Jim Meade fights back

Sligo eye

Fair play to Jim Meade the CEO of Iarnród Éireann who was given the right to reply to yet another Colm McCarthy whinge piece regarding rail in last week’s Sindo.

Obviously buy today’s Sindo to read the piece but the key points are that he states that McCarthy believes that as we did not plan infrastructure and development In the past so we had better not start now.

Jim Meade also points out in areas where we do have good road and rail links that both transport modes compliment each other.

Meade also highlights Project Ireland 2040 which looks to shift development away from Dublin over to the other regional cities and points out that rail will play a key role in those cities too.

Also - the letters page is well worth reading,

There are two letters, one from a gentleman in Limerick who highlights the real cost of electrification - far less than McCarthy’s inflated claims - and that the passenger numbers for the Limerick - Galway Line are running at half a million per year, far higher than the original business case predicted. His final line is worth repeating:

“Rail should be a core part of the public transport spine going forward and should be funded accordingly”

The second letter is from a commuter in Athenry who states that far from closing the Limerick - Galway Line, it is the fastest growing line in the state and that closure would increase the traffic chaos in both cities.

With more than half a million journies per year it would be madness to close the line and that the line should be extended further.

1 sheep2

McCarthy is such a bore. It enrages me that our media landscape has a place for him to keep bleating his ideological nonsense, largely unchallenged.

Jamie2k9

The WRC figures are not accurate, amassing how passengers there before the WRC opened are now part of the business case to inflate the figures!

tdf7187

McCarthy is a free marketeer Thatcherite fanatic who should not be allowed near public policy or the airwaves.

Vic_08

Sligo eye wrote: »

Obviously buy today’s Sindo

I would say do exactly the opposite. the "Sindo" has always been an opinion rag of the worst kind, 10% news, 90% agenda pushing by many many tossers.

Best thing to do with it is to ignore it as the irrelevance it has always been and certainly, never for any reason, buy the thing.

Lord Glentoran

Vic_08 wrote: »

I would say do exactly the opposite. the "Sindo" has always been an opinion rag of the worst kind, 10% news, 90% agenda pushing by many many tossers.

Best thing to do with it is to ignore it as the irrelevance it has always been and certainly, never for any reason, buy the thing.

No, I reckon Sligo Eye has summarised the article well enough. Just in case the points were missed -

[Jim Meade] states that McCarthy believes that as we did not plan infrastructure and development In the past so we had better not start now.

Jim Meade also points out in areas where we do have good road and rail links that both transport modes compliment each other.

Meade also highlights Project Ireland 2040 which looks to shift development away from Dublin over to the other regional cities and points out that rail will play a key role in those cities too.

Also - the letters page is well worth reading,

There are two letters, one from a gentleman in Limerick who highlights the real cost of electrification - far less than McCarthy’s inflated claims - and that the passenger numbers for the Limerick - Galway Line are running at half a million per year, far higher than the original business case predicted. His final line is worth repeating:

“Rail should be a core part of the public transport spine going forward and should be funded accordingly”

The second letter is from a commuter in Athenry who states that far from closing the Limerick - Galway Line, it is the fastest growing line in the state and that closure would increase the traffic chaos in both cities.

With more than half a million journies per year it would be madness to close the line and that the line should be extended further.

The content is worth a bit more than a dismissive “nothing to see here, move on” comment.

whisky_galore

I wish these relics of 1960s economic thought would retire from scribbling in newspapers, perhaps write childrens' books instead.

Moshers and mosherways good, trains and trams bad.

Carawaystick

whisky_galore wrote: »

Moshers and mosherways good, trains and trams bad.

Its cheaper and quicker to get from Dublin city centre to Galway by coach since the motorways were built.
its cheaper and quicker to get from Limerick to Galway by coach since the motorways were built; you can also get a coach when it rains; and, this part is amazing, coaches can go in both directions at the same time, unlike the railway that opened costing a hundred million


Also goods can be carried at any time of the day, to anywhere there is a road by road.
rail freight can only go to certain points on the railway network, many stations don't handle freight, and obviously you can't deliver to a field beside a railway, unlike a road.

BonnieSituation

Carawaystick wrote: »

Its cheaper and quicker to get from Dublin city centre to Galway by coach since the motorways were built.
its cheaper and quicker to get from Limerick to Galway by coach since the motorways were built; you can also get a coach when it rains; and, this part is amazing, coaches can go in both directions at the same time, unlike the railway that opened costing a hundred million


Also goods can be carried at any time of the day, to anywhere there is a road by road.
rail freight can only go to certain points on the railway network, many stations don't handle freight, and obviously you can't deliver to a field beside a railway, unlike a road.

So you're saying we should develop our railways and their freight capacity in tandem with any passenger developments?

Carawaystick

Cant see rail being useful for a JIT freight delivery
Cant see rail being good for going up hills
Can't see the benefit of rail being good for any locallink services

Can't see how you run intercity trains to Dublin city, rather than the outskirts
Can't see how you build a railway to link Donegal in a sane way

Even at the height of the railways here, there were huge roundabout routes to get to places with very short road routes. Kingscourt to Carricmacross, Ballygalley to Omagh, Shillelagh to Tullow, Birr to Banagher, Longford to Roscommon

Losty Dublin

Carawaystick wrote: »

Even at the height of the railways here, there were huge roundabout routes to get to places with very short road routes. Kingscourt to Carricmacross, Ballygalley to Omagh, Shillelagh to Tullow, Birr to Banagher, Longford to Roscommon

And it was like this with good reason as most of the railway freight flows were laid to carry goods either to a city or to a port for onward distribution. Invariably these branch lines were built to link to a main line that already existed.

bk

Truth of the matter is, rail simply makes no sense at all in rural Ireland. Roads and motorways are FAR more useful unfortunately then rail. That is simply the truth of the era of the automobile.

That isn't to say that rail doesn't have a very important part to play in our society. Where rail makes sense is as mass transit into and around our cities. Where traffic congestion is so great, that cars and roads become less attractive.

Sligo eye

bk wrote: »

Truth of the matter is, rail simply makes no sense at all in rural Ireland. Roads and motorways are FAR more useful unfortunately then rail. That is simply the truth of the era of the automobile.

That isn't to say that rail doesn't have a very important part to play in our society. Where rail makes sense is as mass transit into and around our cities. Where traffic congestion is so great, that cars and roads become less attractive.

Have a read of the Project 2040 proposals. If we are going to balance regional development then rail is vital.

Lord Glentoran

Sligo eye wrote: »

Have a read of the Project 2040 proposals. If we are going to balance regional development then rail is vital.

All the anti planning/anti rail brigade want is Mosherways, breeze block industrial estates masquerading as “shopping quarters”, and the McMansion on Daddy’s land miles from anywhere else. Then they wonder why regional cities and towns are fooked up with traffic.

Losty Dublin

Lord Glentoran wrote: »

Then they wonder why regional cities and towns are fooked up with traffic.

Tis obvious why; they didn't build enough mofferwheys.

To the council chambers chumrades, and don't spare the beige envelopes!

bk

You ask people in rural Ireland, do they want a new road/motorway or rail, 99% will say road. They'd laugh at the idea of rail, it is almost useless to them.

Most people in rural area have a car and it is far faster and more convenient then any train ever could be.

Honestly I don't get the weird fetish for rail in rural areas some of you have. Trains that only run a few times a day, don't go where you want and take way longer then car/coach.

The majority of people couldn't care less about which metal box gets them for A to B. Doesn't matter if it is car/train/bus/pane, they just want to get from A to B in the quickest, cheapest and most convenient manner for them.

In rural area that is the car by a very far distance. In Dublin that it is rail.

Trying to push rail in rural Ireland is a disaster, because it takes the focus and money off where it is desperately needed, which is urban Ireland.

end of the road

it's pushing for rail around urban areas that we are doing, from commuter towns which can then be developed properly to the cities.
the only rail in real rural ireland is whatever happens to pass through and the few rural stations that are just railheads.

Bass Reeves

The fact that there is only 500k journey's per anum on the Galway/Limerick line really shows the futility of that line. That less that 10k/ week or less than 1400 journeys /day or less than 700 each way. It about the workload for 4 busses running a 30 miniute service.

That the reality of even inter city rail in Ireland probably with the exception of the routes to Dublin. And Buses still take as many if not more on them routes. A train needs 5-6 full carriages to be worth subsidizing on inter city routes. Limerick and Galway have population of sub 100k each. To run an effective train service between the two cities you need passengers numbers of 10k/ day between the cities(5k each way) and that is the minimum so that you would get the frequency of service. That 6-8%of the total population that would need to constantly on the move between these cities.

This actually shows the futility of a new dedicated Cork-Limerick line. Rails funds should be used where there is existing rail lines with possible commuter traffic as trying to use funds to develop commuting where the demand is non existent

Sligo eye

bk wrote: »

You ask people in rural Ireland, do they want a new road/motorway or rail, 99% will say road. They'd laugh at the idea of rail, it is almost useless to them.

Most people in rural area have a car and it is far faster and more convenient then any train ever could be.

Honestly I don't get the weird fetish for rail in rural areas some of you have. Trains that only run a few times a day, don't go where you want and take way longer then car/coach.

The majority of people couldn't care less about which metal box gets them for A to B. Doesn't matter if it is car/train/bus/pane, they just want to get from A to B in the quickest, cheapest and most convenient manner for them.

In rural area that is the car by a very far distance. In Dublin that it is rail.

Trying to push rail in rural Ireland is a disaster, because it takes the focus and money off where it is desperately needed, which is urban Ireland.

Pushing for reducing traffic, connecting towns and allowing balanced regional development isn’t a “weird fetish”. What is weird is that ideas that were thrown out elsewhere in Europe in the 1980s still hold sway with some in Ireland, particularly around mass development of one urban area rather than balanced development of a number of areas.

Where other countries recognise that carbon emissions have to be reduced and rail invested in, we have these bright sparks in official Ireland who think we can manage all our transport needs by road and two lane toll motorways.

Sure, we can dismantle the rail network outside Dublin and put all intercity traffic on the motorways, for now.

But thinking ahead, we will then be faced with traffic gridlock as and when the population expands to the targeted 8/9 million in the Ireland 2040 plan and suddenly someone will say “ why did we scrap all our railways”?

Frankly bk, you can call all this a weird fetish, but I prefer to call it thinking ahead.

bk

Sligo eye wrote: »

Pushing for reducing traffic, connecting towns and allowing balanced regional development isn’t a “weird fetish”. What is weird is that ideas that were thrown out elsewhere in Europe in the 1980s still hold sway with some in Ireland, particularly around mass development of one urban area rather than balanced development of a number of areas.

Because the reality is these lines being suggested will do nothing to reduce congestion. No one is going to take these trains when even with congestion, cars are still much faster, hell even coaches take half the time.

Rail lines through low density rural areas have and continue to be closed all throughout Europe. The focus on rail throughout Europe is the same here, primarily mass transit into and aroud cities and yes intercity rail between large cities.

Sligo eye wrote: »

Where other countries recognise that carbon emissions have to be reduced and rail invested in, we have these bright sparks in official Ireland who think we can manage all our transport needs by road and two lane toll motorways.

Diesel trains are hardly a solution to carbon emissions. Cars are going Electric anyway over the next 20 years, so that will sort that issue for the majority of Ireland much faster then building any extensive rail network would.

Sligo eye wrote: »

Sure, we can dismantle the rail network outside Dublin and put all intercity traffic on the motorways, for now.

I didn't say that, I'm talking about reopening idiotic Victorian railways that meander through empty fields in the least densly populated areas of Europe, that run just a few times a day and take half the time as coach.

I already mentioned that the money wasted on the WRC should have gone on improving the Dublin to Galway intercity line, which would have had far better impact then the WRC.

Sligo eye wrote: »

But thinking ahead, we will then be faced with traffic gridlock as and when the population expands to the targeted 8/9 million in the Ireland 2040 plan and suddenly someone will say “ why did we scrap all our railways”?

Frankly bk, you can call all this a weird fetish, but I prefer to call it thinking ahead.

The sad reality is the majority of Irelands population will end up in our cities. Urbansiation is a reality that has happened in every country in the world and no country has managed to stop it or reverse it.

Opening rail lines that are much slower then car or coach simply won't change that.

If you want to see rail grow and expand, as it has over the past 30 years, then your focus should be on rail investment in our cities, where it actually has a chance of beating the car and actually improving peoples lives and help our country to grow and house those millions of extra people.

Bass Reeves

Sligo eye wrote: »

Pushing for reducing traffic, connecting towns and allowing balanced regional development isn’t a “weird fetish”. What is weird is that ideas that were thrown out elsewhere in Europe in the 1980s still hold sway with some in Ireland, particularly around mass development of one urban area rather than balanced development of a number of areas.

Where other countries recognise that carbon emissions have to be reduced and rail invested in, we have these bright sparks in official Ireland who think we can manage all our transport needs by road and two lane toll motorways.

Sure, we can dismantle the rail network outside Dublin and put all intercity traffic on the motorways, for now.

But thinking ahead, we will then be faced with traffic gridlock as and when the population expands to the targeted 8/9 million in the Ireland 2040 plan and suddenly someone will say “ why did we scrap all our railways”?

Frankly bk, you can call all this a weird fetish, but I prefer to call it thinking ahead.

The problem has been we have diversified funds too much. There always has had to be one for everyone in the audience.

Take the much anticipated FF spatial strategy of the mid noughties. Every lobby group in the country lobbied for there local area to be included. And instead of developing 3-4mson centers outside Dublin we got the wishy-washy idea that everywhere could be developed and no joined up strategy

There had to be something for the NE do Sligo was going to be a city but really Donegal had to be developed as well so Letterkenny had to be added in. No Athlone could not be stand alone we need Mullingar and Tullamore added in. Tralee and Killarney had to be joined up as a Kerry axis.

In the middle of it all the primary focus that should have been on Cork-Limerick with a plan to develop on Galway got sidetracked. So we got a motorway and a sh!tty railway (in the sense it was neither here nor there) to Galway and the Limerick to Cork was sidelined and lost in the 2008-2014 recession.

We are once again at the point where choices need to be made. If we are to tackler climate change and commuting we need to target money at where it is effective not at what seems the optimum choice.

To get people to commute on public transport while speed of transit(as in the time the journey takes) is important, frequency of service and a service that takes you to where you want to go is more important.

No point in a train from Charlesville to Limerick city center every 60-90 minutes when you need to get to Raheen, Shannon or Castletroy. Or from Mallow to Cork city center when you need to be in Ballincollig, Blarney or Douglas.

It would make much more sense to adds third lane on the Limerick-Cork motorway, electricify it for buses and have them doing the last 3-10KM on batteries

Sligo eye

bk wrote: »

Because the reality is these lines being suggested will do nothing to reduce congestion. No one is going to take these trains when even with congestion, cars are still much faster, hell even coaches take half the time.

Let’s take Tuam to Galway. Cars from Tuam or indeed anywhere into Galway are already gridlocked. More cars won’t solve that problem.

Rail lines through low density rural areas have and continue to be closed all throughout Europe. The focus on rail throughout Europe is the same here, primarily mass transit into and aroud cities and yes intercity rail between large cities.

Diesel trains are hardly a solution to carbon emissions. Cars are going Electric anyway over the next 20 years, so that will sort that issue for the majority of Ireland much faster then building any extensive rail network would.

Rail lines connecting urban and town areas that are then earmarked for expansion and development. You bk are looking at today; I’m looking 10 or even 20 years ahead and want to put a stop to the ad hoc development policies that successive governments have allowed. We need to develop our towns and cities. We have a chance to reduce car dependency why not take that chance?

As to your wrong headed comment about diesel trains; even IE accept electrification is the future.

I didn't say that, I'm talking about reopening idiotic Victorian railways that meander through empty fields in the least densly populated areas of Europe, that run just a few times a day and take half the time as coach.

Official Ireland always has the money to buy land for roads. They never want to spend money buying land for new railways, until that policy is changed the only chance railways have to be reopened in Ireland is to use existing alignments. As to your ideas on timetabling, no one is suggesting a sparse service.

I do agree with you about trains taking half the time as a coach! ;-)

I already mentioned that the money wasted on the WRC should have gone on improving the Dublin to Galway intercity line, which would have had far better impact then the WRC.

With half a million passengers per year, not money wasted and one fifth of the cost of the Tuam bypass which no one here ever gets angry about.

The sad reality is the majority of Irelands population will end up in our cities. Urbansiation is a reality that has happened in every country in the world and no country has managed to stop it or reverse it.

Opening rail lines that are much slower then car or coach simply won't change that.

If you want to see rail grow and expand, as it has over the past 30 years, then your focus should be on rail investment in our cities, where it actually has a chance of beating the car and actually improving peoples lives and help our country to grow and house those millions of extra people.

I’m very pro rail in cities as well, I think it’s an absolute disaster that IE were stopped from building the extension of heavy rail from Clongriffin to Dublin Airport. That is a prime example of the NTA’s incompetence. Another prime example of NTA incompetence is the farce at Navan where we were told by their hired expert from the states that an express bus rather than a rail connection to M3 Parkway was needed. A final example of NTA incompetence was the scrapping of Dart Underground. All of these projects would transform rail and place it at the heart of the Irish transport network. The NTA sadly are run by bus fetishists who really have no idea how to manage transport, and no vision for the future.

The railway network has been deliberately underfunded for decades, now we need to crack on and put proper funding back into it and place rail as the spine of our public transport network.

Lord Glentoran

Sligo eye wrote: »

Pushing for reducing traffic, connecting towns and allowing balanced regional development isn’t a “weird fetish”. What is weird is that ideas that were thrown out elsewhere in Europe in the 1980s still hold sway with some in Ireland, particularly around mass development of one urban area rather than balanced development of a number of areas.

Where other countries recognise that carbon emissions have to be reduced and rail invested in, we have these bright sparks in official Ireland who think we can manage all our transport needs by road and two lane toll motorways.

Sure, we can dismantle the rail network outside Dublin and put all intercity traffic on the motorways, for now.

But thinking ahead, we will then be faced with traffic gridlock as and when the population expands to the targeted 8/9 million in the Ireland 2040 plan and suddenly someone will say “ why did we scrap all our railways”?

Frankly bk, you can call all this a weird fetish, but I prefer to call it thinking ahead.

Much of Official Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s would have had seizures at the idea that Ireland should have the same population densities and associated development outside Dublin. The Mosherway and Breeze Block Shops mentality is an outcrop of that. But if the Republic is ever going to have a fully sustainable and growing economy treating the rest of Ireland outside Dublin as a little version of small town America is never going to help. Instead, we collectively will have to see what our European neighbours do. Pinning everything on cars and a token wave at cycling will do nothing to expand this country one iota.

bk

Lord Glentoran wrote: »

Much of Official Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s would have had seizures at the idea that Ireland should have the same population densities and associated development outside Dublin. The Mosherway and Breeze Block Shops mentality is an outcrop of that. But if the Republic is ever going to have a fully sustainable and growing economy treating the rest of Ireland outside Dublin as a little version of small town America is never going to help. Instead, we collectively will have to see what our European neighbours do. Pinning everything on cars and a token wave at cycling will do nothing to expand this country one iota.

Building train lines that run just a few times a day, carry a couple of dozen people and take over twice as long as the coach isn't going to change anything for rural Ireland.

It is a tough conversation to have, because of course people understandably get emotional about their homes.

I don't know why you mention other European nations, they have urbanised much earlier and much more extremely then us. If you follow their lead, we will all end up living in our cities, in tall apartment buildings, taking metros to get around.

The reality is, Dublin didn't kill rural Ireland, rural is killing itself. It is killing itself with the people who decided they wanted to live in a macmasion way outside the town and village and the only way to get their is by car. And then they are all surprised when the local village start dying and the young people are bored and end up wanting to move to the city.

The reality is most people in rural Ireland don't want rail, they are quiet happy with their cars. Ironically the people in urban Ireland are desperate for more rail.

Slow crappy Victorian rail lines won't save rural Ireland. No one will use them and they will just suck up the money from Irish Rail that could be used to improve the services where people actually use it.

Sligo eye

bk wrote: »

Building train lines that run just a few times a day, carry a couple of dozen people and take over twice as long as the coach isn't going to change anything for rural Ireland.

I see you have completely ignored what I have said in my previous posts and just repeated the same old propaganda you posted earlier!

It is a tough conversation to have, because of course people understandably get emotional about their homes.

I don’t recall any suggestion that people leave their homes?

I don't know why you mention other European nations, they have urbanised much earlier and much more extremely then us. If you follow their lead, we will all end up living in our cities, in tall apartment buildings, taking metros to get around.

We only need to do that kind of development If we are determined to focus on Dublin rather than the rest of the country.

The reality is, Dublin didn't kill rural Ireland, rural is killing itself. It is killing itself with the people who decided they wanted to live in a macmasion way outside the town and village and the only way to get their is by car. And then they are all surprised when the local village start dying and the young people are bored and end up wanting to move to the city.

Rural Ireland has long been regarded as a hinterland and will continue to do so while we focus development on the Greater Dublin area. Ever read John Healy’s books on the subject?

The reality is most people in rural Ireland don't want rail, they are quiet happy with their cars. Ironically the people in urban Ireland are desperate for more rail.

I’m not talking about rural areas, though with all due respect you are spinning your responses as if
I am. What I continue to talk about is the development of Ireland’s regional towns and cities to allow balanced development and to encourage a policy of town based developments for the future rather than scatter gun one off houses in the middle of the countryside. I am not advocating that people who live in one off houses are moved out forcibly as you are trying to spin.

Slow crappy Victorian rail lines won't save rural Ireland. No one will use them and they will just suck up the money from Irish Rail that could be used to improve the services where people actually use it.

Yes you are right on that point; which is why I advocate a change of policy to allow the construction of new direct rail lines but in the meantime we need to rebalance development to enable larger, more vibrant towns that will encourage young people and others to stay, while being connected right across the country.

Lord Glentoran

bk wrote: »

Building train lines that run just a few times a day, carry a couple of dozen people and take over twice as long as the coach isn't going to change anything for rural Ireland.

It is a tough conversation to have, because of course people understandably get emotional about their homes.

I don't know why you mention other European nations, they have urbanised much earlier and much more extremely then us. If you follow their lead, we will all end up living in our cities, in tall apartment buildings, taking metros to get around.

The reality is, Dublin didn't kill rural Ireland, rural is killing itself. It is killing itself with the people who decided they wanted to live in a macmasion way outside the town and village and the only way to get their is by car. And then they are all surprised when the local village start dying and the young people are bored and end up wanting to move to the city.

The reality is most people in rural Ireland don't want rail, they are quiet happy with their cars. Ironically the people in urban Ireland are desperate for more rail.

Slow crappy Victorian rail lines won't save rural Ireland. No one will use them and they will just suck up the money from Irish Rail that could be used to improve the services where people actually use it.

Well, quite. Nobody who advocates rail expansion advocates a model of rail services designed to fail. Unless you’ve just erected a straw man argument for the sake of it.

L1011

Lord Glentoran wrote: »

Well, quite. Nobody who advocates rail expansion advocates a model of rail services designed to fail. Unless you’ve just erected a straw man argument for the sake of it.

However have you convinced yourself of that? Just look here. People repeatedly advocate services on the sections of the WRC that completely failed their business cases when the one that scraped it is massively underperforming

Lord Glentoran

L1011 wrote: »

However have you convinced yourself of that? Just look here. People repeatedly advocate services on the sections of the WRC that completely failed their business cases when the one that scraped it is massively underperforming

I’m struggling to make sense of what you are saying here - the only thing I can think of is that no matter what numbers use any railway in Ireland, it will never be good enough for those who want the railway to play the smallest role possible just short of its extinction.

Jamie2k9

Sligo eye wrote: »

Let’s take Tuam to Galway. Cars from Tuam or indeed anywhere into Galway are already gridlocked. More cars won’t solve that problem.

Either will WCR to Tuam...

ail lines connecting urban and town areas that are then earmarked for expansion and development. You bk are looking at today; I’m looking 10 or even 20 years ahead and want to put a stop to the ad hoc development policies that successive governments have allowed. We need to develop our towns and cities. We have a chance to reduce car dependency why not take that chance?

As to your wrong headed comment about diesel trains; even IE accept electrification is the future.

No they don't.

Official Ireland always has the money to buy land for roads. They never want to spend money buying land for new railways, until that policy is changed the only chance railways have to be reopened in Ireland is to use existing alignments. As to your ideas on timetabling, no one is suggesting a sparse service.

Not the case, if proposed railways carried what typical Intercity routes do today then there might be a case to invest.

With half a million passengers per year, not money wasted and one fifth of the cost of the Tuam bypass which no one here ever gets angry about.

The half a million includes the 250k that are part of Galway-Dublin and Ennis-Limerick sections.

I’m very pro rail in cities as well, I think it’s an absolute disaster that IE were stopped from building the extension of heavy rail from Clongriffin to Dublin Airport. That is a prime example of the NTA’s incompetence. Another prime example of NTA incompetence is the farce at Navan where we were told by their hired expert from the states that an express bus rather than a rail connection to M3 Parkway was needed. A final example of NTA incompetence was the scrapping of Dart Underground. All of these projects would transform rail and place it at the heart of the Irish transport network. The NTA sadly are run by bus fetishists who really have no idea how to manage transport, and no vision for the future.

The railway network has been deliberately underfunded for decades, now we need to crack on and put proper funding back into it and place rail as the spine of our public transport network.

Stopped form building a slow and low capacity rail service to the Airport on a network that has no capacity for 50% of the route.

The NTA are a disgrace for not adopting an IE attitude of sure it will do!

Sligo eye

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Either will WCR to Tuam...



No they don't.



Not the case, if proposed railways carried what typical Intercity routes do today then there might be a case to invest.



The half a million includes the 250k that are part of Galway-Dublin and Ennis-Limerick sections.



Stopped form building a slow and low capacity rail service to the Airport on a network that has no capacity for 50% of the route.

The NTA are a disgrace for not adopting an IE attitude of sure it will do!

Jamie2k Jim Meade is on record saying future rail vehicles will be electric, or hybrid electric and diesel or electric with batteries.

Whatever way Diesel will be phased out.

The NTA are a disgrace; I can agree with you on that.

L1011

Lord Glentoran wrote: »

I’m struggling to make sense of what you are saying here - the only thing I can think of is that no matter what numbers use any railway in Ireland, it will never be good enough for those who want the railway to play the smallest role possible just short of its extinction.

I'm pointing out that you were saying absolute nonsense.

This forum is full of people pushing for investment in dead end, pointless rail projects that they either like the idea of (and won't use) or live near (and are pushing it out of personal interest). Pushing projects made to fail - exactly what you claimed doesn't happen.

Del.Monte

The forum is also full of people who pretend to favour rail (as long as it's in the Greater Dublin Area) and many of them spouting nonsense about lines that they have never travelled on and know nothing about apart from what they read here or elsewhere on Boards.

whisky_galore

The "Victorian" rail lines cracks me up.
The many streets in Dublin city centre are outdated "Viking" streets.

Is the very first line put down, Dublin-Kingstown, is that not "Victorian" at all?

L1011

whisky_galore wrote: »

The "Victorian" rail lines cracks me up.

The many streets in Dublin city centre are outdated "Viking" streets.

Much of the city centre streets in Dublin either date to the Wide Streets Commission era (18th Century) or are the doing of Dublin Corporation road schemes from the late 30s to 90s.

The remaining ones are unsuited for vehicular traffic and we're slowly getting there in terms of removing it.

Del.Monte wrote: »

spouting nonsense about lines that they have never travelled on and know nothing about apart from what they read here or elsewhere on Boards.

Which easily describes many of those boostering dead-end rail projects.

Sligo eye

L1011 wrote: »

Much of the city centre streets in Dublin either date to the Wide Streets Commission era (18th Century) or are the doing of Dublin Corporation road schemes from the late 30s to 90s.

The remaining ones are unsuited for vehicular traffic and we're slowly getting there in terms of removing it.



Which easily describes many of those boostering dead-end rail projects.

Run out of arguments?

L1011

Sligo eye wrote: »

Run out of arguments?

What?

Sligo eye

L1011 wrote: »

What?

Where?

L1011

Sligo eye wrote: »

Where?

You aren't even vaguely making sense.

Sligo eye

L1011 wrote: »

You aren't even vaguely making sense.

You are resorting to digs and insults to make your points.

L1011

Sligo eye wrote: »

You are resorting to digs and insults to make your points.

Commenting that people push for guaranteed to fail rail projects is neither a dig nor an insult.

I quoted someone using digs and insults to point out that they applied to those he was attempting to defend. Take your issue up with him.

Sligo eye

L1011 wrote: »

Commenting that people push for guaranteed to fail rail projects is neither a dig nor an insult.

I quoted someone using digs and insults to point out that they applied to those he was attempting to defend. Take your issue up with him.

The specific project I take it you are referring to is the WRC. I have written at length why I believe that the project should be taken up, but it is part of a far wider proposal to transform how Ireland works and to reduce the dominance of Dublin so that Ireland is balanced out in terms of population and that regional towns and cities become more sustainable.

Others who oppose the development of the WRC seem to ignore that aspect of the wider project and focus instead on how things are at present.

I am not in favour of continuing development in Ireland along the lines it is done at present. Growing Dublin into a larger and larger metropolis is not sustainable and will continue to drain our regions outside Dublin.

That’s why I campaign for rail, and other infrastructure, including better road links.

blackbox

It's a shame that more freight doesn't travel by rail.

Irish Rail never really embraced the shipping container.

L1011

Sligo eye wrote: »

The specific project I take it you are referring to is the WRC. I have written at length why I believe that the project should be taken up, but it is part of a far wider proposal to transform how Ireland works and to reduce the dominance of Dublin so that Ireland is balanced out in terms of population and that regional towns and cities become more sustainable.

Others who oppose the development of the WRC seem to ignore that aspect of the wider project and focus instead on how things are at present.

I am not in favour of continuing development in Ireland along the lines it is done at present. Growing Dublin into a larger and larger metropolis is not sustainable and will continue to drain our regions outside Dublin.

That’s why I campaign for rail, and other infrastructure, including better road links.

I'm talking about rather more than the WRC. However on that topic, we know that it is the definition of a project that would fail, just as the first section has yet to come anywhere close to meeting its business case. No matter how often people quote figures that include Limerick-Ennis and Galway-Athenry commuters (and the uplift from Oranmore), it doesn't fix the black hole in the middle.

Providing a rail service that is slower than existing buses does absolutely nothing to improve regional development. If anything, it harms it by siphoning funding away.

In the case of the WRC, the money would have been better spent properly fixing the flooding issues, providing the Oranmore loop (or doubling), additional stations at Longpavement and Renmore and a higher frequency of service Ennis-Limerick and Athenry-Galway.

Lord Glentoran

L1011 wrote: »

I'm talking about rather more than the WRC. However on that topic, we know [SNIP]

Who’s “we”? I disassociate myself from that.

Also buses. You ignore that city centre to city centre Limerick to Galway buses are rarely faster than the train - mainly because of car induced congestion around Galway. It is also curious that anti rail campaigners keep erecting the straw man that pro rail campaigners somehow “want” infrequent and unnecessarily slow railway services.

L1011

Lord Glentoran wrote: »

Who’s “we”? I disassociate myself from that.

You can have opinions but they cannot compete with facts. The existing WRC failed to meet its business case. It was the only section found to be viable. Apply that underperformance to the others and they are guaranteed failures.

Lord Glentoran wrote: »

Also buses. You ignore that city centre to city centre Limerick to Galway buses are rarely faster than the train - mainly because of car induced congestion around Galway. It is also curious that anti rail campaigners keep erecting the straw man that pro rail campaigners somehow “want” infrequent and unnecessarily slow railway services.

You are the one creating a strawman here of "anti rail campaigners".

People who support spending money appropriately are not anti rail campaigners. They are anti something you want. That's different.

Galway would have rather a lot less car congestion if the money spent on Ennis-Athenry had been used to provide better commuter rail Galway-Athenry with the appropriate extra stations, trackwork, P&R etc. But it wasn't.

Bass Reeves

Lord Glentoran wrote: »

Who’s “we”? I disassociate myself from that.

Also buses. You ignore that city centre to city centre Limerick to Galway buses are rarely faster than the train - mainly because of car induced congestion around Galway. It is also curious that anti rail campaigners keep erecting the straw man that pro rail campaigners somehow “want” infrequent and unnecessarily slow railway services.

Limerick Galway fastest train time is 1 hour 55 minutes bus is 1 hour 20 minutes. I say there is about 20 buses a day each way there are only two trains sub two hours. Only people using the train on end to end journeys are OAP and students.

What is worse neither commuter links Ennis-Limerick and Athenry-Galway have enough frequency to encourage people to use the train. If the money spend on this rail line had been spend on increasing frequency on the commuter lines we might have got much more bang for our money.

end of the road

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Limerick Galway fastest train time is 1 hour 55 minutes bus is 1 hour 20 minutes. I say there is about 20 buses a day each way there are only two trains sub two hours.

advertised journey time and actual journey time are very, very different where road is concerned.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Only people using the train on end to end journeys are OAP and students.

yeah, sure.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

What is worse neither commuter links Ennis-Limerick and Athenry-Galway have enough frequency to encourage people to use the train.

and that is the fault of irish rail and the NTA who were never going to increase such services until such time as they were forced to do so.
ennis athenry has nothing to do with that issue.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

If the money spend on this rail line had been spend on increasing frequency on the commuter lines we might have got much more bang for our money.

coulda woulda shoulda.
it wasn't going to happen.
at least now there is rail competition on the corridor and we have a blueprint for suburban and intercity services to work on and grow.

L1011

end of the road wrote: »

at least now there is rail competition on the corridor and we have a blueprint for suburban and intercity services to work on and grow.

A blueprint which reads "this didn't work anywhere near as well as we thought it would".

If your aim is to actively damage long distance lower demand rail across the country, that's great. But I don't think that is your aim.

Realistically that section of the WRC being reopened has been a disaster for rail investment due to how badly it went.

end of the road

L1011 wrote: »

A blueprint which reads "this didn't work anywhere near as well as we thought it would".

If your aim is to actively damage long distance lower demand rail across the country, that's great. But I don't think that is your aim.

Realistically that section of the WRC being reopened has been a disaster for rail investment due to how badly it went.

seems to be working well now.
sure, it took a long time to grow, but then again it was opened in the height of a severe recession and travel via public transport was down.
if it wasn't galway to limerick, something else would be used as an excuse not to invest in rail.

L1011

end of the road wrote: »

seems to be working well now.
sure, it took a long time to grow, but then again it was opened in the height of a severe recession and travel via public transport was down.
if it wasn't galway to limerick, something else would be used as an excuse not to invest in rail.

It still hasn't met its original business case. That's not "working well"

Most of the passenger figures are using the sections that already existed.

Trying to claim it as a success is farcical. The Docklands service, Dunboyne services and peak PPT services would be a better thing to point to as a success.

Bass Reeves

end of the road wrote: »

advertised journey time and actual journey time are very, very different where road is concerned.



yeah, sure.



and that is the fault of irish rail and the NTA who were never going to increase such services until such time as they were forced to do so.
ennis athenry has nothing to do with that issue.



coulda woulda shoulda.
it wasn't going to happen.
at least now there is rail competition on the corridor and we have a blueprint for suburban and intercity services to work on and grow.

TBF most bus advertised times are fairly spot on. Limerick and Galway have and are getting more dedicated bus corridors which is helping. On the Limerick side the tunnel under the Shannon virtually guarantees travel times.

The NTA subsidizes where demand exists. Unfortunately rail is not flexible enough and load factors make it uneconomical. As well purely from economic point of view the subsidity/passenger on the buses (if there is even one as these are commercial routes AFAIK) makes everything to do with bus transportation efficient. For to sustain a regular train service (every hour at peak and two hourly after that) end to end you need 5+k passengers per day minimum and ideally 8-10k/ day. The business volume is not there to sustain that.

It is questionable even if the case there for end to end rail connection where population numbers are not above 50k that you can provide a service level that will encourage commuters away from cars and busses. By actually splitting the commuting numbers to two public transport systems you prevent either from achieving numbers that will provide a frequency of service that workers need. This is especially am issue where worked are arriving at a destination that is often a 3-5km commute from where there workplace is.

If we want to get people to use public transport we need a frequency of service. People going to work or about there business. Are not going to swop a 40 minutes car journey for a 90 minutes public transport journey