4 rail lines face possible closure

Zebra3

http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/irish-rail-earmarks-four-routes-for-axe-as-it-warns-pay-rise-will-push-it-towards-insolvency-36079194.html

Staggering the subvention figure for Limerick to Ballybrophy.

flazio

They are the slowest lines still going I believe, however I personally think a rail link to Rosslare harbour does need to be maintained.

LeinsterDub

Zebra3 wrote: »

http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/irish-rail-earmarks-four-routes-for-axe-as-it-warns-pay-rise-will-push-it-towards-insolvency-36079194.html

Staggering the subvention figure for Limerick to Ballybrophy.

€761.60 on the Limerick to Ballybrophy line

Just to compare

Estimated Fare : €118.40 to €142.40

https://www.transportforireland.ie/taxi/taxi-fare-estimator/


And that's having a single person per cab.

bk

Deedsie wrote: »

The Nenagh line will close and that is what Irish rail have wanted for a long time. The train is almost unusable for people, times are terrible, train is stupidly slow. Dont blame the public for not using it, blame Irish rail.

In fairness it isn't really Irish Rails fault either.

Rail is expensive to build, maintain and run. It is fantastic where you have high population densities near the stations and high congestion in a city center (DART, Luas, Metro, etc.) to justify the high cost.

But it just can't compete in largely rural areas with very low, spread out, population densities, competing against much fast cars and coaches on roads and in particular motorways.

Much of our non commuter rail network is a vestige of the 1800's when it was by far the fastest way to travel, as travelling by road could take days. Today the world is very different and it just can't compete with most people having cars and motorways.

techdiver

bk wrote: »

In fairness it isn't really Irish Rails fault either.

Rail is expensive to build, maintain and run. It is fantastic where you have high population densities near the stations and high congestion in a city center (DART, Luas, Metro, etc.) to justify the high cost.

But it just can't compete in largely rural areas with very low, spread out, population densities, competing against much fast cars and coaches on roads and in particular motorways.

Much of our non commuter rail network is a vestige of the 1800's when it was by far the fastest way to travel, as travelling by road could take days. Today the world is very different and it just can't compete with most people having cars and motorways.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment, we are also in a massive push to get people out of their cars especially in Dublin. I use the Mullingar to Connolly service every morning instead of driving. Their is no other viable alternative that will comes close in door to door journey times. Bus Eireann has no decent non stop service and takes the guts of 2 hours, yes 2 hours to travel 50 miles from Mullingar to Dublin.

Now the Sligo line isn't mentioned in the article, but I would like to see the figures for subvention on that line. It seems the train only really picks up significant passenger numbers from Mullingar onwards.

hytrogen

bk wrote:

Rail is expensive to build, maintain and run. It is fantastic where you have high population densities near the stations and high congestion in a city center (DART, Luas, Metro, etc.) to justify the high cost
But it just can't compete in largely rural areas with very low, spread out, population densities, competing against much fast cars and coaches on roads and in particular motorways.

But Nenagh has the population density to support it as a commuter town to Limerick / Dublin. As others have mentioned it has been deliberately run into the ground by IR with poor scheduling and slow speeds.
A poor worker blames his tools, but when he uses them the wrong way he's to blame.
The fact there is no incentive for the nearby large townships like Ballina/Killaloe to engage it as a commuter option for people working / studying in Limerick shows the neglect IR AND NTA have put on the infrastructure.

hytrogen

As regards the Rosslare Europort line someone is definitely fiddling the books on that, considering that they've see an increase in export traffic across the Celtic sea..

bk

techdiver wrote: »

Whilst I agree with the sentiment, we are also in a massive push to get people out of their cars especially in Dublin. I use the Mullingar to Connolly service every morning instead of driving. Their is no other viable alternative that will comes close in door to door journey times. Bus Eireann has no decent non stop service and takes the guts of 2 hours, yes 2 hours to travel 50 miles from Mullingar to Dublin.

I was speaking of the regional networks. The Dublin commuter network makes sense of course.

techdiver wrote: »

Now the Sligo line isn't mentioned in the article, but I would like to see the figures for subvention on that line. It seems the train only really picks up significant passenger numbers from Mullingar onwards.

A net loss of €18 per passenger journey. Not the best, but not the worst either.

bk

hytrogen wrote: »

As regards the Rosslare Europort line someone is definitely fiddling the books on that, considering that they've see an increase in export traffic across the Celtic sea..

Not really, everyone just trucks their freight. Far faster and cheaper. Rail freight represents just 1% of all freight in Ireland.

BTW Nenagh has a population of less then 8,000, that is hardly staggering. You'd barely fill a few buses with that.

PropJoe10

Closing the rail link to Wexford/Rosslare would be an absolute disgrace. This is meant to be a developed country. Time for the government to overhaul Irish Rail completely, bring down fares and actually motivate people to take the train.

techdiver

bk wrote: »

I was speaking of the regional networks. The Dublin commuter network makes sense of course.



A net loss of €18 per passenger journey. Not the best, but not the worst either.

Cheers for that.

I would assume the majority of the line loss would be West of Mullingar/Longford.

Do they brake down the revenue for the dedicated Longford - Connolly/Pearse service separate from the Sligo intercity service or is it bundled as a single line metric?

bk

techdiver wrote: »

Cheers for that.

I would assume the majority of the line loss would be West of Mullingar/Longford.

Do they brake down the revenue for the dedicated Longford - Connolly/Pearse service separate from the Sligo intercity service or is it bundled as a single line metric?

I think it is a single metric. The massive 300 page report is here if your interested:

https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/151116_2016_Rail_Review_Report_Complete_Online.pdf

D.L.R.

Utter dysfunction. Hard to know whether its down to IR or the state. Both seem completely inept when it comes to running a railway system. Just bring in the bloody Germans to run it for us. We can't do it.

hytrogen

bk wrote:

Not really, everyone just trucks their freight. Far faster and cheaper. Rail freight represents just 1% of all freight in Ireland.

I was referring to the ports overall exports being up, not just railfreight, roro or foot passenger alone and how those increases should be feeding back into the CIE adjoining networks, ie someone's fiddling the books there. And as a whole all major ports in Ireland are seeing an increase in traffic overall so it's not like we're stuck in the bad times in terms of revenues.

bk wrote:

BTW Nenagh has a population of less then 8,000, that is hardly staggering. You'd barely fill a few buses with that.

What about the adjacent towns near the other stops on the line? Why aren't they being incentivised to use the train or public transport. Basically because there is none. Ballina-Killaloe is a bottleneck and there isn't anything in terms of decent bus service to or from the towns.
Shannon has 9,276 (census 2016) and buses are full every day at the rush hours to and from Limerick, particularly to Shannon business park and airport. The roads, buses and trains are chocka from Naas with 20,714 to Dublin each and every day. It's not like there isn't a demand for services, it's just because there is no services.

bk

D.L.R. wrote: »

Utter dysfunction. Hard to know whether its down to IR or the state. Both seem completely inept when it comes to running a railway system. Just bring in the bloody Germans to run it for us. We can't do it.

I'd suspect the Germans would close down half the network!

It really is just a case of economic, geography and demographics.

roadmaster

i think at this stage a long over due question needs to be asked of the public what sort of public transport system they want and what are they willing to pay for. Do we want IR to be a profit driven company only that can fund it self with no public money which would end up in many lines closed.

Do we want to have IR publicly funded that delivers a public service at a reasonable cost and keeps lines open that would not stay open if private.

On the continent how much would governments pay towards public transport compare to here?

Middle Man

D.L.R. wrote: »

Utter dysfunction. Hard to know whether its down to IR or the state. Both seem completely inept when it comes to running a railway system. Just bring in the bloody Germans to run it for us. We can't do it.

I normally disagree with you, but I had to give this a thumbs up! Oh yeah, close the Nenagh line even though it's only about 40km from Limerick and could well be developed as a commuter line in the future - sure we closed the Harcourt Street Line in Dublin, so really nothing would surprise me in this country!

Middle Man

bk wrote: »

I'd suspect the Germans would close down half the network!

It really is just a case of economic, geography and demographics.

Or is it a case of pure Paddy Laziness?

Middle Man

So, everyone else is building and re-opening railways, but we're doing nothing but closing them - perhaps Nenagh to Ballybrophy might be surplus to requirements as well as Wexford to Rosslare, but closing Limerick to Nenagh, Gorey to Wexford, Limerick Junction to Waterford (2 cities) and Ennis to Athenry (recently reopened)??? Really, are the people running this country so thick???

Please give me this country for just a decade and I'll guarantee that Paddy and Mary will be fired (no compensation) - they should never be running this country! Only people who are fit for tenure would need apply for all the vacant positions that would arise!

bk

Middle Man, this is simply demographics. We all decided that we wanted to live in a 3/4 bedroom detached house with a garden out front and as a result spread all across the countryside in very low density.

Such living patterns are completely unsustainable for rail, hell even bus services struggle to service it all.

In Germany they have very strict planning permission. In rural areas you can only build within 1 km of a town or village, basically walking easy distance. As a result they have much higher density of people living near stations making it more suited to rail.

If the Germans were too come here, they would laugh at us, shut down half the rail network and level half of the rural homes and build nice apartment blocks within walking distance of the stations in towns.

The WRC is just another example of this insanity. It cost 100 million to reopen and it only carries enough people a day to fill two double decker buses, laughable!

LeinsterDub

PropJoe10 wrote: »

Closing the rail link to Wexford/Rosslare would be an absolute disgrace. This is meant to be a developed country. Time for the government to overhaul Irish Rail completely, bring down fares and actually motivate people to take the train.

How much more good money should we throw after bad? Wexford Bus' service is far better than the rail option and costs the public nothing.

Middle Man

bk wrote: »

Middle Man, this is simply demographics. We all decided that we wanted to live in a 3/4 bedroom detached house with a garden out front and as a result spread all across the countryside in very low density.

Such living patterns are completely unsustainable for rail, hell even bus services struggle to service it all.

In Germany they have very strict planning permission. In rural areas you can only build within 1 km of a town or village, basically walking easy distance. As a result they have much higher density of people living near stations making it more suited to rail.

If the Germans were too come here, they would laugh at us, shut down half the rail network and level half of the rural homes and build nice apartment blocks within walking distance of the stations in towns.

The WRC is just another example of this insanity. It cost 100 million to reopen and it only carries enough people a day to fill two double decker buses, laughable!

If you were to level all the dispersed houses (which might be an idea), surely the under-utilised railways could be made use of - railways through Wexford, Nenagh, Clonmel, Carrick-on-Suir for example. Can't you imagine how big all those towns would be in terms of population! In fact, add Tuam to that list and the railway thereto could be justifiably reopened!

LeinsterDub

roadmaster wrote: »

Do we want to have IR publicly funded that delivers a public service at a reasonable cost and keeps lines open that would not stay open if private.

ÍE has always been publicly funded it's never been intended to make a profit. What it was not intended to do was not leak cash like a sieve it must deliver value for money. When you get to the stage where hiring taxies would be significantly cheaper you know something has seriously gone wrong.

bk

Middle Man wrote: »

If you were to level all the dispersed houses (which might be an idea), surely the under-utilised railways could be made use of - railways through Wexford, Nenagh, Clonmel, Carrick-on-Suir for example. Can't you imagine how big all those towns would be in terms of population! In fact, add Tuam to that list and the railway thereto could be justifiably reopened!

And now you know why rail in rural areas is doomed. So many of us live from our towns and villages that you need a car anyway to even get a bottle of milk. Sure if you have a car already, why would you bother to drive it to a train station and take the train when you can drive door to door to your destination anyway much quicker.

Rural rail stands no chance against the car giving our living patterns.

Note I'm saying the rural rail network, obviously commuter rail into Dublin is a different story.

roadmaster

LeinsterDub wrote: »

ÍE has always been publicly funded it's never been intended to make a profit. What it was not intended to do was not leak cash like a sieve it must deliver value for money. When you get to the stage where hiring taxies would be significantly cheaper you know something has seriously gone wrong.

i know IE is publicly funded ,Even if you eliminate the waste you still will have to give alot extra funding to certain routes to keep them open. So do we keep these routes open from a social aspect or do we say sorry its costing way to much money to run this route we are closing it.

Middle Man

bk wrote: »

And now you know why rail in rural areas is doomed. So many of us live from our towns and villages that you need a car anyway to even get a bottle of milk. Sure if you have a car already, why would you bother to drive it to a train station and take the train when you can drive door to door to your destination anyway much quicker.

Rural rail stands no chance against the car giving our living patterns.

Note I'm saying the rural rail network, obviously commuter rail into Dublin is a different story.

Alas, very true regarding local day to day business and even day trips (we've such great planning here :rolleyes:). When commuting however, rail is the only reasonably efficient option for me - living in East Meath and working in Dun Laoghaire - I drive around 5km to the nearest station.

LeinsterDub

roadmaster wrote: »

i know IE is publicly funded ,Even if you eliminate the waste you still will have to give alot extra funding to certain routes to keep them open. So do we keep these routes open from a social aspect or do we say sorry its costing way to much money to run this route we are closing it.

We'll we need to decide this on a case by case basis . Closing the Wexford will have little or no negative social aspect. In fact converting it to a cycleway could be a massive boost to the towns along the line.

Mehapoy

Why don't they open these lines up to a private operator, let them lease the rolling stock from Irish rail, give them the same subvention as on the cork\dublin line and see if they can make it viable, either as a commuter, tourist etc. Basis, see what the private sector can do with it free from the shackles or Irish rail management and unions.

bk

LeinsterDub is spot on, you take it case by case.

How many people will be put off by the closure? How many replacement buses do you need? How fast can the replacement bus do the same journey? etc.

Middle Man

Mehapoy wrote: »

Why don't they open these lines up to a private operator, let them lease the rolling stock from Irish rail, give them the same subvention as on the cork\dublin line and see if they can make it viable, either as a commuter, tourist etc. Basis, see what the private sector can do with it free from the shackles or Irish rail management and unions.

...and why can't we roll out more freight services via the private sector - I recently saw that the rail freight service linking both Mayo and Dublin was still in operation - new services such as this might help to keep lines like Limerick Jct. to Waterford (Belview Port) open.

bk

Mehapoy wrote: »

Why don't they open these lines up to a private operator, let them lease the rolling stock from Irish rail, give them the same subvention as on the cork\dublin line and see if they can make it viable, either as a commuter, tourist etc. Basis, see what the private sector can do with it free from the shackles or Irish rail management and unions.

The unions would lose their minds and go out on strike and shut down the whole network for weeks on end.

Anyway privates wouldn't be interested in these lines. They are only interested in profitable lines. Rural lines that meander slowly through the countryside with low population densities will simply never be profitable, no matter who is running them.

LeinsterDub

Mehapoy wrote: »

Why don't they open these lines up to a private operator, let them lease the rolling stock from Irish rail, give them the same subvention as on the cork\dublin line and see if they can make it viable, either as a commuter, tourist etc. Basis, see what the private sector can do with it free from the shackles or Irish rail management and unions.

The private sector can't make money shuttling around a handful of people unless we are taking about about some Soccer Billionaire who want to run a railway for the laugh too.

source

There it's one very simple reason that the Limerick to Ballybrophy line doesn't work as a commuter line and that is the timetable.

Monday to Friday the first train going to Limerick leaves Nenagh at 07:45 and doesn't get to Limerick until 08:45.

The last train leaves Limerick at 16:55!!!!!!!

How can it operate as a commuter service when the times don't even suit those who are commuting?

AngryLips

I feel like they should privatise the Wexford line. It's a standalone line with little interaction with the rest of the network, bar interacting with Dart trains on the run into Pearse. It would be interesting to see if any private enterprises would be interested in making it work and how they would fare in comparison. Since IE want to close it anyway, there would be little reason to object.

LeinsterDub

AngryLips wrote: »

I feel like they should privatise the Wexford line. It's a standalone line with little interaction with the rest of the network, bar interacting with Dart trains on the run into Pearse. It would be interesting to see if any private enterprises would be interested in making it work and how they would fare in comparison. Since IE want to close it anyway, there would be little reason to object.

Any do tell will this private train be able to pick me up at Lesson St, run every half hour , drop me to Enniscorthy in less than 2 hours and cost less than 16 euro? If not I'm not interested.

Dardania

Surprised to see a subvention of 70c needed per passenger journey on the DART... easy fix to add E1 to journey costs there, to wipe face

MagicHumanDoll

I might be reading it wrong but I'm assuming that the lines themselves stay open and the routes close? I get the Rosslare-Dublin a lot and closing it all the way to Gorey makes no sense in terms of the port, commuting etc. But preventing trains doing a route of specifically Gorey-Rosslare does.

bk

MagicHumanDoll wrote: »

I might be reading it wrong but I'm assuming that the lines themselves stay open and the routes close? I get the Rosslare-Dublin a lot and closing it all the way to Gorey makes no sense in terms of the port, commuting etc. But preventing trains doing a route of specifically Gorey-Rosslare does.

No, it would be full line closure (though they would obviously keep the lines for future reopening if needed).

Mehapoy

bk wrote: »

Mehapoy wrote: »

Why don't they open these lines up to a private operator, let them lease the rolling stock from Irish rail, give them the same subvention as on the cork\dublin line and see if they can make it viable, either as a commuter, tourist etc. Basis, see what the private sector can do with it free from the shackles or Irish rail management and unions.

The unions would lose their minds and go out on strike and shut down the whole network for weeks on end.

Anyway privates wouldn't be interested in these lines. They are only interested in profitable lines. Rural lines that meander slowly through the countryside with low population densities will simply never be profitable, no matter who is running them.

Never know unless you try it...I'm sure there are private operators that would give it a go...if not then you know its not and will never be viable

bk

Mehapoy wrote: »

Never know unless you try it...I'm sure there are private operators that would give it a go...if not then you know its not and will never be viable

Well one issue you would have is that the existing staff on the line would have to be transfered over to the private company on the same pay and t&c's and would still be part of their union. See TUPE rules.

So you would unlikely to see big savings.

LeinsterDub

Mehapoy wrote: »

Never know unless you try it...I'm sure there are private operators that would give it a go...if not then you know its not and will never be viable

The Wexford alignment basically needs to be dumped and started again. A private operator can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear

MagicHumanDoll

bk wrote: »

No, it would be full line closure (though they would obviously keep the lines for future reopening if needed).

Okay thanks for clarification. Very frustrating for me personally if that came to fruition.

flazio

LeinsterDub wrote: »

The Wexford alignment basically needs to be dumped and started again. A private operator can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear

Irish Rail haven't made a new route from scratch... ever.

A2LUE42

Got train from Birdhill to Limerick a few weeks ago and both carriages were almost full when the train arrived from Nenagh. So not sure where the figures for usage are coming from or was it that the day I picked was the one day that everyone travelled?

hytrogen

bk wrote:

In Germany they have very strict planning permission. In rural areas you can only build within 1 km of a town or village, basically walking easy distance. As a result they have much higher density of people living near stations making it more suited to rail.
If the Germans were too come here, they would laugh at us, shut down half the rail network and level half of the rural homes and build nice apartment blocks within walking distance of the stations in towns.

I'm curious as to why we're comparing Germany (circa 95m population) and not Britain (circa 65m) our nearer neighbour and once architect to our infrastructure? Leave aside Brexitology for a moment..
The Brits have IMO way stricter rules in rural development than anywhere else, equally they too have higher density patterns living near train stations as well as small medium industry.
I very much doubt the Germans would shut everything down overnight as you suggest, they love trains and anything public transportation, especially ones you can take bicycles on into rural areas easily, rather they would look at the overall picture and develop upon that as they successfully did postwar..

D.L.R.

hytrogen wrote: »

I'm curious as to why we're comparing Germany (circa 95m population) and not Britain (circa 65m) our nearer neighbour and once architect to our infrastructure? Leave aside Brexitology for a moment..

Because Germany are our masters.

hytrogen

Middle Man wrote:

...and why can't we roll out more freight services via the private sector - I recently saw that the rail freight service linking both Mayo and Dublin was still in operation - new services such as this might help to keep lines like Limerick Jct. to Waterford (Belview Port) open.

Totally agree, there are too many trucks on the road now, it's getting too dangerous for car users, our carbon footprint is going through the roof and employment in stevedoors is in the decline or going out to foreign cheaper labour.
There are several international shipping companies looking at the Waterford Rosslare link as a potential option to get across to the UK and Europe post Brexit as an option instead of Antwerp or London Gateway.

PropJoe10

A2LUE42 wrote: »

Got train from Birdhill to Limerick a few weeks ago and both carriages were almost full when the train arrived from Nenagh. So not sure where the figures for usage are coming from or was it that the day I picked was the one day that everyone travelled?

I use the Wexford route regularly and quite often there's at least 60-75 people getting on in Wexford, more in Enniscorthy and more again in Gorey. Which makes me ask where exactly these loss figures are coming from - plus, how much they are actually paying the skeleton staff on this service per hour, that's causing such a massive yearly loss. Surely to God, operating costs can't be that high for a diesel train with no more than 5 staff on it at a time.

Plus, even if they decommission this line, they're obliged to maintain it in working order for a certain number of years, like they are with the Rosslare-Waterford route (which had an absolutely ridiculous timetable that was utterly pointless for anyone that might've wanted to use it as a commuter option).

Without knowing the details in full, it just seems that Irish Rail is incredibly badly run.

Grab All Association

There's potential for the Limerick-Waterford line. It beats the 55 even with a 30 minute wait at Limerick Junction. Bring in a timetable of at least 8 services a day reduce the wait to 5-10 minutes at LJ and change the layout. A Galway to Waterford service would work well. Not likely to happen though. Bus Éireann have cut services to Cahir, Tipp, Carrick and Clonmel, that it could be a viable replacement.

As for the Nenagh line. dispose of the day to day running of it. If NRP think they can run it then why not just hand it over. There's single car 2700 rolling stock in inchicore that can be put back in to service and permantly loaned to NRP.

bk

PropJoe10 wrote: »

I use the Wexford route regularly and quite often there's at least 60-75 people getting on in Wexford, more in Enniscorthy and more again in Gorey. Which makes me ask where exactly these loss figures are coming from - plus, how much they are actually paying the skeleton staff on this service per hour, that's causing such a massive yearly loss. Surely to God, operating costs can't be that high for a diesel train with no more than 5 staff on it at a time.

Rail requires a lot of behind the scenes work to keep it running safely. Lots of maintenance, signalling, etc.

PropJoe10 wrote: »

Plus, even if they decommission this line, they're obliged to maintain it in working order for a certain number of years, like they are with the Rosslare-Waterford route (which had an absolutely ridiculous timetable that was utterly pointless for anyone that might've wanted to use it as a commuter option).

While they have to keep the alignment, they don't have to maintain it to the levels of safety standards required for passengers services. Depending if they continue freight ops or not, then maintenance isn't much more then a bit of weed whacking every few years.

They could save a lot. No need to staff, clean, maintain stations. No staff for trains, no signalling staff. Maintenance and engineering staff either left go or moved to increasing services on busier routes, etc.

LeinsterDub

PropJoe10 wrote: »

I use the Wexford route regularly and quite often

Honest question why. The bus is simply a better service?

PropJoe10 wrote: »

there's at least 60-75 people getting on in Wexford, more in Enniscorthy and more again in Gorey.

How many of them paid?