Europe's first Crowd Funded rail service?

random_guy

https://locomore.com/en/index.html

Saw this and thought it might be of interest.
A new service from Berlin to Stuttgart.

ClovenHoof

random_guy wrote: »

https://locomore.com/en/index.html

Saw this and thought it might be of interest.
A new service from Berlin to Stuttgart.

That's a great idea. Might have saved Waterford to Rosslare.

Sean9015

ClovenHoof wrote: »

That's a great idea. Might have saved Waterford to Rosslare.

No, it really wouldn't. The Locomore scheme is effectively hiring a train and selling tickets, between two major cities. Waterford - Rosslare is a no-hope line through green fields between a small town (in real terms) and a ferry port which is used almost solely by lorries and car passengers which by-passes the only even slightly significant settlement between the two (New Ross). Any such scheme would have to cover all the infrastructure costs of the route, not just train hire and access charges with the bulk of network costs being covered elsewhere.

If the sugar beet traffic hadn't been there Waterford - Rosslare would have closed 30 years or more ago. There is no demand. Get over it.

end of the road

Sean9015 wrote: »

Waterford - Rosslare is a no-hope line through green fields between a small town (in real terms) and a ferry port which is used almost solely by lorries and car passengers which by-passes the only even slightly significant settlement between the two (New Ross).

not a no hope line at all. waterford is a decent sized city. the line has a couple of decent settlements along the way and has few green fields. wexford needed to be its destination rather then rosslare. i live near the area, i know it.

Sean9015 wrote: »

If the sugar beet traffic hadn't been there Waterford - Rosslare would have closed 30 years or more ago.

as maybe. but the sugar beat wasn't the reason for its closure in 2010. no matter how many perpetuate it. those opponents of the wrc were proven right. they were fully vindicated as far as i'm concerned.

Sean9015 wrote: »

There is no demand. Get over it.

there is possible demand. from wexford to waterford instead of rosslare. issue is reversal at rosslare. at least it would offer a quick service to waterford. nothing on clovenhoof's part to get over, there is more to this then meets the eye, and it will hopefully be proven one day

Sean9015

end of the road wrote: »

not a no hope line at all. waterford is a decent sized city. the line has a couple of decent settlements along the way and has few green fields. wexford needed to be its destination rather then rosslare. i live near the area, i know it.

In the 2011 census, Waterford population is given as 46,722. That is not a large city. The stations along the way are at villages. I will concede that in an ideal world, the service could have continued to Wexford but it would not have been competitive timewise with road.

end of the road wrote: »

as maybe. but the sugar beat wasn't the reason for its closure in 2010. no matter how many perpetuate it. those opponents of the wrc were proven right. they were fully vindicated as far as i'm concerned.

Sugar beet kept the line going. The passenger service struggled on after the loss of that traffic, but in no way could the costs of the line be borne by the passenger demand. WRC is different - it connects two cities (albeit again not large in real terms), and has at least two intermediate stations at moderate sized settlements.

end of the road wrote: »

there is possible demand. from wexford to waterford instead of rosslare. issue is reversal at rosslare. at least it would offer a quick service to waterford

nothing on clovenhoof's part to get over, there is more to this then meets the eye, and it will hopefully be proven one day

The reason for the line being built was foot passenger and mail ferry traffic. That traffic has gone thanks to low-cost airlines. The retention of the line was justified by the beet traffic, which subsidised the meagre remaining passenger traffic on offer. That has gone. There is in no way the demand to justify the reopening even if it were run through to Wexford - if there was, Bus Éireann would be running more than one round trip per day on the 370 between the two towns.

Comparison with the WRC is like comparing apples with oranges - there was already a baseload of commuters at either end to help subsidise the middle section. There is no such baseload on the South Wexford, and the only settlement which could hope to provide that - New Ross - is by-passed. Rail is a capital intensive mode, and needs bulk (passengers or freight) to survive. The South Wexford cannot supply this - the numbers just are not there.

end of the road

Sean9015 wrote: »

In the 2011 census, Waterford population is given as 46,722. That is not a large city. The stations along the way are at villages. I will concede that in an ideal world, the service could have continued to Wexford but it would not have been competitive timewise with road.

actually it was more competitive time wise with road. the replacement south wexford service takes double the time to do the trip then the train did.

Sean9015 wrote: »

WRC is different - it connects two cities (albeit again not large in real terms), and has at least two intermediate stations at moderate sized settlements.

not much different if at all. its only advantage is it connects 2 cities. still not worth others losing their services for.

Sean9015 wrote: »

There is in no way the demand to justify the reopening even if it were run through to Wexford

there is once the line is run as a whole and not 2 seperate sections.

Sean9015 wrote: »

if there was, Bus Éireann would be running more than one round trip per day on the 370 between the two towns.

i'm afraid they wouldn't. demand for rail services cannot really be compared to bus services. both have their markets. the 370 takes double the time to do its journey anyway.

Sean9015 wrote: »

Comparison with the WRC is like comparing apples with oranges - there was already a baseload of commuters at either end to help subsidise the middle section.

no comparisons were made with the wrc. but the fact is those who stated lines would close to pay for the reopening were vindicated. thats it.

Sean9015 wrote: »

There is no such baseload on the South Wexford, and the only settlement which could hope to provide that - New Ross - is by-passed.

clonmell, and stations from limerick to waterford, which are part of the whole line are the settlements.

Sean9015 wrote: »

Rail is a capital intensive mode, and needs bulk (passengers or freight) to survive. The South Wexford cannot supply this - the numbers just are not there.

from wexford to limerick, they are.

Banjoxed

What seems to have been forgotten or ignored was that the line from Rosslare through South Wexford was not built just as that.

It was built as a joint project between an Irish and an English railway company to open up access from the south and west of England and South Wales to the whole south and west of Ireland from Cork to Galway and Sligo.

The railway was never built as the south Wexford line and when the section to Cork was closed in the late sixties trains connected through to Limerick, making connections to Galway and Mayo. Cork connections remained at the Junction, at a point when CIE did encourage use of the South Tipp section.

Reinstating the section from Rosslare to Waterford would facilitate trains for backpackers and cyclists travelling from Rosslare to Limerick and Galway. To spell it out, that would mean bringing cyclists and walkers from the south of GB and the continent straight to the West. It creates a foot passenger market that is not at all catered for by buses. Taking the attitude that foot passengers are inorexibily dwindling and nothing can be done about it, is pointless defeatism.

Losty Dublin

Banjoxed wrote: »

Reinstating the section from Rosslare to Waterford would facilitate trains for backpackers and cyclists travelling from Rosslare to Limerick and Galway. To spell it out, that would mean bringing cyclists and walkers from the south of GB and the continent straight to the West. It creates a foot passenger market that is not at all catered for by buses. Taking the attitude that foot passengers are inorexibily dwindling and nothing can be done about it, is pointless defeatism.

But greenways kill railways

GerardKeating

end of the road wrote: »

there is possible demand. from wexford to waterford instead of rosslare. issue is reversal at rosslare. at least it would offer a quick service to waterford. nothing on clovenhoof's part to get over, there is more to this then meets the eye, and it will hopefully be proven one day

There used to be a junction, to allow a direct Wexford/Waterford service.

Losty Dublin

GerardKeating wrote: »

There used to be a junction, to allow a direct Wexford/Waterford service.

Which was removed a century ago due to it having been used by a handful of trains.

Cravens

Crowd funding may work if the good people of South Wexford are willing to lower their sights a little and settle for something more like the bamboo train used by desperate Cambodians. Sooner or later a tourist will wax lyrical about how ingenious it is, and CIE will attempt to defecate all over it by reintroducing the ghost train as ran before closure.

That's my own rather stupid attempt at trying to apply causation theory to the South Wexford line.

whisky_galore

Cravens wrote: »

Crowd funding may work if the good people of South Wexford are willing to lower their sights a little and settle for something more like the bamboo train used by desperate Cambodians. Sooner or later a tourist will wax lyrical about how ingenious it is, and CIE will attempt to defecate all over it by reintroducing the ghost train as ran before closure.

That's my own rather stupid attempt at trying to apply causation theory to the South Wexford line.

Are you actually serious? :pac: A per way bogie with a lawnmower engine attached?

Almost as big a laugh as the notion that there would be a crowd of any significance prepared to fund this fantasy.

Cravens

Of course not, would be hilarious if some nutcase tries it out though.

Anyhow, I rather fear I have de-railed this thread, so back on topic.

munchkin_utd

The population of Waterford (major metropolis and all that) 46000
in comparison this train runs through (and these are all the stops, with no smaller places served missing from the list)

- Stuttgart, pop 597,939
- Darmstadt pop 147,925
- Frankfurt pop 687,775
- Hanau pop 88,182
- Heidelberg pop 150,335
- Kassel pop 192,874
- Fulda 64,008
- Göttingen 116,650
- Hannover 514,137
- Wolfsburg 121,758
- Berlin 3.5million

So, you have multiple cities which are over 10times bigger than Waterford on route, and a city at the end which has nearly the population of Ireland, in a city.
Compared to Waterford being connected to fields

If Waterford was in Germany, with 46,722 inhabitants it'd be the 202nd biggest town in the country. Thats a telling indication of how insignificant Waterford is in the scheme of things. And linking it to the countryside justifies a rail line ?

end of the road

munchkin_utd wrote: »

The population of Waterford (major metropolis and all that) 46000
in comparison this train runs through (and these are all the stops, with no smaller places served missing from the list)

- Stuttgart, pop 597,939
- Darmstadt pop 147,925
- Frankfurt pop 687,775
- Hanau pop 88,182
- Heidelberg pop 150,335
- Kassel pop 192,874
- Fulda 64,008
- Göttingen 116,650
- Hannover 514,137
- Wolfsburg 121,758
- Berlin 3.5million

So, you have multiple cities which are over 10times bigger than Waterford on route, and a city at the end which has nearly the population of Ireland, in a city.
Compared to Waterford being connected to fields

If Waterford was in Germany, with 46,722 inhabitants it'd be the 202nd biggest town in the country. Thats a telling indication of how insignificant Waterford is in the scheme of things. And linking it to the countryside justifies a rail line ?

country side? no, not if done right. which if it was, you would be linking wexford/waterford/limerick/cork/galway via a cross country rail link. i can't speak for anyone else but knowing the area of the south wexford bit of the ireland cross country corridor, my points still stand. i don't think anyone is suggesting crowd funding for it in fairness. rail closures in this day and age only do one thing, reward irish rail for failure. but this is all old ground

Del.Monte

If the connection between the Dublin/Rosslare line and the Rosslare/Waterford line had been reinstated it would have opened up a whole new range of travel options. For anybody from Bray southwards it would have allowed a quicker journey time to Waterford than travelling northwards and then making their way between Connolly and Heuston. That is even allowing for the low line speeds on the South Wexford line. However, CIE and the Dept.of Transport don't do joined-up thinking.

When the avoiding line was closed in 1911 there was the alternative route between Macmine Jn. and Waterford.

Losty Dublin

Del.Monte wrote: »

When the avoiding line was closed in 1911 there was the alternative route between Macmine Jn. and Waterford.

Based on a little that I've read on it but that line was even slower and more poorly used than the South Wexford.

GerardKeating

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Which was removed a century ago due to it having been used by a handful of trains.

I know that, but is the route still intact, could it be reopened, replace the direct link to Rosslaire.

man98

GerardKeating wrote: »

I know that, but is the route still intact, could it be reopened, replace the direct link to Rosslaire.

It's in bits past New Ross, and nearly as bad before it. Why pay mullions upon millions when anyone who can put up with IÉ's obstructionism can make good progress towards a profit.

end of the road

man98 wrote: »

It's in bits past New Ross, and nearly as bad before it.

he's actually referring to the old curve that gave access to the rosslare waterford line from the wexford direction (which funnily enough i cannot find any info on) . all though we know it closed in either 1910 or 1912

Del.Monte

More information than you could shake a big stick at here:

http://www.irrs.ie/Journal%20174/174%20SouthWexford.htm




And news of an accident on the line here: http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=2225

random_guy

And it seems with 2 days to go they made it over the line.
It will be interesting to see what comes of it.

random_guy

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/passenger/single-view/view/crowd-funded-locomore-prepares-for-december-launch.html

Contracts signed apparently.

random_guy

And made insolvent today.

GM228

random_guy wrote: »

And made insolvent today.

They applied for the insolvency yesterday but services were still running today at least.

random_guy

GM228 wrote: »

They applied for the insolvency yesterday but services were still running today at least.

It seems that everything until the 15th is cancelled at least.