4 Rail Lines ABout to Close

Del.Monte

marno21 wrote: »

I don't agree with shutting Rosslare-Gorey or Ennis-Athenry. The former in particular would set a dangerous precedent and is not necessary.

Limerick-Ballybrophy is indefensible. €500 subvention per passenger journey is obscene. When we get to the stage that it would be cheaper to individually taxi passengers it is ridiculous. I wouldn't abandon the line though because parts of it may become useful in the future. The M7 killed any hope it had, along with how little there is in Limerick city centre and the state of the connecting bus service. A proper bus service Nenagh-Birdhill-Castleconnell-UL-City Centre would be as fast and serve Castletroy which the train doesn't. And wouldn't require the subvention. I think there's merit for a morning/evening Nenagh-Birdhill-Castleconnell-Raheen service also.

Limerick Junction-Waterford should not close. The NTA should tell Irish Rail to cop the **** on and run a proper service on it for a trial period of a year or two and see how it works. The lack of a Sunday service and deplorable timetable along with the overall lack of services makes little wonder for poor passenger figures. The state of the N24 is another mark in favour of it.

The lack of a Sunday service on the Waterford/Limerick Junction line for decades has helped destroy it.

The less than useless timetable on the route now makes it unuseable. I suspect that carryings on the DART might fall off a bit if the first train from the suburbs didn't arrive in Dublin until 11.26 with the return train at 16.25. Too late for workers, students and too lengthy for shoppers - and the return working too early - who is the service aimed at?

CIE should be removed as the train operator and a contract awarded to another operator - won't happen though.

dowlingm

marno21 wrote: »

Limerick Junction-Waterford should not close. The NTA should tell Irish Rail to cop the **** on and run a proper service on it for a trial period of a year or two and see how it works. The lack of a Sunday service and deplorable timetable along with the overall lack of services makes little wonder for poor passenger figures. The state of the N24 is another mark in favour of it.

Quite a bit could be done for Limerick Junction-Waterford but as long as the Tipperary-Waterford West track is manual gates and ETS, it is always going to be on the hit list. A lot of trackwork has been done east of Tipperary in the last 6 years (CWR/concrete sleepers) but the loops at Tipp and Carrick on Suir are gone which has reduced the flexibility of scheduling on the line.

One issue to watch is wagon maintenance - if that leaves Limerick depot, then that takes out some non-revenue movements to and from Waterford.

dowlingm

Del.Monte wrote: »

The lack of a Sunday service on the Waterford/Limerick Junction line for decades has helped destroy it.

...

CIE should be removed as the train operator and a contract awarded to another operator - won't happen though.

I have thought for some time that if it is necessary to close LJ-Waterford one day a week, Saturday is surely the day to do it, since Sunday would allow people working in cities and coming home for weekends, college students, etc. to get back to where they need to be on Monday.

Even if a different train operator was assigned, this doesn't help LJ-Waterford specifically - the track operator would presumably still have to levy significant access charges commensurate with the staff costs of opening gates and handling ETS tokens.

Isambard

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

The whole line closure is just a red herring, it won't happen this year and even less chance in 2018.

I think the Ballybrophy line may go this time round and then next time round another and so on and so on. It's no way to run a railway

dowlingm

A look at some of the train stations on the Wicklow line shows that town planners do not help the continuance of train service. Look at all the open/institutional space beside Gorey station, while the town sprawls into the outskirts. Look at the Tesco lobbed down beside Arklow Station, while the town has been allowed to sprawl north of the river well away from the station/rail line (but near the M11). The platforms are 130m long which means that slots from Greystones in are being occupied by trains which should be 170m long.

tabbey

dowlingm wrote: »

the loops at Tipp and Carrick on Suir are gone

And the loop at Cahir.

Jamie2k9

Isambard wrote: »

I think the Ballybrophy line may go this time round and then next time round another and so on and so on. It's no way to run a railway

Not anytime soon, we are gearing up for a GE and if that doesn't happen the FG/FF support review will be due towards end of 2018.

It will survive another while.

tabbey

dowlingm wrote: »

if it is necessary to close LJ-Waterford one day a week, Saturday is surely the day to do it,

Actually I think Saturday is busier on this line, with people going to Waterford for the day, shopping or whatever. If there was a better service, there might also be families taking day trips to Limerick also, like there was in the past.

Jamie2k9

if it is necessary to close LJ-Waterford one day a week, Saturday is surely the day to do it,

Tuesday would be best day to close if it enabled a Sunday service.

91wx763

tabbey wrote: »

And the loop at Cahir.

Loop at Cahir went donkeys years ago. Loop at Carrick "temporarily" removed as the points were life expired. Signal box is still manned (childed on one shift !!!) and still releases a staff just in case there's one out.......

tabbey

tabbey wrote: »

Actually I think Saturday is busier on this line, with people going to Waterford for the day, shopping or whatever. If there was a better service, there might also be families taking day trips to Limerick also, like there was in the past.

Further to my above post, I was on the 0945 LJ - Waterford this morning (Saturday).

I counted at least twelve people awaiting the train at Clonmel, and nineteen at Carrick-on-Suir. This did not include infants. Most were young, paying, or attempting to pay, child fare.
One or two may have been waiting to meet passengers, but most were boarding. Some of the people were francophone and some from Central Europe, it was quite cosmopolitan from Carrick to Waterford.

I dare say that 19 joining at Carrick was unusual, but it shows the random nature of travel patterns on such lines. Just because the passenger census records just one passenger boarding at Carrick on a wet midweek day in November 2016 or 2015.

Another interesting observation on this train this morning, is that a couple of cyclists were using it to get from Dublin to Waterford, for the greenway. They had wanted to book direct via Carlow, but ICRs having only two cycle spaces per set, they could not get the train they wanted, and the next train was too late for their greenway cycle.

It demonstrates the folly of abandoning traditional guard's vans. If IR / NTA want to make the most of potentialgreenway business, a significant increase in cycle space per ICR, is a priority.