Rail Freight & Western Rail Corridor

Judgement Day

Jim Martin wrote: »

Yes, there is potential for freight to & from the Clare county town, Ennis. They cut it out & withdrew to Limerick & then had to road it, they've probably lost it all together now!

This time of the year, I used to see The IR lorry come from Ennis loaded with Guiness for the Willie Clancy Week. It probably comes all the way from Dublin now - disgraceful!

Yes, this was the typical pattern for CIE withdrawal of freight services. When they withdrew the general goods (sundries) from the South Wexford line it was replaced with a road service from Wexford railhead, but when the general goods sevice was withdrawn from the Connolly/Rosslare line stations they were then served from Carlow!! You can really see the economics of bring goods by road to the North Wall then by rail to Carlow then by road back to stations on the DSER coastal route.

Then there was the Guinness liner which passed through Thurles on its way to Limerick, where the Guinness for Thurles was then sent back by private haulier to Thurles. In the case of Galway the Guinness was being sent by road on a Saturday night and an Irish Rail forklift driver being rostered to unload on a Sunday! I could go on but what's the point. No doubt some apologist for CIE/IE will soon be on here to give perfectly rational explanations for this sort of carry-on. :rolleyes:

corktina

Jim Martin wrote: »

Yes, there is potential for freight to & from the Clare county town, Ennis. They cut it out & withdrew to Limerick & then had to road it, they've probably lost it all together now!

This time of the year, I used to see The IR lorry come from Ennis loaded with Guiness for the Willie Clancy Week. It probably comes all the way from Dublin now - disgraceful!

One lorry load and you'd run a train for that? It probably does come all the way from Dublin for the very good reason that it would be cheaper and would be delivered right to the door instead of being transhipped twice. Rail freight only makes sense in large quantities over long distances.

wild handlin

corktina wrote: »

One lorry load and you'd run a train for that? It probably does come all the way from Dublin for the very good reason that it would be cheaper and would be delivered right to the door instead of being transhipped twice. Rail freight only makes sense in large quantities over long distances.

What about Claremorris, Kilkenny, Limerick and Cork keg trains? They were regularly anything from 8-18 wagons, with 5/6 crates on per wagon.

Hardly "more economical" to bring it by road................

Also, what ever happened to all them fertilizer trains which used to visit Ennis? All the Fert still comes in by road......

SeanW

Empire o de Sun wrote: »

I think that the Claremoris link is the Key, and may be the savior of the Limerick Waterford Railway.

If this were a game of Texas hold 'em poker, I could imagine you raising with hole cards of an unsuited pair of 2 and 4 (one of the worst hands possible).

Pointless malinvestment in railways that have no purpose (WRC) is like a worthless hand in poker - cut your losses and run, every time.

corktina

wild handlin wrote: »

What about Claremorris, Kilkenny, Limerick and Cork keg trains? They were regularly anything from 8-18 wagons, with 5/6 crates on per wagon.

Hardly "more economical" to bring it by road................

Also, what ever happened to all them fertilizer trains which used to visit Ennis? All the Fert still comes in by road......

well were it more economical they'd still be running...why else would everything have been transferred to road...lets make a list....newspapers, parcels, post, oil, cement, need I go on? Rail freight is not viable because of the costs and inflexiibility of it.

think about it...if you started loading the same items on to road and rail at the same time, the first lorry would be half way there before you loaded the 18th wagon, which when it was loaded would have to be unloaded on to a truck at the other end for delivery with more delay.Its a fact of life.

Judgement Day

corktina wrote: »

well were it more economical they'd still be running...why else would everything have been transferred to road...lets make a list....newspapers, parcels, post, oil, cement, need I go on? Rail freight is not viable because of the costs and inflexiibility of it.

think about it...if you started loading the same items on to road and rail at the same time, the first lorry would be half way there before you loaded the 18th wagon, which when it was loaded would have to be unloaded on to a truck at the other end for delivery with more delay.Its a fact of life.

corktina - I sometimes wonder if it is worth arguing with your posts, no matter how outrageous, as we are both so entrenched in our views but I can't let the above go unchallenged. Does it follow from your first paragraph that because CIE can't operate the railway effectively that railways are bad per se? I think not. Newspapers - I don't know the problems here but probably to do with CIE hiking up the rates and, from my experience, careless handling of the products concerned. Everybody's business being nobody's business.
Parcels - well no point in going over old ground here but suffice to say that the run down and abandonment of Fastrack was outrageous and somebody should lose their job over it - preferably John LYnch. Post - well given An Post's record of dicking about with the postal service and the SDS fiasco I don't think we can put much store in their commercial nous can we?
Oil - I don't have the facts but it wasn't a very substantial traffic. Cement - many factors and if the recession ever lifts we may well see some of it return to rail - of course factors like Sean Quinn's breaking of the Irish Cement monopoly also played a part in the demise in cement traffic.

Your analogy with loading wagons and lorries simultaneously is too daft to comment on and there were plenty of freight customers happy to use the rail service until CIE/IE either withdrew it or priced themselves out of the market.
Rail freight is environmentally friendly in terms of carbon emissions, damage to roads, accidents involving trucks and cars, reducing our oil imports etc.etc. All that said, rail freight no more than rail passenger has any future as operated by CIE/IE where the staff mark time as best they can while waiting for the lump.

corktina

agree or disagree i dont mind (and I agree with a lot of what you say), but the basic fact is trains dont go where people want them to and lorries do.

Whats daft about loading 18 lorries for 18 destinations rather than 18 rail wagons at least 17 of which will need their loads transhipped at the end of the journey onto a lorry for final delivery and probably the cargo arrived at the point of departure on a truck in the first place.

Oh and as for enviromentally friendly carbon-footprint type nonsense, does that arguement have any credence left at all when a certain volcanoe spewed out enough carbon to cover most of the North Atlantic and Europe?