Annacotty Train Station

Tiernster7

Any reason why there hasn't been a push to reopen this station. To the best of my knowledge there are more then 4000 people working in Annacotty business parks (johnson and Johnson and a few more companies moving in).

Many of the people working in this area are driving from Limerick City, Clare, North Tipperary and castleconnell. All of which could be more easily commuted with this addition. I see new bus routes being considered but surely this is a relatively low cost solution in the context of rail investment?

ohographite

Tiernster7 wrote: »

Any reason why there hasn't been a push to reopen this station. To the best of my knowledge there are more then 4000 people working in Annacotty business parks (johnson and Johnson and a few more companies moving in).

Many of the people working in this area are driving from Limerick City, Clare, North Tipperary and castleconnell. All of which could be more easily commuted with this addition. I see new bus routes being considered but surely this is a relatively low cost solution in the context of rail investment?

I'd say it would make sense to reopen it. I've always thought that a suburban rail network should be introduced in Limerick. I'm talking about double tracking Annacotty to Limerick city centre, and Ballynanty(on the Galway line) to Limerick city centre, and building a good few new stations along these lines. I'd say a half hourly frequency would be best, so as not to slow down the trains to Galway which are already notoriously slow.

L1011

There are no train sets to introduce extra services, not sure if there's slack to add stations without needing extra units either right now.

pigtown

Where was the station? The track is a bit far from the village and technology park to be walkable

pigtown

Where was the station? The track is a bit far from the village and technology park to be walkable

tabbey

pigtown wrote: »

Where was the station? The track is a bit far from the village and technology park to be walkable

And the university & tech park are served by suburban buses.

dowlingm

To get Annacotty going would need buses into Plassey to extend to that station during service periods to provide local connectivity, plus local planning/zoning to support development - ideally automation of Killonan-Birdhill signals would be sneaked into the budget, as LJ-Tipperary was CTCed when the LJ cabins were closed.

Tiernster7

It's near the business park. 7-10 mins to village,15-20 to Plassey. Bus lacks a bus lane which means the time it will land is so unpredictable in evening. Its great to have it but honestly it only serves those living most locally reasonably.

From experience of living in other cities rail even where 20 mins walk away will beat a bus for most people as you can rely on the timings so much more. And that's comparing to places that actually have adequate bus lanes.

Sierra Oscar

pigtown wrote: »

Where was the station? The track is a bit far from the village and technology park to be walkable

You can see the old station platform here.

It’s closed since 1963. Reopening it would essentially involve building a new station entirely.

Tiernster7

Yip, would take some work. On a week where Eamon Ryan is talking about car sharing villages need some more sustainable solutions outside Dublin, looks like road would need a footpath too. Business park has a bit of spare land maybe could create car park there, to allow park and ride to city too

IE 222

Unless more housing is built in the vicinity I can't see it been used much. The current timetable isn't going to help attract people to use it and the inconvenient location isn't going to attract numbers to increase the number of services on the line.

There is plenty of locations new stations could be built on the Ennis line currently, Cratloe, Moyross, Corbally Rd, Dublin Rd and maybe Kilmallock roundabout.

Twoman Fullbackline

The Ballybrophy line follows a loop that gives the urban area on that side of the city a wide berth. While the line (and I guess the old station) is beside Annacotty Business Park, it's quite a distance from the National Technology Park, the University, and the residential areas of Castletroy, Monaleen and Annacotty. It'd be great if the track didn't spur off the Junction line at Killonan, and instead followed its own path closer to the Dublin Road and terminating, say, at the Parkway, connecting with the Ennis line. But yeah, pie in the sky stuff.

IE 222

Was there any particular reason the Neagh line went to Ballybrophy. I think the line would of been a lot more successful if it continued straight at Borris in Ossory towards Portlaoise and connected into the cork line further north. A Limerick - Portlaoise via Neagh would of driven more demand in my opinion.

IE 222

Twoman Fullbackline wrote: »

The Ballybrophy line follows a loop that gives the urban area on that side of the city a wide berth. While the line (and I guess the old station) is beside Annacotty Business Park, it's quite a distance from the National Technology Park, the University, and the residential areas of Castletroy, Monaleen and Annacotty. It'd be great if the track didn't spur off the Junction line at Killonan, and instead followed its own path closer to the Dublin Road and terminating, say, at the Parkway, connecting with the Ennis line. But yeah, pie in the sky stuff.

Until large scale housing developments are moved closer to rail lines than motorways this problem will always exist.

Limerick has great potential for local rail but it's only a matter of time before the Neagh line gets the chop unless something drastically happens to improve demand in the near future.

Personally I'd rip up the Neagh line and use it to relay and reopen Foynes and Newcastle West for passenger and freight services. There would nearly be enough left over to double the rest of the line to Limerick Jct as well. A spur from Cratloe to Shannon could probably be built with the money they'd spend building that Adare bypass instead.

easypazz

Twoman Fullbackline wrote: »

The Ballybrophy line follows a loop that gives the urban area on that side of the city a wide berth. While the line (and I guess the old station) is beside Annacotty Business Park, it's quite a distance from the National Technology Park, the University, and the residential areas of Castletroy, Monaleen and Annacotty. It'd be great if the track didn't spur off the Junction line at Killonan, and instead followed its own path closer to the Dublin Road and terminating, say, at the Parkway, connecting with the Ennis line. But yeah, pie in the sky stuff.

Sadly it not even pie in the sky. With all the developments out that way over the last 20 years they could easily have preserved an alignment through much of the ul / castletroy area over land that has since been redeveloped.

Its only about 5km to the parkway from annacotty.

Going one further some ennis ballybrophy trains could avoid limerick station altogether and go via castletroy, connecting to dublin from there.

It would also shorten possible rail connections from as far away as portlaoise to shannon airport.