not even enough people going to Dublin from Letterkenny every day to fill 8 busses, which is about the same capacity as one train 3-carraige train.

Aside from passenger traffic, the economic benefits of a railway will be virtually nil. Railway's main industrial use is heavy freight haulage, (concretes and other mining extracts) as well as transportation of industrial goods such as chemicals (ammonia) and liquids (beer for example). Since this type of work is pretty much gone in the north west, apart from a couple of local quarries, and is very much a dying sector in Ireland, and indeed the western world. So the economic benefits of a railway would be very limited indeed. In fact, even the type of industry it brings is no longer seen as desireable, I'm sure Paddy20, that you'd be the first to complain if they opened an industrial chemical plant behind your house because of strong rail links!

In short, a railway to the north west would be an extremely expensive, vote-buying exercise in nostalgia, of little practical use or national benefit: a staus symbol for Donegal and a look back into the past.

A better way to promote transport in the North West would be to spend it on roads, both rural and intercounty, which would encourage a more even spread of development throught the county instead of focussing on trackside regions.
A better way to promote public transport in the North West would be the re-instatment of rural Swilly bus and other local bus services so that the most deprived corners of our county can have some access links again, and people can get into Letterkenny to go shopping. A jumped up railway plan would be of minimal benefit to them.
A better way to promote industrial development would be an improvement in international communications links - that is, air access and cheap, quick internet access. Such infastructure is cheaper to install, and provides for the needs of companies seeking skilled and semi-skilled labour, keeping educated people in the north west and providing non-polluting, secure jobs, that can be placed in any location in the county. Doesn't that sound better than simply promoting more quarry workers?

(Cost values taken from CIE's estimates for their line extension to Navan, and values for budget 2005 from www.ndp.ie)