Limerick Junction-Waterford for the chop?

kildarecommuter

As the subvention to rail is being cut again how long will this line last into 2011?

Judgement Day

About time it was closed! Maybe CRAP can take it over too?

DDigital

Staff on the line have heard the announcement is coming next April. Anyone here confirm that?

foggy_lad

Limerick Junction needs to be ripped up and new track laid to allow for proper speeds for through trains as well as stopping trains. They might even have less "incidents" there in the future.

As for the waterford train well it simply costs too much to keep a train running when a bus could easily carry the passengers and probably do it a lot faster and cheaper, close it down before the IMF order it closed!

highlydebased

foggy_lad wrote: »

Limerick Junction needs to be ripped up and new track laid to allow for proper speeds for through trains as well as stopping trains. They might even have less "incidents" there in the future.

As for the waterford train well it simply costs too much to keep a train running when a bus could easily carry the passengers and probably do it a lot faster and cheaper, close it down before the IMF order it closed!

Firstly, the recent works which have been ongoing at Limk Junction for several weeks will see the closure of both signal cabins and 60mph through running

Secondly, the IMF cannot make specfic orders such as "close Limk Junc-waterford"


With all the recent upgrade works and money spent why would they close it- then again this is IE after all :rolleyes:

foggy_lad

Neon-Circles wrote: »

Firstly, the recent works which have been ongoing at Limk Junction for several weeks will see the closure of both signal cabins and 60mph through running

Secondly, the IMF cannot make specfic orders such as "close Limk Junc-waterford"


With all the recent upgrade works and money spent why would they close it- then again this is IE after all :rolleyes:

They will claim it costs too much(all the recently spent money) to keep it open. But a 60mph limit would be a 5x increase so very welcomed

CIE

kildarecommuter wrote: »

As the subvention to rail is being cut again how long will this line last into 2011?

Is this planned, or is this rumourmongering...?

Judgement Day

When was anything in CIE ever planned? They just bumble along from crisis to crisis.

CIE

Judgement Day wrote: »

When was anything in CIE ever planned? They just bumble along from crisis to crisis.

Rail closures are always planned there. Improvements, reopenings, etc. is where the bumbling comes in...

corktina

leaving aside the humour:D this line and several others dont serve enough of a useful purpose to survive the current crisis.Once the order comes out to cut cut cut, IE will have little choice but to curtail these lines.

dowlingm

Given the way the capital works programme has been going lately (relay of Nenagh with CWR, lifting of Tipp loop and resignal) one wonders if the maintenance chiefs bother asking the network chiefs whether some of the lines are going to be around in 2-3 years.

I think IE deserve a chance to demonstrate LJ-Waterford can work once the Junction-Clonmel works have been completed and the service is operated by a single train rather than the previous two, but they have to want to do it. Unless some services run through to Limerick and schedule speed to Clonmel is lifted to 50mph it seems to me that they are giving away the advantage to the bus companies and thus the capital works on the line are for naught. While the pace of NRA works is going to slow over the next few years, the N24 isn't going to stay crap forever.

The likelihood of an east platform at Limerick Junction is probably zero for a while which is bad news for the Waterford line since the additional stops it would have facilitated would have provided more permutations for connecting services to supply. Similarly the possibility of the early ex Waterford doing a split/turnback at Clonmel for commuters (like Nenagh, Ennis) is probably low as well.

CIE

corktina wrote: »

leaving aside the humour:D this line and several others dont serve enough of a useful purpose to survive the current crisis.Once the order comes out to cut cut cut, IE will have little choice but to curtail these lines.

Thought you were leaving the humour aside? For my part, I'd rather leave the rumours aside.

corktina

Foggy put it well..


"As for the waterford train well it simply costs too much to keep a train running when a bus could easily carry the passengers and probably do it a lot faster and cheaper, "

CIE

corktina wrote: »

Foggy put it well..

"As for the waterford train well it simply costs too much to keep a train running when a bus could easily carry the passengers and probably do it a lot faster and cheaper, "

Foggy's rhetoric is just that. And AFAICS, it's not given the greatest regard, and rightly so.

dowlingm

When buses get full, the answer is more buses. Rarely does it seem to be "let's put an express train on and let fewer buses handle the intermediate stops". Instead, it's "let's put a stopping train on and let BE kick the crap out of it with ever increasing service levels (see Limerick-Galway)"

tombliboo83

7 years since the Cahir viaduct went down and work is still ongoing on the line. Staff havn't been told of any imminent closure in April or whenever, however it wouldn't surprise me to see it closed. The line is poorly supported and imo doesn't need a rail service to ferry oap's around..I know..poor timetable etc but if it's to have a future noise needs to be made now about a better service, not a few months before any closure. In the end I don't see it as sustainable. Max passenger numbers of 30 per train as low as 0. Sometimes it would be more cost effective to hire taxis to replace train

Judgement Day

tombliboo83 wrote: »

7 years since the Cahir viaduct went down and work is still ongoing on the line. Staff havn't been told of any imminent closure in April or whenever, however it wouldn't surprise me to see it closed. The line is poorly supported and imo doesn't need a rail service to ferry oap's around..I know..poor timetable etc but if it's to have a future noise needs to be made now about a better service, not a few months before any closure. In the end I don't see it as sustainable. Max passenger numbers of 30 per train as low as 0. Sometimes it would be more cost effective to hire taxis to replace train

Hello Brian is that you?

This issue reared its head before at the Joint Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport.

Sub-Committee on the Mini-CTC Signalling Project. back in September 2001.
http://www.gov.ie/committees-01/c-publicenterprise/sub-ctte-publicenterprise/250901/default.htm

The former Chairman of CIE, Brian Joyce, who resigned in strange circumstances...recounted this gem to the committee

Now, I will give you a simple example - something I came across in my time. There's a line that runs between Limerick and Rosslare. Based on the number of passengers that use that line, it would have been cheaper to send each one in a taxi and probably give them a lunch allowance as well. I don't mind Governments doing that kind of thing as long as they pay for it, but if you are running a company and you're trying to shore up that kind of thing on the side, I think it's unfair to the management of that company.

With that kind of mentality at the top in CIE - and it is there in my personal experience - is it any wonder that the entire railway network is on the brink?

highlydebased

Bus Eireann is 5 minutes faster than the train at the moment. There is no express service because well...no way around any of the towns..!

Teddy455

Whats the story about the railbus thing a few years ago? Being Cheaper?

Judgement Day

Teddy455 wrote: »

Whats the story about the railbus thing a few years ago? Being Cheaper?

Just another load of crap. Once you put a bus on rails you have all of the disadvantages of a road vehicle and none of the advantages of a comfortable rail vehicle. It would of course be cheaper but then again running neither bus nor train would be even cheaper. Do we live in a country or an economy?



NIR briefly tried the railbus option on the Coleraine/Portrush branch in the early 1980s (?) and despite being a 'reasonably' comfortable vehicle it was unable to handle the traffic during busy periods and this is what you are up against once you go down the road of trying to operate a railway on the cheap.

CIE

Judgement Day wrote: »

Hello Brian is that you?

This issue reared its head before at the Joint Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport. Sub-Committee on the Mini-CTC Signalling Project. back in September 2001.
http://www.gov.ie/committees-01/c-publicenterprise/sub-ctte-publicenterprise/250901/default.htm

The former Chairman of CIE, Brian Joyce, who resigned in strange circumstances...recounted this gem to the committee

Now, I will give you a simple example - something I came across in my time. There's a line that runs between Limerick and Rosslare. Based on the number of passengers that use that line, it would have been cheaper to send each one in a taxi and probably give them a lunch allowance as well. I don't mind Governments doing that kind of thing as long as they pay for it, but if you are running a company and you're trying to shore up that kind of thing on the side, I think it's unfair to the management of that company.

With that kind of mentality at the top in CIE - and it is there in my personal experience - is it any wonder that the entire railway network is on the brink?

Sounds like a return to the 1960s. These people should not talk about running companies (i.e. private ones, versus public government agencies) unless they've actually done it. It's one thing to talk about Ireland being behind in motorway development, but when it comes to the rails, CTC should have been a no-brainer versus sticking to a half-century-old anachronistic operation.

As for "railbuses", one should not attempt to construct an oxymoron on wheels. Actual DMUs do the same thing, are probably cheaper to run due to standardisation, and are built to the purpose. (Does the NIR Railbus actually have amber indicator lights for left turn and right turn? The only rail vehicle that such lights are suitable for is a tram.)

Transportuser09

corktina wrote: »

Foggy put it well..


"As for the waterford train well it simply costs too much to keep a train running when a bus could easily carry the passengers and probably do it a lot faster and cheaper, "

Maybe, but it at least might have some hope if a decent (commuter orientated) timetable was put on. Of course this was same argument used with Rosslare-Waterford, but this service at least serves towns with greater populations than the villages in South Wexford.

highlydebased

They have 2 single car 2700's. Use those?

foggy_lad

CIE wrote: »

Foggy's rhetoric is just that. And AFAICS, it's not given the greatest regard, and rightly so.

Irish rail has been buried for years, it is just taking longer than expected for it to die.

Neon-Circles wrote: »

Bus Eireann is 5 minutes faster than the train at the moment. There is no express service because well...no way around any of the towns..!

how many speed restrictions are on the line? It is mostly single track with a lot of road crossings which slow everything down, express trains will make little difference except to lower passenger numbers even more. Is there any real point in keeping an expensive line open just in case it ever becomes popular again? Most of these lines died with the steam age but have not been let rest in peace!

shamwari

foggy_lad wrote: »

Most of these lines died with the steam age but have not been let rest in peace!

Most of these lines have been hobbled by services that were poorly timed, lacked / missed onward connections, and in some instances, handicapped with iexplicably low speed limits. And when these tactics kill what little patronage there is, they use the "lack of use" excuse as justification for closure.

These scorched earth tactics has being going on for years, and these lines would be markedly more viable if they actually tried to make a few bob with them instead of crashing them into the ground.

CIE

foggy_lad wrote: »

Irish rail has been buried for years, it is just taking longer than expected for it to die

No, it's being killed (again). It may be brought back to life via means available to the government, depending on what they tell them to do in Brussels (or Berlin). You do know how political football is played, or do you?

(H)ow many speed restrictions are on the line? It is mostly single track with a lot of road crossings which slow everything down, express trains will make little difference except to lower passenger numbers even more

That's quite a presumption. Too many of them in here:

• Road crossings slow down train speeds
• Single track slows down train speeds
• Express trains lower passenger numbers
• Speed restrictions can't be lifted

Express trains quite often raise passenger numbers; you see, like express buses, they serve end points without stopping, and passengers prefer them to a stopping train. Speed sells just as much as frequency, you see.

Is there any real point in keeping an expensive line open just in case it ever becomes popular again? Most of these lines died with the steam age but have not been let rest in peace

Wow, that's like saying that the Hamburg-Berlin line should have been "let rest in peace" just because it dates from the "steam age"...but instead, DBAG upgraded it with electrification and tilt trains, and now you have triple-digit average speeds on it (in terms of miles per hour), with a top speed of 230 km/h (143 mph). Is there any real point in underinvesting in railway alignments that serve corridors deemed important enough for motorways to be built through? And you've yet to prove "expensive", when in real figures, the motorway is the expensive bit of infrastructure both in terms of capital and operational/maintenance costs.

Furthermore, "most of these lines" did experience full diesel conversion many years before being arbitrarily closed. Learn your history before you make blanket statements, and learn more about politics (when the government runs the whole ball of wax, they don't typically want to operate multiple bits of transport infrastructure depending on their political leanings).

shamwari wrote: »

Most of these lines have been hobbled by services that were poorly timed, lacked / missed onward connections, and in some instances, handicapped with iexplicably low speed limits. And when these tactics kill what little patronage there is, they use the "lack of use" excuse as justification for closure.

These scorched earth tactics has being going on for years, and these lines would be markedly more viable if they actually tried to make a few bob with them instead of crashing them into the ground.

That summarises the political football game in question. And the rotten thing is, they played the same game in the 1960s and got away with it just as readily; the present generation is supposed to know better, yes?

There's also the effect of industry lobbying: there are plenty of private HGV operators, but there are no private railway operators to compete against them, and the state has no interest in competing against private political contributors. Only way to even that playing field is to get the railway for freight purposes out of state hands, and even for passenger purposes if necessary. (Unless everyone likes the concept of "state capitalism"? Look up that term; it's frightening.)

foggy_lad

On this line very few people travel from waterford to limerick (unless they fall asleep), so express trains are only going to kill the line completly

corktina

dont forget most of the passing loops have been removed making express trains virtually impossible, the only way you could improve this line is with MASSIVE investment in track and signalling upgrades. The likely increase in passengers as a result wouldnt justify the expenditure even if we DID have the money!

IE needs to concentrate its resources (OUR resources) on what it does best...InterCity and Commuter.

CIE

foggy_lad wrote: »

On this line very few people travel from waterford to limerick (unless they fall asleep), so express trains are only going to kill the line complet(e)ly

Kinda hard to ride from Limerick to Waterford if there are no direct trains and the three trains actually start at Limerick Junction. Compare that to the nine buses (six on Sunday) that "compete" to/from the same destinations, that operate at a timetabled average speed of 31 mph between Limerick Junction and Waterford (by comparison, the train is timetabled to run at an average speed of 34 mph, so it looks like some stories are getting crossed here; no matter, the truth will out, as Shakespeare said).

Wanna hear a funny story? It's about the Harcourt Street Line. CIE closed that line in 1958 out of the blue, to apparently save £65,000 or so, and put on a parallel bus route, number 86. They kept cutting the 86 back gradually year after year, shortening the route from Bray to Cabinteely, then reducing frequency greatly, then cutting it off from the city centre and running it only a couple of times per day...all in preparation for the revival of the Harcourt Street Line as Luas. Shall Ireland bounce between bus and rail serving certain corridors, or ever recognise that both can complement each other?

the only way you could improve this line is with MASSIVE investment in track and signalling upgrades

Will they cost as much as a motorway between the same points? Remember, unlike the WRC, this railway artery has tracks in situ and is active, so it cannot be conceivable that the investment is as "massive" as hyperbole suggests.

IE needs to concentrate its resources (OUR resources) on what it does best...InterCity and Commuter

Hmm, looks like I've seen this slogan before in another thread. What are the standard performance requirements for "InterCity" and "Commuter"? It would be helpful to outline these standards so that we can all see where IE is falling short, and hold them accountable to it, if indeed they are not doing it "best" especially compared to best practice within its own culture (Dublin-Cork I presume) and standards for "intercity" rail travel in other countries (after all, who else can you compare to). AFAICS, Limerick is a city and Waterford is a city, and that should warrant the aforementioned "InterCity" level of service on the rails.

corktina

I dont see the point in answering posts from someone who thinks you can compare the Harcourt St line with Limerick to Waterford!(and who thinks an InterCity service is defined by running from a City to a City!)

However, seeing as you like statistics, how long does it take to walk from Waterford Railway Station to the City Centre?Seeing as its the other side of a river with two busy roads to cross, Id say its more like 10 minutes extra walkng time taking the train over the bus.

I dont think anyone is suggesting building a motorway from Limerick Junction to Waterford are they? Just a few fairly minor improvements here and there to a road already carrying far more traffic than the railway line.

testicle

Some of the trainspotters on this thread are deluded if they think this line should be kept open. Advocating Express services! You're out of your mind!

highlydebased

CIE wrote: »

Compare that to the nine buses (six on Sunday) that "compete" to/from the same destinations, that operate at a timetabled average speed of 31 mph

What? That cannot be right, seeing as the bus is faster than the train as it is

foggy_lad

CIE wrote: »

Kinda hard to ride from Limerick to Waterford if there are no direct trains and the three trains actually start at Limerick Junction. Compare that to the nine buses (six on Sunday) that "compete" to/from the same destinations, that operate at a timetabled average speed of 31 mph between Limerick Junction and Waterford (by comparison, the train is timetabled to run at an average speed of 34 mph, so it looks like some stories are getting crossed here; no matter, the truth will out, as Shakespeare said).

Oops its the semantics police! You obviously work for Irish Rail so should have no trouble digging out the number oF passengers travelling from Limerick Junction to Waterford and from Waterford to Limerick Junction, maybe then you will see the absolute nonsense in offering express trains that will be just as slow as the rickety service that already exists.

The bus that goes between Waterford and Limerick Junction is the 55, an expressway bus which serves several towns on the route not served by trains. This same bus serves Limerick city and does Waterford to Limerick much faster than the train(2h 25min for bus compared to 2h 46min for the train!) and connects(an alien concept to Irish Rail) to serve Galway via the x51 which is faster than the rickety railcar. This bus travels the route 8 times a day compared to 3 trains which because of their times and the hassle of walking to out of town stations and switching to bus transfers etc are practically no use to the travelling public.

bus timetable here

trains here

All this is without mention of the higher cost of travelling by rail, not just dearer tickets but the extra cost in time and also taxis to/from the out-of-town stations. get the bus it is much faster and cheaper!

corktina

you dont think logical cold facts like that will drag the old head out of the sand do you?

It is madness to have two state supported branches of the same company competing with each other!

foggy_lad

corktina wrote: »

you dont think logical cold facts like that will drag the old head out of the sand do you?

It is madness to have two state supported branches of the same company competing with each other!

No but a bit of Cold German efficiency might light a fire under the asses of CIE and its Subsidiaries

KC61

corktina wrote: »

you dont think logical cold facts like that will drag the old head out of the sand do you?

It is madness to have two state supported branches of the same company competing with each other!

Bus Eireann Expressway services do not receive a PSO grant so let's nip that argument in the bud. They are run as a commercial business.

Propellerhead

God, you can nearly smell the excitement on this thread over the impending destruction of national infrastructure from here...

foggy_lad

KC61 wrote: »

Bus Eireann Expressway services do not receive a PSO grant so let's nip that argument in the bud. They are run as a commercial business.

This if true only makes the situation worse for Irish rail because they are operating a massively expensive service at taxpayers expense when a properly functioning bus service is operating alongside with no wasting of taxpayers money!

corktina

(hardly expressway if they only average 31moh surely...)

Natinal Infrastructure that has been pruned until it just isnt viable to keep it and it is beyond our means to restore it to any form of meaningful level.THREE trains a day, how much does it cost to maintain this infrastructure to run them?

Transportuser09

As KC61 pointed out that bus isn't a PSO. It's far easier and cheaper for a bus to be operated commercially than a railway line with such funding, considering the bus operator only has to maintain the vehicle itself and doesn't have to worry about how much the road itself is used.

If the service was more commuter orientated three trains a day wouldn't be too bad. The Dublin-Sligo/Rosslare service was little more than this ten years ago, yet they managed to survive.

However despite this with the current financial mess closure is probably hard to prevent if it's announced. I'm actually more surprised the Nenagh route isn't next. It'll probably come down to whether or not the NTA think the closure is justified, if the bus service is better they probably will. The bus services in south Wexford were fairly poor and they still authorised the rail closure there which doesn't give a lot of hope for this line.

corktina

yes i think you are right. Buses are cheaper to operate (unfortunately,as I'd love to see a kind of Sodor operating in Ireland,,,) and the costs of the road are spread across many more users than the costs of Rail,where non-users pay a larger proportion of the cost.

Bulgy and Bertie will win out eventually Im afraid.

KC61

testicle wrote: »

Some of the trainspotters on this thread are deluded if they think this line should be kept open. Advocating Express services! You're out of your mind!

To be fair it is one poster that is advocating express services - that poster has had a whole heap of ludicrous ideas on a variety of public transport in Ireland and I suspect that they have not used it in years.

The line itself is cleared for 50mph and should be cleared for 60 mph later in 2011.

dowlingm

KC61 and I continue to disagree on the PSO. While Expressway services do not benefit directly from PSO, the PSO services added to the Expressway services give economies of scale to BE in matters of purchasing and facilities that are not available to smaller operators who only run Expressway like services. There's a reason Aer Arann chased PSOs - steady income irrespective of use to allow them to take a punt on services to UK and France.

To be clear, when I mentioned express services above, it was in the context of my continuing opposition to all-day service to Ardrahan and Craughwell and to the proposal to locate a station at Crusheen. The example is not quite apposite to Limerick-Waterford (except for the refusal to run any through service) but was more a comment on Corktina's quote at post #13 of Foggy Lad's sweeping statement at post #4.

corktina

retraction please...all i said was

"Foggy put it well.."

and quoted an earlier post.


Hardly a sweeping statement

dowlingm

corktina wrote: »

retraction please

There you go

kildarecommuter

Announcment expected on closure according to IE sources in September apparently....

Judgement Day

Wonderful - Dublin/Cork won't be far behind. :rolleyes:

Hungerford

kildarecommuter wrote: »

Announcment expected on closure according to IE sources in September apparently....

That could cause a political storm if it was axed and the Nenagh branch wasn't because a certain Alan Kelly is Minister for public transport...

Judgement Day

Hungerford wrote: »

That could cause a political storm if it was axed and the Nenagh branch wasn't because a certain Alan Kelly is Minister for public transport...

Don't worry, I have it from an impeccable source that both are to close.

corktina

almost inevitable I would have thought in this (hackneyed phrase) econmic climate.

How long before the remaining Rosslaire line is cut back? Whats at risk next? Ballina? Oh no thats a Freight HotSpot I forgot.

munchkin_utd

Judgement Day wrote: »

Don't worry, I have it from an impeccable source that both are to close.

is there ANYWHERE a list of what these lines are costing in Euros and Cent in infrastructure upkeep and operation subsidy?

Irish rail gets 100s of millions in subsidy a year but rarely is there any insight into what proportion of it is mainline + suburban services that have millions of customers and chronically underused branch lines.