Western Rail Corridor (all disused sections)

westtip

what_traffic wrote: »

No it's not pointless - I bet your local TD knows what a success the Great Western Greenway has been, even down there in Ballycotton. It has got huge national coverage. .

Absolutely correct +1 keep badgering your local TDs and representatives - did anyone see the article in yesterdays Farming Indo supplement - if you have a copy take a read, its still not up on the indo website, pages 16/17 all about this need for a greenway network across the country. its the kind of visionary stuff we need to put in the public debate - get a copy - photocopy and send it to your local councillors and TDs and say we want some of this in our locality. There's an opportunity for a cycling tourism boom in this country if only the likes of Michael Ring and Varadkar would grab the opportunity and lead it from the centre.

trail man

The GST welcomes the announcement of €290,000 funding from the Department of Transport to enable Limerick Co.Co. to extend the rail-trail from Abbeyfeale to the Co.Kerry border. The GST thanks Limerick Co.Co. for its initiative in applying for the grant which complements recent funding of over €60,000, by West Limerick Resources to upgrade the existing Barnagh- Abbeyfeale section of the trail. We now look forward to similar initiatives by Kerry Co.Co. and North & East Kerry Development to develop the trail onwards to Kilmorna, Listowe, Lixnaw, Abbeydorney, Ardfert and Tralee where it will link up with the Tralee-Fenit trail already under construction.

westtip

trail man can you post up a link to this announcement would like to send it to Sligo and Mayo coco

foggy_lad

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/7m-investment-in-cycle-routes-announced-554449.html

€7m investment in cycle routes announced

Thursday, June 07, 2012 - 12:27 PM

The Government has announced a €7m investment in cycle routes across the country.

Sixteen seperate projects will be build over the next two years, amounting to 334km of cycleway.

Projects type vary from the provision of a very extensive rural road based route in Donegal (from Donegal Town to Newtown Cunningham) to the development of a 6km Greenway along a disused rail line from Carlingford to Omeath in Louth.

The projects include routes along rural roads and former national roads, as well as routes along former rail lines and canal tow-paths.

"The routes will provide valuable transport and recreational infrastructure, with some of the routes having the potential to become tourism attractions in their own right," said Junior Transport Minister Alan Kelly.

The Government is hoping that the schemes can replicate the success of Mayo's Great Western Greenway, the longest off-road cycling and walking route in the country.

An estimated 140,000 trips are taken per annum along the route, which has led to the creation of 38 new full time equivalent jobs in the local area.

“This funding scheme represents a very significant investment in cycling," said Minister Kelly.

"Given the outstanding success of the Great Western Greenway I am certain that the investment will provide very welcome and long lasting economic benefits in the areas concerned.”

what_traffic

http://www.dttas.ie/pressRelease.aspx?Id=566
Public Transport Minister, Alan Kelly, has today announced a €7 million euro investment programme for cycle routes.
The funding will see sixteen separate cycling projects built across the country over the next two to years amounting to an additional 334 kilometres of cycleway as part of the National Cycle Network.
.
..
....

I think some of the projects are pointless and will do nothing for cycling - i.e those that involve painting cycle lanes and hatch markings on Hard Shoulders on the old N road's (that now have Motorways) when they could have been spent on unused railway/canal lines.

eastwest

The best hope for the provision of sustainable jobs in the west, as well as the retention of essential local services, is tourism. Anyone who denies that is living in another dimension altogether.
The greenway in mayo is fine, as some commentators have mentioned, for a day or maybe two. It can never comprise the backbone of a tourism product, it will always be an "add-on", something to do for one of the days on holiday. On its own, it will never attract the thousands of European (and Irish) people who like to spend a couple of weeks cycling in the countryside. It simply is far far too short.
The obvious way to extend the mayo greenway to turn it into a stand-alone world-class product is to do what the farming independent suggested this week; to connect it with the rest of Ireland via the disused rail line from Claremorris to Collooney. This would give us two main benefits, as a nation:
1. It would give us a base to attract back the cyclists that we have lost to other markets over the last couple of decades.
2. It would protect the alignment of the western rail corridor in the event that it is ever needed. Allowing it to disappear is not good governance.
However, the campaign by WOT has meant that this probably won't happen, since that organisation's image of having riight-wing religious connections terrifies local politicians, and they prefer to do nothing rather than to tackle the issue.
The end result of all this faffing about will spell the end of the Mayo Greenway, relegating it to a local amenity. This will come about when the proposed Carlow greenway comes into play -- there are moves afoot to create a 100 km greenway from Dublin to Wexford, using the canal banks and the Barrow way. This will wipe out the mayo greenway, and leave the county to rot as before. Many of the customers on the mayo trail come from the east coast; why would they haul their bikes across the country when they will have a much better facility in their doorsteps?
Resting on laurels is not the way to stay in the game; you have to continually improve your offering in any business in order to stay ahead of your competitors. Mayo will sleepwalk through this as usual, and will wake up one day wondering where the tourists have all gone to.
By the way, if a train ever appears on the Galway/Sligo route, how on earth will that help tourism in Claremorris or Charlestown? Being photographed from a passing train doesn't bring money into a town, but a constant procession of tourists on bikes might just do that. It works everywhere else, why not in mayo?

westtip

+1 coudn't have put it better myself east west - now got to and listen to the futeristic congress. I believe a well know Intelectual sociological cleric from Maynooth might be playing a gig with boxcar willie.

end of the road

westtip wrote: »

boxcar willie.

ahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! i know old boxcar willie, a great singer, one of irelands finest <snip>

dubhthach

What is the state of the trackbed of the old Sligo & North Counties Railway from Collooney to Enniskillen like does anyone know? I'm assuming if most of it was intact it would make a fine Greenway. Esepecially as you could technically extended it all the way to Dundalk (via Clones) on the old GNR route (INWR) if that section was still fairly intact.

westtip

dubhthach wrote: »

What is the state of the trackbed of the old Sligo & North Counties Railway from Collooney to Enniskillen like does anyone know? I'm assuming if most of it was intact it would make a fine Greenway. Esepecially as you could technically extended it all the way to Dundalk (via Clones) on the old GNR route (INWR) if that section was still fairly intact.

contact leitrim coco they have been looking at this line - its not mentioned by name but the concept of greenways on old railway alignments is mentioned in the county development plan:

http://www.leitrimcoco.ie/eng/Services_A-Z/Planning_and_Building_Control/Publications/County_Development_Plan.pdf

Page 28 section 2.05.03: The Council will actively encourage the development of walking routes, cycle tracks and bridle paths along redundant railway lines.

Drop an email to the county manager and county engineer and ask them what they are doing about implementing this policy. copy the email to a few councillors and a local TD.

OurLadyofKnock

dubhthach wrote: »

What is the state of the trackbed of the old Sligo & North Counties Railway from Collooney to Enniskillen like does anyone know? I'm assuming if most of it was intact it would make a fine Greenway. Esepecially as you could technically extended it all the way to Dundalk (via Clones) on the old GNR route (INWR) if that section was still fairly intact.

Most of it is gone. You see the odd bridge here and there but vast sections of the route may never have existed. Everything from dual carraigeways to golf courses to hotels and retail centres on top of it. Shame really as it would be a very beautiful route.

A better idea is to extend the one from Coolooney north under Ben Bulben and to Donegal over the Barnsmore.

If we did not have regional development controlled by the a couple of priest-ridden headbangers in West-on-Track and a handful of trainspotters we would have one of the most amazing cycleways from Galway with Derry. It would change the entire nature of tourism in the West and North West.

To be honest we will have to wait until the priest drops dead before the cycle thing happens. He is determined to have tax payers fund his red carpet through the pearly gates so he can sit on the other side of god across from Mons Horan. His ego is driving transport/tourism policy in the West.

westtip

OLK welcome back!

Sponge Bob

Any news update on the myriad Greenway proposals north of Athenry ??

westtip

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?referral=other&refresh=iQ081p6KzM03&PBID=4d7e191c-4960-4c44-a8d2-7c892caae409&skip=

if it takes you to the front page go to page 18

Another brilliant article by John Mulligan in the Mayo Advertiser - very interesting news from Carlow re a greenway along the barrow and very interesting arguments about the proposed sligo mayo greenway and linking with the great western greenway it seems West on Track will continue to stop the chance for tourism to develop further in the west despite the fact Varadkar has told John Mulligan (see the article) that the WRC northern section "won't even be looked at until the next decade" of course by which time the line will be so squatted on we can probably forget a greenway or railway.

Luddites.

glineli

There were some rockbreakers and other large machivery on the site for the proposed stop in Crusheen. I asked around and apparently they got a grant for a playground that they need to use up or else lose it. When i asked about the train stop no one seemed confident it would actually go ahead

eastwest

The sad fact is that the mix of county councillors and clergymen that comprises the WOT/inter-county railway committee alliance has effectively blocked important tourism development in Mayo and Sligo, causing hundreds of people to have to emigrate because of a lack of employment.
This is typical of the west of Ireland though; a few wannabe leaders spouting the kind of nonsense that people want to hear, and blaming everything on somebody else, somewhere else.
The real root cause of the problems of the west lies in the people of the west, putting up with these plonkers instead of running them out of town on a rail, if you'll pardon the train reference. People need to wake up and demand realistic infrastructure like the greenway, instead of the pie-in-the-sky nonsense about a railway.
It won't happen though. It's easier to whinge about being persecuted by that crowd up in Dublin than it is to see the facts. There won't be a greenway, at least not in the west, and there won't be a railway either. Places like Carlow, with proper leaders will wipe the floor with Mayo and Sligo, and good luck to them.

westtip wrote: »

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?referral=other&refresh=iQ081p6KzM03&PBID=4d7e191c-4960-4c44-a8d2-7c892caae409&skip=

if it takes you to the front page go to page 18

Another brilliant article by John Mulligan in the Mayo Advertiser - very interesting news from Carlow re a greenway along the barrow and very interesting arguments about the proposed sligo mayo greenway and linking with the great western greenway it seems West on Track will continue to stop the chance for tourism to develop further in the west despite the fact Varadkar has told John Mulligan (see the article) that the WRC northern section "won't even be looked at until the next decade" of course by which time the line will be so squatted on we can probably forget a greenway or railway.

Luddites.

Sligo Quay

If we never had the celtic tiger and the boom we'd never have had the money to waste in the first place, crazy opening an old railway beside a new motorway, the Sligo line has new trains, new tracks and new signaling and it still takes 3hours to get to Sligo a pair of yankie engines did it much quicker 20years ago, wasting money in the boom, children going mad in a sweet shop comes to mind

yer man!

Activity at Oranmore station now, construction has started on the access road and car park and Irishrail will take over the site in a few months to construct the platform. I think this station could really work, if it's priced fairly, which it probably will not be.

dowlingm

no 2nd platform/loop means making current trains 2-3 mins slower. Let's hope it's worth it.

westtip

yer man! wrote: »

Activity at Oranmore station now, construction has started on the access road and car park and Irishrail will take over the site in a few months to construct the platform. I think this station could really work, if it's priced fairly, which it probably will not be.

Will it hold up mainline trains, or will Dublin trains stop here as a set down point only? I can't see it making much difference to the level of through traffic on the southern branch line of the WRC - through trains to Limerick - although it may increase commuter usage Oranmore to Galway city centre. No doubt WOT will claim every extra pensioner jumping on the lunchtime train to nip into Eyre square for a scone and cuppa as more proof of the amazing success of the WRC southern branch line. I don't think the pricing is really the big issue - its the service levels. Truth is the xpress bus on the new road will always beat the train for city to city traffic, cheaper, faster and in truth always going to be the winner. Re having commuter services between oranmore and Galway - this really has nothing to do with the WRC; as mentioned many times by commentators before to improve commuter services and the main line service the big issue on the stretch of line from Athenry to Eyre Square has always been double tracking. double tracking from Athlone to Galway would have been a better investment all along, for commuter "stopping services" on the dublin line, and faster intercity one stop only (Athlone) services Dublin - Galway. The waste of money on the WRC means IR have seen investment money wasted on what is not needed and now they have a white elephant to manage and have been lumbered with due to planners and government not been willing to say no to groups like WOT, and now IE cannot compete with buses on both the Dublin Galway route and on the Galway Limerick route. The WRC campaign has a lot to answer for in making Irish Rail even more inefficient and contributing even further to the demise of rail travel in this country. The drain on resources (capital and operational) of the WRC southern branch line has been an unmitigated disaster in transport planning.

Voodoo_rasher

"The sad fact is that the mix of county councillors and clergymen that comprises the WOT"

why the hell are clergy sticking their craw in for? Keep them away from public policy making pl____ease!

dowlingm

westtip wrote: »

Will it hold up mainline trains, or will Dublin trains stop here as a set down point only?

I'd say it's likely any Dublin train which can use a Limerick train to pass people to it via Galway (backtracking is not unknown for Heuston services) or Athenry will skip Oranmore.

westtip

dowlingm wrote: »

I'd say it's likely any Dublin train which can use a Limerick train to pass people to it via Galway (backtracking is not unknown for Heuston services) or Athenry will skip Oranmore.

my thought was oranmore might be a useful halt and drop for any passengers living that side of Galway for Dublin trains. I don't see it as an outbound stopping point for Dublin bound trains.

yer man!

westtip wrote: »

my thought was oranmore might be a useful halt and drop for any passengers living that side of Galway for Dublin trains. I don't see it as an outbound stopping point for Dublin bound trains.

Ya I don't think Dublin trains will stop here, it was just seen as a commuter station. If it had a passing loop it would be great. There is space for it in the future, I know that there is plans to dual track to Athenry but won't be built for 10 years.....

dowlingm

westtip wrote: »

my thought was oranmore might be a useful halt and drop for any passengers living that side of Galway for Dublin trains. I don't see it as an outbound stopping point for Dublin bound trains.

I'm not following - why is it ok to stop trains WB but not EB?

Is placing a halt mid block likely to require signalling changes or is stopping between signals okay?

Our man in Havana

dowlingm wrote: »

I'm not following - why is it ok to stop trains WB but not EB?

Is placing a halt mid block likely to require signalling changes or is stopping between signals okay?

There is no issue stopping mid block.

westtip

dowlingm wrote: »

I'm not following - why is it ok to stop trains WB but not EB?

I was thinking set down only with excess penalties for anyone trying to hop on WB. Not stopping EB so the mainline train is not used as a commuter hop, but I guess there is no real logic to it! However of course it would add more time to the overall Dublin - Galway journey - and the route is already suffering at the hands of far more competitive journey times and convenience of the express buses, which I believe run through the night on the hour these days as a 24 hour service.

Of course it will all make jack Sh*t difference to the arguments about the WRC although I wait with baited breath for the overly optimistic press release from West on Track when Oranmore opens and how a line from Ennis to Athenry will further contribute to commuter traffic from oranmore to Galway and how everyone getting on at oranmore is now officially using the Western Rail Corridor, and how the people of Tuam are starting their own Jarrow march to the Dail demanding trains on the quarter hour to Galway before they all starve to death...and much more!

end of the road

westtip wrote: »

Of course it will all make jack Sh*t difference to the arguments about the WRC although I wait with baited breath for the overly optimistic press release from West on Track when Oranmore opens and how a line from Ennis to Athenry will further contribute to commuter traffic from oranmore to Galway and how everyone getting on at oranmore is now officially using the Western Rail Corridor, and how the people of Tuam are starting their own Jarrow march to the Dail demanding trains on the quarter hour to Galway before they all starve to death...and much more!

but whatever the arguments over the WRC itself isn't a station at oranmore not a good thing? i take it that Tuam wouldn't be able to sustain a commuter service?

westtip

end of the road wrote: »

but whatever the arguments over the WRC itself isn't a station at oranmore not a good thing? i take it that Tuam wouldn't be able to sustain a commuter service?

Oranmore station is a plus - yes whatever the WRC arguments, but not sure it will add value to the Athenry - galway section without double tracking/passing loop at least at the station. Tuam commuter service? - well a commuter service is not one train a morning at 7.50 am heading for galway, a commuter service by any recognised standard globally is a regular service thorughout the day with peak services being quite frequent - and herein lies the problem, there just ain't the justfiable number of bodies going Tuam - Galway centre to justify a proper commuter service lets say a train every 20 minutes from 7 am to 9.20 am then one an hour and then every 20 minutes from 4.00 pm to 6.30 - thats a commuter service. Rebuilding the Tuam connection for maybe four or even six trains a day quite simply doesn't stack up. Its called bodies and critical mass - this is what you need for heavy and indeed light rail commuter services. and in essence it is at the core of the argument that the WRC northern branch line simply will never happen.

dowlingm

end of the road wrote: »

but whatever the arguments over the WRC itself isn't a station at oranmore not a good thing? i take it that Tuam wouldn't be able to sustain a commuter service?

If the Oranmore station has been combined with a passing loop (not necessarily with a second platform) then the time savings from being able to release trains from Galway sooner in the face of incoming trains from Athenry would have made up for the time lost in stopping at the station, taken over the whole of the timetable. Now the block time just gets longer with no counterbenefit. Yes this will mean some uplift in Oranmore but we don't know how much of this will simply be cannibalising Renmoreites who would normally use Galway station.

So... yay. But only with a small y and no exclamation marks.