Optimism grows for western rail corridor

Yoda

From The Mayo News

Optimism grows for western rail corridor

MR. Pat McCann, chief executive of Jury’s Doyle hotel group, who chairs the special committee set up by the former Minister for Transport, Mr. Seamus Brennan, to make the case for the restoration of the western rail corridor, has called on local authorities, chambers of commerce and all relevant agencies to publicly re-state their support for the project at this stage.

Mr. McCann, a former general manager of the Westport Ryan Hotel - now the Westport Woods Hotel - was speaking at the annual meeting of the western inter-county railway committee. He said he was impressed by what he had seen and heard over the past six months and was now more optimistic about the project than he was at the outset. He hoped the report of the special committee would be published in the Spring of 2005.

For many years the committee has been case-making for the restoration of the cross-radial railway from Collooney to Ennis, under the chairmanship of former TD and Co. Councillor, Martin Joe O’Toole. Mr. O’Toole stepped down from the position at the annual meeting, but was elected honorary president of the committee in recognition of his work for the committee over many years.

The new chairperson is Cllr. Micheal McGreal of Roscommon and sociologist Fr. Micheál McGréil of Westport continues as joint secretary.

The new Chairperson urged all delegates to renew their efforts to see this project through to its completion in restoring the rail link between Collooney and Ennis. This would bring some balance to the development of rail infrastructure in Ireland. He welcomed the support of Cabinet Ministers and looked forward to the McCann Report early in the New Year. From the beginning, the Western Inter-County Railway Committee had received cross-party support and that was the way it should remain. "We were all united behind a project that would help our people," he said.

The Rúnaí, Micheál Mac Gréil, S.J., expressed his satisfaction at the presence of such a large attendance of Councillors, many of whom were on the Western Inter-County Railway Com-mittee for the first time. He traced the history of the campaign since 1979 and referred to the two reports produced by the Committee in 1981 and again in 1989. One of the most important achievements of the Committee was the preservation of the track and thoroughfare from Sligo to Limerick. This was guaranteed by Minister Seamus Brennan, T.D. in 1992. The value of the decision was that it made it possible for renewal of the track at a relatively low cost.

"The arrival of West-on-Track on the scene in 2003 has added momentum to the campaign and raised the awareness of the importance of the Western Rail Corridor as a transport infrastructure for the West of Ireland and for the whole country. The activities of West-on-Track were complementary to the work of the Western Inter-County Railway Committee. Recent developments in relation to the Western Rail Corridor have raised the hopes of many in the West of Ireland that the Government will respond positively to our case." Once the track was delivered, an Rúnaí hoped the Western Inter-County Railway Committee would continue as a support group for the maximum use of the rail services (passenger and freight) in the years ahead as part of an adequate bi-modal transport infrastructure.

Flukey

That seems good. They should just get on with. Projects like this are generally too slow in starting and being completed, and cost more money and hassle as a result.

JackieChan

Yeah this is a priority project with thousands in Swinford and Ballyglunin waiting to get the train to Knock airport! It will increase employment if it goes ahead.What with the huge amount of level crossings north of Tuam that will need to be manned

Yoda

Once again, pooh-poohing the whole project isn't very helpful. Yes, some of theWRC aims are "backwards" in that they aim from the wrong direction. That they succeeded is preservingv the track route is Not A Bad Thing.

What is useful about this article is knowing who's talking to whom. I hope I have shown that not all approaches to WRC development are lunatic. Informed dialogue will lead to better results for everyone.

P11 Comms

Yoda wrote:

I hope I have shown that not all approaches to WRC development are lunatic. Informed dialogue will lead to better results for everyone.

The InterCounty Railway Commitee did a great thing when they saved the track route from of Athenry (the south section was never under any danger). There was a plan (and it was never anything more than a suggestion) for a gas pipline to laid from Athenry to Sligo and a cycle/walking path.

Coincidentally, I recall is a public meeting in Sligo when Fr McGreal said that after the line to Sligo was restored the next phase would be a spur to Knock Airport and then another spur to the "Marian Shine at Knock" (his precise wording) and then a spur to Belmullet to create a deep water port. In front of the Oireachtas Transport Commitee he stated that the line would also be reopened from Coollooney to Enniskillen. He was talking about Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties railway who's initials were SL&NC and which came to stand for "Slow, Late and Never Comes" as the route was so badly built again as a tramway. It was buired under roads years ago, but apparently like the WRC some people think it is just a matter of laying down new tracks.

I agree, it is a good thing that the line fomer Claremorris to Athenry was saved back in 1991. Reading this article what really bothered me was the typical "for our people" carry on - as if the rail lines of each county belong exclusively to the people of that county.

Some people need to look outside their parish now and again and realise there are people of greater need for rail transport than a spur to the Marian Shrine at Knock.

Flukey

As with anything there is always a greater need somewhere else, but that does not preclude us from moving on with other projects. If it did, every single cent of government money would be piled into the health service and not until it was perfect would priority number 2 be looked at. So there is nothing wrong with putting money into the WRC while other projects are ongoing. So the WRC and a number of other projects should be worked upon now. They are all needed.

aliveandkicking

Flukey wrote:

As with anything there is always a greater need somewhere else, but that does not preclude us from moving on with other projects. If it did, every single cent of government money would be piled into the health service and not until it was perfect would priority number 2 be looked at. So there is nothing wrong with putting money into the WRC while other projects are ongoing. So the WRC and a number of other projects should be worked upon now. They are all needed.

Yes but funding the wrc now ahead of anything else would be like the government funding an extension of blackrock clinic while Tallaght Hospital closes beds. Why cant you understand that if the wrc is funded now or in 2005 it will mean another rail project will be put on the backburner. Its all very well saying all projects are needed but the fact remains this government doesnt fund all projects.

Yoda

P11 Comms wrote:

I agree, it is a good thing that the line fomer Claremorris to Athenry was saved back in 1991. Reading this article what really bothered me was the typical "for our people" carry on - as if the rail lines of each county belong exclusively to the people of that county.

I agree, and as I have said elsewhere, I believe that the priorities for fast rail and better lines are certainly Ennis-Athenry, and then Athenry-Tuam. I would not oppose (certainly) extending a fast line from Tuam-Claremorris to join the Dublin-Westport/Ballina line, but failing that a slower shuttle service along that 25km stretch would do; it would just have to meet the timetables sensibly. Alternatively a TART (Tuam Area Rapid Transit) could just run from Claremorris-Athenry.

Is it really such a problem that there are three level crossings on that 25km section? There are two DART level crossings between Bayside and Howth which are used much more frequently than a TART would, given the timetable that might be expected?

Yoda

Flukey wrote:

As with anything there is always a greater need somewhere else, but that does not preclude us from moving on with other projects. [...] So the WRC and a number of other projects should be worked upon now. They are all needed.

Yes, they are. They should be on the agenda. I've been arguing that Tuam-Claremorris should be in P11's agenda, though it hasn't been hitherto. Claremorris-Sligo, however, does not seem to be feasible, at least not along the "existing" track which (apparently) doesn't exist in the same way as the Claremorris-Ennis track does. We need to (1) try to get WRC to understand this and (2) get those who are listening to WRC to understand this.

I am happy to see P11 thinking about Claremorris-Tuam as not being ridiculous.

P11 Comms

Yoda wrote:

Is it really such a problem that there are three level crossings on that 25km section? There are two DART level crossings between Bayside and Howth which are used much more frequently than a TART would, given the timetable that might be expected?

It would not be such a problem if there were only 3 level crossing between Tuam and Claremorris - there in fact 20 level crossings and another 41 between Claremorris and Coolooney. The fact is that entire line north of Tuam was built as a tramway to a dreadful standard.

The line from Athenry to Tuam was built as a railway and has a grand total of ZERO level crossings. See the difference between and tramway and railway line.

This is why the WRC north of Tuam is never going to happen without spending RPA Dublin Metro amounts of serious money to make it work. This is just a fact which all of us who want to see reasonable and more importantly VIABLE rail transport expansion have to live with.

Here is the future:

* The "Western" Rail Corridor will be Galway-Ennis-Limerick-Cork only.

* Tuam will be a Galway suburban commuter service

* Claremorris will continue to enjoy a very good rail service into Athlone/Dublin and into the rest of Mayo on the three fully operational passenger lines into the town.

That's the most we'll ever get.

Sounds pretty good to me and I am sure most people would like to see this happen. What is so precious about Claremorris that its 2,800 inhabitants that they need to have more rail lines running into their small town than Dublin? Once again; much larger towns such as Swords or Navan have no idea what a passenger train looks like.

The 2,800 apparently "infrastructurally disadvantaged" citizens of Claremorris already have a rail service most towns in Ireland would love to have and they got a €300 Million road by-pass a few years back (thanks to "P" Flynn) which is superb and the Bus Eireann service into the town is the third most frequent service in the region after Galway and Sligo Town. This is why I crack-up laughing where I hear fellas in Dublin or better still, the UK going about the place like it is hardly any better than Falluja.

We need to spend the money where it is really needed in rail transport and a luxury indulgence such as runing a train north of Tuam. It is only fair and only right that the most needy locations come first. By "needy" I mean were the greatest demand for rail transport actually is.

Happy New Year.

Flukey

Shocking as this may be to you, there are actually people living north of Tuam, and for a long way north of Tuam; thousands of them in fact. Another shock - sorry to give you another so soon after the first - some of them want to travel, both in a northerly and southerly direction. Maybe they should be facilitated. As I've said, even though there are undoubtedly more needy places, that doesn't mean this can't be done as well. Another shock is that it is possible to build rail lines and other infrastructure in two or more places at the same time.

maxheadroom

Flukey wrote:

Shocking as this may be to you, there are actually people living north of Tuam, and for a long way north of Tuam; thousands of them in fact. Another shock - sorry to give you another so soon after the first - some of them want to travel, both in a northerly and southerly direction. Maybe they should be facilitated.

Undoubtedly, however, the question that has to be asked is: Is a rail corridor the best way of serving them? Would they not be better off with a high quality bus service given the highly dispersed nature of development in the region?

Flukey wrote:

As I've said, even though there are undoubtedly more needy places, that doesn't mean this can't be done as well. Another shock is that it is possible to build rail lines and other infrastructure in two or more places at the same time.

Methinks you took too many sarcasm pills this morning. And while it is undoubtedly possible to build more than one infrastructure project at a time, the question of resources has to be answered. If there are "undoubtedly more needy places", shouldn't they get priority for investment and resources?

Even if the WRC north of Tuam is built, it won't directly affect a significantly large number of people, whereas something more flexible like a proper bus network might. It'd probably be cheaper too. Rail isn't the answer in every situation.

P11 Comms

Flukey wrote:

Shocking as this may be to you, there are actually people living north of Tuam

I know, as I am one of them and I counted 6 of them waiting for the Galway bus today and 4 going to Sligo and most of them old ladies on free travel pases. The demand for public transport here on the largest town between Claremorris and Sligo is almost non-exsistent.


Accroding to West on Track the Western Rail Corridor is going to make a profit...

jimmycrackcorm

how many people would make use of such a line. Could it ever possibly justify the costs involved - and lets not just consider the morning/ evening commuters.

P11 Comms

maxheadroom wrote:

Rail isn't the answer in every situation.

you're correct, and in the case of the Western Rail Corridor it isn't the answer just yet.

But if planers and developers West of the Shannon got their acts together it could be one day.

P11 Comms

[QUOTE=Could it ever possibly justify the costs involved[/QUOTE]

If there was huge freight demand - something like a mine to off-set the poor passenger loadings then sure.

Irish Rail cannot even make a profit running a freight train between Dublin and Belfast. What hope Sligo to Galway?

If the population densities in the towns along the corridor were boosted significantly in the next 20 years or so, it could be done. Right now, it would be a gigantic white elephant and considering their are much greater demands for rail transport in this country such as Navan, it would be a highly unfair as well.

Swinford will have to wait.

Flukey

P11 Comms wrote:

I counted 6 of them waiting for the Galway bus today and 4 going to Sligo

While that may be true, you can be certain that a lot more than that travelled between those places today when you include all means of transport. I live in Dublin and use the buses. When they put new buses on you suddenly see more people using them, though those same people did not use them before, while still travelling between the destinations. On a wet day there are always more people on the buses, but it's not as if those extra people don't go to work on dry days.

There are always plenty of new people out there that will use a service if it is put in. Look at the QBC's in Dublin. There are a lot more people using them than there were people going by bus along the same routes prior to their introduction. The commuters were always there, just travelling by different means. So the fact that there were just a few old women travelling today does not mean that it would be the same if there was a better service, or that that is all the people that travelled in that area today.

P11 Comms

Flukey wrote:

I live in Dublin and use the buses. When they put new buses on you suddenly see more people using them, though those same people did not use them before, while still travelling between the destinations. On a wet day there are always more people on the buses, but it's not as if those extra people don't go to work on dry days.

There are always plenty of new people out there that will use a service if it is put in. Look at the QBC's in Dublin. There are a lot more people using them than there were people going by bus along the same routes prior to their introduction. The commuters were always there, just travelling by different means. So the fact that there were just a few old women travelling today does not mean that it would be the same if there was a better service, or that that is all the people that travelled in that area today.

To compare Dublin transport and commuting with rural East Galway, Mayo and Sligo is not a really comparing like with like. You live in Dublin and I live next to the Western Rail Corridor in South Sligo - I am not trying to insult you and I am glad you are so pro-rail, but I am telling you for a fact that there is no communting culture other than private cars in this part of Ireland due mainly to the fact that the low population is scattered in mostly one-off rural houses, the centers of employment are scattered all over the countryside and using rail transport is not really an option for all the reasons I have outlined on this thread.

But it could be - but not for many many years. A cross-country decent bus network which connects with arriving and departing trains at station locations such as Ballina, Claremorris, Boyle and Ballymote is the only relaistic way to go. Most of the train station platforms along the Western Rail Corridor have cows and sheep grazing in fields next to them, or within a 100 yard distance max. This population density stuff matters when it comes to viable rail transport.

The problem with the WRC is that most of the people who support it have never actually seen it or the tiny towns and one-off housing regions it serves as they live in either Dublin or the UK.

There is only so much money to go around for rail transport in Ireland and it has to go where it'll deliver the most bums in seats as this is the only way to drive future rail expansion, build upon major success after major success.

Flukey

While it may pass through lots of small areas of low population, its main function would be to link the main towns like Sligo, Galway, Ennis, Limerick, Cork etc. Those and other towns along the line have plenty of existing and potential commuters the could change over given an alternative. The busiest rail lines in the country, like Dublin to Cork, pass through areas and stations where there are little or no people. The bigger towns along the WRC will benefit and there are a lot of them currently going by car to Galway, Sligo etc. because they have few alternatives.

Private cars are of course the main source of transport in rural areas, but that is at least something of a case for alternatives. I know some people don't go along with the "build it and they will come" line of thinking, but with better infrastructure there is plenty of potential for growth in the west. Had this been done years ago there would have been more development and less of an eastward migration than we've had. Now we are in a position to do so.

I am not comparing Dublin and rural transport, but we have to put some effort into rural areas to help them grow and they can be done in parallel. The west has improved in recent years and there is a growth in population in many areas, so now is the time to give that process a boost. There are plenty of people in Dublin that would go west in the morning if they could. We need to create conditions where they can. The WRC is but one of many things that should be done to get more people living west of the Shannon and more jobs being created there. The WRC won't do it by itself, but it would be an important element in it. Let's do it.

ishmael whale

Flukey wrote:

I know some people don't go along with the "build it and they will come" line of thinking, but with better infrastructure there is plenty of potential for growth in the west. Had this been done years ago there would have been more development and less of an eastward migration than we've had. Now we are in a position to do so.

There needs to be at least some recognition of the fact that considerable resources have already been invested to do exactly what you are suggesting. For example, the existing rail network in the West has gobbled up a considerable amount of available state public transport funding. Rather than contributing to migration Westwards, this has simply led to the result that services in other areas, where increasing numbers of people are actually living and working, are underdeveloped.

There is simply a need for a policy shift away from the past, which can kindly be described as attempting to divert population Westwards by developing infrastructure first or more bluntly described as peppering the West with white elephants. We built it. They didn't come.

The WRC has received a lot of critical scrutiny. There is equally a need for some critical reflection on the actual results of the Ennis – Limerick services, which is being used as ‘evidence’ of the potential of developing rail in the West. For all the ballyhoo over this service exceeding expectations, and yielding a 30% increase in this and 40% increase in that, I can’t find any simple statement of how many passengers this service actually carries, what income in fares it brings and what it costs to provide – i.e. the basic information of what ongoing costs and benefits are associated with this service, which is surely both known and the crucial information that would give us an indication if the capital investment (of €13 million?) in this line was justified.

There is a statistic that an estimated 54,000 commuter car journeys were taken off the road by the service. Assuming this to be one journey in each direction each day, this means approximately 27,000 daily commutes divided by, say, 250 working days means that about 100 commuters or thereabouts are using the service. That hardly seems impressive. (Note: if anyone has better information please share.)

And, in the background, there is always the question of what could be achieved cheaper by bus. I note from the CIE website that the Ennis/Limerick rail journey takes 40 minutes. The bus seems to take 45 minutes. Is it worth €13 million plus whatever undisclosed running costs to save 5 minutes of time for 100 people? Hardly, yet this seems to be the basis on which people are saying that more rail development in the West is justified.

(News article on Ennis Limerick is reprinted in this thread at platform11
http://platform11.hyperboards2.com/index.cgi?action=display&cat=welcome&board=transitplan&thread=1103900500)

Yoda

P11 Comms wrote:

What is so precious about Claremorris that its 2,800 inhabitants that they need to have more rail lines running into their small town than Dublin? Once again; much larger towns such as Swords or Navan have no idea what a passenger train looks like.

This, again, is a red herring. Linking the Westport/Ballina line to the Galway line isn't about the 2,800 inhabitants of Claremorris. It's about connectivity. P11 supports the MayoLink, which will envigorate the whole Westport/Castlebar/Ballina area. It does not make sense to keep that vitality bottled up. The Tuam-Claremorris link will allow the people living in this region to have better access to Galway, Limerick, and Shannon.

Once again, I agree that the way forward is to start with Ennis-Athenry, then Athenry-Tuam. But I remain convinced that a Tuam-Claremorris shuttle would make sense for the West (in a way that Claremorris-Sligo does not). This would not necessarily be a high-speed service. It would be a connector which would meet other services a few times a day. Apart from the 3 N17 crossings, the remaining level crossings would be no more problematic than the number of such crossings on the DART line in Dublin, which get far more traffic than the Tuam-Claremorris shuttle would.

maxheadroom

Yoda wrote:

Once again, I agree that the way forward is to start with Ennis-Athenry, then Athenry-Tuam. But I remain convinced that a Tuam-Claremorris shuttle would make sense for the West (in a way that Claremorris-Sligo does not). This would not necessarily be a high-speed service. It would be a connector which would meet other services a few times a day. Apart from the 3 N17 crossings, the remaining level crossings would be no more problematic than the number of such crossings on the DART line in Dublin, which get far more traffic than the Tuam-Claremorris shuttle would.

But is there any point in investing the huge amount of money necessary for a renewed rail link built to modern safety standards for a low speed shuttle service? If a shuttle service is all that's needed, why not invest a fraction of that money in a comprehensive bus service?

Yoda

I don't see any reason that Ennis-Claremorris shouldn't be high-speed. There were arguments that only Ennis-Tuam made sense. My suggestion was that if that were the case, then a rail shuttle Tuam-Claremorris could still operate along that line. The point is to connect rail users from Westport/Castlebar/Ballina to the Galway and Limerick lines without them having to go to Athlone or Portarlington. And yes, I do think that the whole journey should be made by rail. The line from Tuam-Claremorris is there.

Again, I don't think that this is unreasonable, and I do think that the case for Ennis-Claremorris is stronger than Claremorris-Sligo.

ishmael whale

maxheadroom wrote:

But is there any point in investing the huge amount of money necessary for a renewed rail link built to modern safety standards .... why not invest a fraction of that money in a comprehensive bus service?

This is the key point that’s being missed. The Limerick-Ennis service involved a capital cost of €13 million for 54,000 displaced car journeys, or €240 for every individual annual journey displaced. That makes the Luas look like good value for money at only €40 per displaced journey (even if half of Luas passengers are former bus users its still comparatively good value at €80 euro a pop.)

At best, the Limerick Ennis service is three times as expensive as the Luas. At worst its six times as expensive. However, while the cost of the Luas is very much an issue in people’s minds, there seems practically no awareness that the Limerick Ennis service represents even poorer value for money. How it can be justified, and how it can be used as a basis for suggesting further similar development is highly questionable.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-1337383,00.html

“…The current 24km of Luas cost about €800m — or €33m per km..”

http://www.rpa.ie/?id=13
“RPA expects to surpass the figure of 20million passengers in 2005 when enhancements to the Red Line will increase capacity.”

jbkenn

ishmael whale wrote:

This is the key point that’s being missed. The Limerick-Ennis service involved a capital cost of €13 million for 54,000 displaced car journeys, or €240 for every individual annual journey displaced.

I would love to see a breakdown of that €13 million, to see what exactly I.E. got for their money. If the f**king around that went on a Watch House X is anything to go by it does'nt surprise me

jbkenn