Campaign to reopen Laois train station...

Del.Monte

That's the heading in local newspapers - but it's quite misleading as it's about a campaign calling for the rebuilding of a 7-mile branchline from Portlaoise to Mountmellick! In the scheme of mad projects this is right up there with the building of a new line from Sligo to Derry or reopening, for a second time, the defunct Tralee/Blennerville narrow gauge line.

https://www.laoistoday.ie/2019/09/14/campaign-underway-to-re-open-laois-train-station/

whisky_galore

2,000 signatures.
Good luck.

ongarboy

The Tralee to Blennerville line is just a 1km tourist trail amenity line and would not be categorized under some mad hair brained infrastructure or commuting solutions like some of the other pie in the sky initiatives such as Ennis Athenry which was unnecessarily rebuilt parallel to the M18 motorway and hence is underused.

end of the road

ongarboy wrote: »

The Tralee to Blennerville line is just a 1km tourist trail amenity line and would not be categorized under some mad hair brained infrastructure or commuting solutions like some of the other pie in the sky initiatives such as Ennis Athenry which was unnecessarily rebuilt parallel to the M18 motorway and hence is underused.

the M18 motorway was never going to negate the need for rail based transport along that corridor long term. long term as traffic increases the line will come more into it's own.

but anyway, we can rightly forget about any rebuilding of the branch to mountmellick.

theguzman

The short-sightedness of every Government since the 1950's towards Rail transport in Ireland has been disgraceful.

We should retained out Railways and the Beeching version in Ireland was a total scandal, all of these lines should be reopened. What is needed is for a Government to come along and slash and burn the Civil, Public Service and Privatise the HSE. Stop wastings tens of billions of Social spending and invest into new Railways, Motorways and proper infrastructure. Dublin should have 3 or 4 Metro lines and a dozen or more Luas lines. Every County in Ireland should have a Railway service and there is no reason why any two points on our tiny island should be less than 90 mins away from each other. Dublin to Cork should be under 1hr with High Speed rail.

IE 222

theguzman wrote: »

The short-sightedness of every Government since the 1950's towards Rail transport in Ireland has been disgraceful.

We should retained out Railways and the Beeching version in Ireland was a total scandal, all of these lines should be reopened. What is needed is for a Government to come along and slash and burn the Civil, Public Service and Privatise the HSE. Stop wastings tens of billions of Social spending and invest into new Railways, Motorways and proper infrastructure. Dublin should have 3 or 4 Metro lines and a dozen or more Luas lines. Every County in Ireland should have a Railway service and there is no reason why any two points on our tiny island should be less than 90 mins away from each other. Dublin to Cork should be under 1hr with High Speed rail.

Can't see any government lasting much more than a day after announcing their going to privatise the HSE and cut social spending to reopen rail lines to Mountmellick, Donegal, Cavan ect while also defeating the purpose of them by building more motorways along side them.

I agree they need more funding but we need to be realistic as well. €10 billion over 10 years would probably get it to were we need it to be.

ohographite

Controversially, I don't disagree with this suggestion.
There are, however, plenty of railway reopenings and railway upgrades in Ireland that I think are more important, like the reopening of Dunboyne-Navan and the upgrade of Limerick Junction-Waterford to a faster and more frequent service.

IE 222

ohographite wrote: »

Controversially, I don't disagree with this suggestion.
There are, however, plenty of railway reopenings and railway upgrades in Ireland that I think are more important, like the reopening of Dunboyne-Navan and the upgrade of Limerick Junction-Waterford to a faster and more frequent service.

I don't disagree with it completely either but there is limit as to what rail lines are actually needed. For instance, it would be more beneficial to use funds to upgrade Waterford - Limerick than to reopen the South Wexford Line.

Taking Dunboyne - Navan, its highly unlikely funding will be delivered for that anytime soon. What we should be doing is looking at cheaper alternatives that deliver the same goals. The line from Drogheda - Navan is operational, of good quality and capable of delivering a passenger service for a fraction of the cost of Dunboyne and Navan and could be opened within 18-24 months.

L1011

IE 222 wrote: »

I don't disagree with it completely either but there is limit as to what rail lines are actually needed. For instance, it would be more beneficial to use funds to upgrade Waterford - Limerick than to reopen the South Wexford Line.

Taking Dunboyne - Navan, its highly unlikely funding will be delivered for that anytime soon. What we should be doing is looking at cheaper alternatives that deliver the same goals. The line from Drogheda - Navan is operational, of good quality and capable of delivering a passenger service for a fraction of the cost of Dunboyne and Navan and could be opened within 18-24 months.

Northern Line slots are in short supply and there won't be any rolling stock for it either in that time scale. Once you get in to buying stock you have to consider electrification and then they'll just go back to the Dunboyne route.

Grandeeod

Del.Monte wrote: »

That's the heading in local newspapers - but it's quite misleading as it's about a campaign calling for the rebuilding of a 7-mile branchline from Portlaoise to Mountmellick! In the scheme of mad projects this is right up there with the building of a new line from Sligo to Derry or reopening, for a second time, the defunct Tralee/Blennerville narrow gauge line.

https://www.laoistoday.ie/2019/09/14/campaign-underway-to-re-open-laois-train-station/

That's a great read altogether. Tralee/Blennerville has a better chance.:D

Infini

Honestly SOME of these lines should be reopened but with planned towns along the route as well to make them more viable.

IE 222

L1011 wrote: »

Northern Line slots are in short supply and there won't be any rolling stock for it either in that time scale. Once you get in to buying stock you have to consider electrification and then they'll just go back to the Dunboyne route.

I don't necessarily mean to open it in 2021 but once a plan was put into motion which included rolling stock and whether or not its be electrified it wouldn't take to long to build compared to the length of time the Dunboyne option would take to complete. The new dual mode trains gives you options in terms of electrifying it or not or just use freed up 2900s on it. The Dunboyne option has been pushed out to the back end of the 2040 plan and that's if it even gets done.

In terms of slots, using shuttles between Navan and Drogheda and 2 peak time direct trains ain't going to cripple things. Complete Clongriffin and upgrade another station for overtaking would solve a lot of issues on the line, it needs to be done as minimum one way or another.

Navan via Maynooth is just going to create another Northern line congestion issue once Dart is introduced. Quad tracking is required on the Northern line which will then be able to take extra capacity rather than shifting the problem from line to the other unless you quad both.

Dunboyne can be extended to serve Dunshaughlin, Rathoat and Ashbourne with Dart instead if the demand is there.

Isambard

theguzman wrote: »

The short-sightedness of every Government since the 1950's towards Rail transport in Ireland has been disgraceful.

We should retained out Railways and the Beeching version in Ireland was a total scandal, all of these lines should be reopened. What is needed is for a Government to come along and slash and burn the Civil, Public Service and Privatise the HSE. Stop wastings tens of billions of Social spending and invest into new Railways, Motorways and proper infrastructure. Dublin should have 3 or 4 Metro lines and a dozen or more Luas lines. Every County in Ireland should have a Railway service and there is no reason why any two points on our tiny island should be less than 90 mins away from each other. Dublin to Cork should be under 1hr with High Speed rail.

under an hour? No train in the world could do that without building an entirely new alignment with no stops or junctions, and even then I doubt it could be done.
that's disposed of the most sensible suggestion, I'll let others tackle the res
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