Western Rail Corridor (all disused sections)

foggy_lad

bk wrote: »

A to B means from their door to their destination. Ignore that and you end up with a line that no one uses.

It's already that!

But then why spend 10's of millions more to do this? Do you really think it would lead to any significant increase in passenger numbers. I don't, it would just be another big waste of money.

Read between the lines (no pun intended!) of what the minister said above. It is hilarious seeing people asking for even more money to be spent on the WRC when it is clear that the minister is saying that the recently opened line and other branch lines are in danger of being closed!!

These very same people will be whinging and bemoaning Irish Rail when the line closes accusing them of wasting tens of millions on upgrading the line before closure!

end of the road wrote: »

all our rail network bar the WRC makes sense, it just needed and still needs somebody running things properly who will do what it takes to attract people to it, along with bring all the lines up to the highest possible speed and a lot more.

Nothing can be done to attract people to the WRC apart from bussing them in from Dublin and giving enthusiast tourists free accommodation along the line if they promise to use the train.

no need, only busses, and commuter railcars on long journeys are rickity and uncomfortable

Why not just throw the toys from the pram if you're going to be so childish, the mark 4 trains are seen as sickening by most people and the old view of Irish Rail is of an unreliable operator with daily delays and bus transfers and little has changed because the old view is todays reality!!

The Volvo coaches used by GoBe are extremely comfortable and I would say more comfortable than any train in service in the republic!

corktina

bk wrote: »

I find the Mark 4's to Cork to be far more bumpy, rickity and noisy then the bus coaches to Cork.

I rode the Mk4's the other week a few days after doing 125 in the UK in the very coaches the Mk4s displaced. I was quite shocked at the ride in the Mk4s (at about half the UK speed) and at the spartan interiors on them. I don't often ride the bus, but when I do I find modern Coaches to be anything but rickety and noisy.

pigtown

goingnowhere wrote: »

Last time I checked there was a direct rail link between Limerick and Cork, no need to reverse

You can change at Limerick junction like everyone doing Limerick Dublin

I meant a direct link that negates the need to change at the Junction.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

There is a special Cork - Limerick rail thread here > http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=65307180 for you!

Ya I saw that but this seems to be the only rail thread that gets a lot of replys, if not much discussion. Sorry for derailing the thread a bit.

The Idyl Race

On a more cheerful note, here's everyone's favourite anti Rail ideologue Colm McCarthy getting his ass handed to him on a fancy plate by posters who aren't thankfully a bunch of buslovin' sprawlers. Enjoy.

http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2011/09/02/planes-trains-and-automobiles-ii/

end of the road

corktina wrote: »

I rode the Mk4's the other week a few days after doing 125 in the UK in the very coaches the Mk4s displaced. I was quite shocked at the ride in the Mk4s (at about half the UK speed) and at the spartan interiors on them.

thats because the mark 3s were designed by british rail, who even though they went through many different designs of rolling stock on their own railways, when they got a design right, they got it right, the mark 4s 22000s or probably no train will ever beat the build quality of the british rail mark 3.

Talk to the hand

galwaycyclist wrote: »

So the political leaders on the Western Seaboard would happily turn their noses up at a slice of a market worth €9 billion in one European country alone?

Just because a straw man argument is repeated ad nauseum on an internet board doesn't make it the truth.

Talk to the hand

corktina wrote: »

I rode the Mk4's the other week a few days after doing 125 in the UK in the very coaches the Mk4s displaced. I was quite shocked at the ride in the Mk4s (at about half the UK speed) and at the spartan interiors on them. I don't often ride the bus, but when I do I find modern Coaches to be anything but rickety and noisy.

I guess you would be shocked if you never rode the Mk 4s before. Was that your first time on a train in Ireland for some years by any chance?

Talk to the hand

bk wrote: »

If you are a fan of rail, you should be focused on trying to keep the existing lines open and enhancing rail that actually makes sense and has a chance of surviving and growing, like DART, Luas, etc.

I'm sure all good fans of rail will give your advice all the credibility it deserves.

Talk to the hand

foggy_lad wrote: »

Traditionally all the WRC and other such personal/branch lines ever benefited were the wealthy west-brit landlords who raped the country and it's people sending countless men women and children to early graves through forced poverty and jails or the poorhouses which were in every town and village!

I think this post summarises beautifully the credibility of the anti rail mentality in Ireland. See, it was them dirty Brits who did it.

bk

pigtown wrote: »

I am a fan of rail and I would have thought that providing a direct rail link between the second and third cities in the state could make sense.

The unfortunate reality is that our second and third largest cities are actually pretty small by international standards. In fact most other countries wouldn't even call them cities!! *

For rail to be successful, you typically need two cities with a million plus people at either end.

How many people actually travel between Cork and Limerick every day on BE, CityLink and Irish Rail at the moment. Do we honestly think modest speed improvements would make any difference to these numbers?

Personally I doubt it.

* As Corkonian from the city, it is hard for me to admit this!!

Sponge Bob

Talk to the hand wrote: »

I think this post summarises beautifully the credibility of the anti rail mentality in Ireland. See, it was them dirty Brits who did it.

The WRC started off as a "Grand Junction Railway" proposal around 1852 IIRC. The durty Brits were having none of it back then and it eventually got built as a chain of cheapo Light Railways about 30 years later in the main ( bar Athenry - Tuam)

Had they only done it properly we'd probably be having a whip around for 2 Pendolino sets to run Galway - Sligo on a clockface now.

foggy_lad

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The WRC started off as a "Grand Junction Railway" proposal around 1852 IIRC. The durty Brits were having none of it back then and it eventually got built as a chain of cheapo Light Railways about 30 years later in the main ( bar Athenry - Tuam)

Had they only done it properly we'd probably be having a whip around for 2 Pendolino sets to run Galway - Sligo on a clockface now.

Ah but then there would be even more money wasted on maintenance and parts for the 2 "vomit" trains for the wild west.

Talk to the hand

corktina wrote: »

there really is no comparison with the M9 and the WRC. The M9 usage may not be the largest but I'd bet it beats the usage on the WRC into a cocked hat!

Why bother trying to support the WRC with such stuff? WHy don't you give us positive arguements in favour of the WRC ?

The WRC is but one railway line in the state. However we still just about have a good density of railway lines in the Island, apart from the entire North West. Whole counties like Fermanagh, Donegal and Tyrone have not had railway connections for over 50 years now due mostly to NI/RoI government policies of favouring road development over rail.

The spatial strategy of successive Irish governments has always been to favour one-off housing in rural areas and to effectively scatter the population.

This policy has not encouraged any form of sustainability as the rural landscape across Ireland has changed from a primarily agricultural one to a semi-suburban one with the onset of one off houses across the land.

Billions of Pounds then Euro have been spent of taxpayers money to sustain the semi-suburban approach. Consultants from the US have been imported at great expense to endorse the one off model.

Concepts such as an integrated transport system where road compliments rail services are almost alien in Ireland and even the state-owned bus company runs services not complimentary to the rail service, but in competition with it. Bus connections are timed to leave in many cases just before a train arrives, and in the case of the Irish Rail owned port Rosslare, a train to Dublin leaves just as the ferry arrives, ensuring no ferry passengers can use it. Insane isn't it? But no, this is Ireland.

The railway line from Athenry to Claremorris and onto Collooney is in place but could be re-instated as part of a wider link across the West of Ireland. The so-called Western Rail Corridor could be extended north to Derry via Donegal Town and Letterkenny. A new alignment however would be needed to run as heavy rail never connected these towns before. Likewise the Claremorris-Collooney section itself was a light railway with several crossing points. A more sensible approach would be to plan a dualling of the N17 and bring with it a railway along the central reservation, linking Derry to Donegal to Sligo and down to Galway and onto Limerick and Cork.

The calls for a greenway on the route appear in part to be motivated more by a desire by the protagonists to stop the restoration of the railway dead in its tracks. Having said that the route as it stands is not ideal and might require more expense to rebuild as is rather than a completely new route. But CIE own this land. A sensible approach might be to agree with landowners the transfer of land as appropriate to allow a combined rail and road route to be built in a more appropriate place.

Serious state investment in infrastructure is one way in which we could get ourselves out of the recession. But in addition to the infrastucture spend we need to think our way out of the one off house mentality. Towns need to be planned with sustainability in mind.

Those towns need jobs, they need roads and yes, they need rail. Shannon new town in the sixties was an example of how investment could be brought into an area with the right tax breaks. Industry is what brings real wealth. Tourism is important but it is a service rather than an industry. We have to make a choice. Are we going to generate wealth in the future or are we going to hope wealth visits us once a year and buys the odd bainin jumper and a cup of tea?

There is no easy answer to Ireland's economic problems but short term destructive policies designed to encourage rural scatterment will not work. We need to think out the right spatial strategy to encourage development in the west, and then act on it.

end of the road

foggy_lad wrote: »

Ah but then there would be even more money wasted on maintenance and parts for the 2 "vomit" trains for the wild west.

rubbish, it would be money well spent as it would offer a fast method of transport between the counties of limerick galway mayo and sligo, we could have a greenway along the whole route as well and accompanied by our railways being at a decent speed would bring the whole country even closer together, a bus could never offer such speeds

Talk to the hand

foggy_lad wrote: »

Ah but then there would be even more money wasted on maintenance and parts for the 2 "vomit" trains for the wild west.

Vomit? Can you back up that with some facts?

Talk to the hand

bk wrote: »

For rail to be successful, you typically need two cities with a million plus people at either end.

Source?

Talk to the hand

end of the road wrote: »

rubbish, it would be money well spent as it would offer a fast method of transport between the counties of limerick galway mayo and sligo, we could have a greenway along the whole route as well and accompanied by our railways being at a decent speed would bring the whole country even closer together, a bus could never offer such speeds

Good point. I have cycled in Holland and Belgium along such lines. It works and works well.

foggy_lad

end of the road wrote: »

rubbish, it would be money well spent as it would offer a fast method of transport between the counties of limerick galway mayo and sligo, we could have a greenway along the whole route as well and accompanied by our railways being at a decent speed would bring the whole country even closer together, a bus could never offer such speeds

Who would use it? THere is already buses travelling between Limerick, Galway and Mayo to Sligo? and there are not enough passengers for a rail connection except maybe for a twice weekly student and OAP special.

Sponge Bob

The west simply does not have the POPULATION to support the WRC concept.

I mean from Derry to Cork ( all 300+ miles of it) . For now we need a high quality and high frequency express bus network to serve us instead of 2 x 5 hour daily bus journeys from Galway to Derry which is what I remember.....along with 3 hour bus journeys to Sligo via Roscommon.

Stage 1 is a Bus that goes Galway Sligo Derry ONLY....not a clanking train on a perma speed restriction through a bog west of Charlestown.

end of the road

foggy_lad wrote: »

Who would use it?

[/QUOTE]
at such speeds many many people would use it, they would be mad not to

foggy_lad wrote: »

THere is already buses travelling between Limerick, Galway and Mayo to Sligo?

well if their are that means their is scope for a railway through those counties sometime in the future

foggy_lad wrote: »

there are not enough passengers for a rail connection except maybe for a twice weekly student and OAP special.

if theirs enough for a frequent bus service then theirs enough for a railway, no need to build it in the short term but as part of a long term rail strategy it shouldn't be dismissed, get the greenway on the alignment as soon as possible to protect it

end of the road

Sponge Bob wrote: »

a high quality and high frequency express bus network

what would you want that for? get in your car if the train is so bad. busses and high quality? hahahahaha, no such thing, i think you mean a high frequency slow and horid express bus that may get there faster then a stopping service but still travels at speeds from the stone age

foggy_lad

end of the road wrote: »

well if their are that means their is scope for a railway through those counties sometime in the future


if theirs enough for a frequent bus service then theirs enough for a railway, no need to build it in the short term but as part of a long term rail strategy it shouldn't be dismissed, get the greenway on the alignment as soon as possible to protect it

There are not enough for a bus service though, the buses are operated as stage carriage services linking the areas, a train once or twice a day would have less passengers than the WRC or the Nenagh branch line. It is irresponsible to even suggest a railway be built from Galway to Derry or even to Tuam!

Sponge Bob

foggy_lad wrote: »

It is irresponsible to even suggest a railway be built from Galway to Derry or even to Tuam!

I'm afraid this is the case, especially when campaigning for it detracts from a badly needed and proportionate discussion of what we do need in the West.

That's A High Quality EXPRESS BUS service.

end of the road

Sponge Bob wrote: »

That's A High Quality EXPRESS BUS service.

express bus services aren't high quality, if foggy is right that the current bus services have very low patronage then their would be no point in any so called high quality express bus network, and even if their was a demand for it why would we spend money on it? the roads are all ready there

bk

end of the road wrote: »

what would you want that for? get in your car if the train is so bad. busses and high quality? hahahahaha, no such thing, i think you mean a high frequency slow and horid express bus that may get there faster then a stopping service but still travels at speeds from the stone age

You clearly have never been on any of the bus services like Aircoach, Citylink, GoBus, etc. Because they certainly aren't slow or horrid.

Most are the same speed or faster then the train.

In my experience they are also more comfortable then a train. They have far more comfortable seats, that actually recline and are partly or fully leather and have more leg space. The ride of these coaches is often far smother and far quieter then the train.

I can actually sleep on the bus to Cork, but I could never sleep on the train.

You keep saying buses are slow and horrid, when they clearly aren't and it simply weakens all your other arguments.

end of the road

bk wrote: »

it simply weakens all your other arguments.

no it doesn't

foggy_lad

end of the road wrote: »

express bus services aren't high quality, if foggy is right that the current bus services have very low patronage then their would be no point in any so called high quality express bus network, and even if their was a demand for it why would we spend money on it? the roads are all ready there

They have low numbrs end to end but as stage carriage expressway services they are more successful but to provide a similar train service along the WRC route would mean a journey hours longer than the slowest buses.

corktina

Last night there was a prog on BBC2 about Welsh Railways...it showed a bit with a steam train running alongside a cycleway, (complete with cyclists)...this should be compulsory viewing for all WRC supporters....anyone have the ability to find it online and post a link? I think it was the section about the Cambrian Railway at Oswestry.

steamengine

bk wrote: »

You clearly have never been on any of the bus services like Aircoach, Citylink, GoBus, etc. Because they certainly aren't slow or horrid.

Most are the same speed or faster then the train.

In my experience they are also more comfortable then a train. They have far more comfortable seats, that actually recline and are partly or fully leather and have more leg space. The ride of these coaches is often far smother and far quieter then the train.

I can actually sleep on the bus to Cork, but I could never sleep on the train.

You keep saying buses are slow and horrid, when they clearly aren't and it simply weakens all your other arguments.

If you are talking about speeds then for the umpteenth time, your beloved coaches have a top speed of 62.5 mph and the train 100 mph. Apples and oranges on the Cork route as the train stops at the various stations along the way and still has a shorter journey time to Cork.

In my experience the train is more ....etc - we can go round in endless circles on that one.

steamengine

foggy_lad wrote: »

It's already that!

These very same people will be whinging and bemoaning Irish Rail when the line closes accusing them of wasting tens of millions on upgrading the line before closure!


Nothing can be done to attract people to the WRC apart from bussing them in from Dublin and giving enthusiast tourists free accommodation along the line if they promise to use the train.

Why not just throw the toys from the pram if you're going to be so childish, the mark 4 trains are seen as sickening by most people and the old view of Irish Rail is of an unreliable operator with daily delays and bus transfers and little has changed because the old view is todays reality!!

The Volvo coaches used by GoBe are extremely comfortable and I would say more comfortable than any train in service in the republic!

I'm one of the few around here old enough to know what the old view of Irish Rail is. I think most peoples experience including my own would have been that in general Irish Rail and formerly CIE were indeed reliable train operators.