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Western Rail Corridor / Rail Trail Discussion

[Deleted User]

Carrying on with the discussion as the other thread is full

https://touch.boards.ie/thread/2055766866/1

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eastwest

Del.Monte wrote: »

In case you don't know all CIE's rail routes lose money and I seem to remember that years ago McKinsey & Co., pointed out the greatest losses were incurred on the busiest lines. As for answers, CIE/IE are not one and shouldn't be allowed to make any important decisions - the new platform at Limerick Junction being a case in point.

Of course the greatest losses are incurred on the busiest lines, and of course a lot (but not all by any means) of public transport loses money, but that's not the point. The real comparator is the subsidy per passenger journey, still around €50 per passenger journey in the case of Ennis Athenry and over €400 per passenger journey in Ballybrophy.
It is blatantly obvious that if you gave any bus company even €10 per pasenger journey on Ennis Athenry they could provide a much more effective and faster service on the route. 20% of all public transport funding goes to rail, but rail only moves 1% of people. The subsidy therefore needs to be directed to areas of greatest need, where volumes are high and where the economy benefits directly from the subsidy.
By the way, I see that the figures for replacement bus services nationally have been made public, that is the provision of bus services where trains are not running for some reason. Ennis-Athenry accrued a further million euro in costs in this area last year, another €7.70 per passenger journey on top of all the other losses.

Lord Glentoran

eastwest wrote: »

Busy at times but not as busy as waterford. It won't really come into its own until the entire Dublin Galway greenway is comlete.

Compromising the operation of the railway section between Athlone and Galway, if one canvassed option backed by objecting landowners to the existing scheme comes through.

[Deleted User]

Del.Monte wrote: »

Rather hard to use the line given the almost non-existent timetable and you could make that argument about the DART lines if you time the only trains of the day at almost Midnight. :rolleyes:

Well, the closure of Broadstone station and the re-routing of almost all the other passenger services via Tullamore, killed the passenger numbers on the line.

At least that line has a better chance of reopening to rail traffic than the WRC as it could reduce congestion on the Kildare line.

Lord Glentoran

Deleted User wrote: »

Well, the closure of Broadstone station and the re-routing of almost all the other passenger services via Tullamore, killed the passenger numbers on the line.

At least that line has a better chance of reopening to rail traffic than the WRC as it could reduce congestion on the Kildare line.

The railway between Mullingar and Athlone is lost forever to commuter and inter city traffic.

Purely of course in my personal opinion, but having a cycle path on the rail alignment means land owners for any alternative route will make the cost of constructing an alternative path too onerous. The route speed on comparative railways next to cycle paths is restricted to twenty-five miles per hour, which at best would allow a heritage-type operation. Given the cold climate in the Republic for industrial heritage, it is difficult to see even this happening.

I would love to be wrong on all these points, but I don’t believe that I am.

westtip

Lord Glentoran wrote: »

The railway between Mullingar and Athlone is lost forever to commuter and inter city traffic.

Purely of course in my personal opinion, but having a cycle path on the rail alignment means land owners for any alternative route will make the cost of constructing an alternative path too onerous. The route speed on comparative railways next to cycle paths is restricted to twenty-five miles per hour, which at best would allow a heritage-type operation. Given the cold climate in the Republic for industrial heritage, it is difficult to see even this happening.

I would love to be wrong on all these points, but I don’t believe that I am.

Strangely LG I have advocated the re-opening of Athlone Mullingar as a railway many times and do believe it would make sense, I don't take your comment about restricting train services to 25 mph per hour due to greenway running alongside it as being an absolute necessity. A decent fence would negate this restriction. Also what about express trains that clatter through stations in the UK and all the good folk have is a yellow line on the platform and an announcement to say fast train approaching. Certainly Athlone Mullingar represented probably the best opportunity for train services to the west to be improved and for decent commuter services from the Midlands, and in fact for freight direct to Dublin Docks, sadly it didn't go anywhere near Claremorris so was never on the agenda for West on Track.

westtip

eastwest wrote: »

Busy at times but not as busy as waterford. It won't really come into its own until the entire Dublin Galway greenway is comlete.

And in a way I don't believe Tuam Athenry will come its own until the greenway is extended all the way to Sligo and onto Enniskillen and connects with the Dublin Galway greenway probably in Athenry.

With the attitude of the dinosaurs in Mayo coco though that could be 10 years away.

eastwest

Lord Glentoran wrote: »

The railway between Mullingar and Athlone is lost forever to commuter and inter city traffic.

Purely of course in my personal opinion, but having a cycle path on the rail alignment means land owners for any alternative route will make the cost of constructing an alternative path too onerous. The route speed on comparative railways next to cycle paths is restricted to twenty-five miles per hour, which at best would allow a heritage-type operation. Given the cold climate in the Republic for industrial heritage, it is difficult to see even this happening.

I would love to be wrong on all these points, but I don’t believe that I am.

There's plenty of room on most of the athlone mullingar alignment to build a railway line and a new greenway, should that be necessary.
Where additional slivers of land might need to be acquired, landowners won't have much difficulty since these are along the edge of holdings and not cutting farms or fields in two.

end of the road

eastwest wrote: »

Of course the greatest losses are incurred on the busiest lines, and of course a lot (but not all by any means) of public transport loses money, but that's not the point. The real comparator is the subsidy per passenger journey, still around €50 per passenger journey in the case of Ennis Athenry and over €400 per passenger journey in Ballybrophy.
It is blatantly obvious that if you gave any bus company even €10 per pasenger journey on Ennis Athenry they could provide a much more effective and faster service on the route.

they could, but that isn't any good to the rail users who would be using the existing bus services if they wanted to travel by bus.

eastwest wrote: »

20% of all public transport funding goes to rail, but rail only moves 1% of people.

It can move a hell of a lot more people if as a country, an integrated road-rail solution was the norm instead of a road centric one which isn't sustainible and which is going to cost us long term.

eastwest wrote: »

The subsidy therefore needs to be directed to areas of greatest need, where volumes are high and where the economy benefits directly from the subsidy.

that is what is already being done. the majority of the subsidy is going to areas of high volume, because they have more services and at a higher frequencye

eastwest

end of the road wrote: »

It can move a hell of a lot more people if as a country, an integrated road-rail solution was the norm instead of a road centric one which isn't sustainible and which is going to cost us long term.

In the case of the western rail trail/corridor, the people just aren't there.
If they were, the rail lines would never have closed in the first place.

[Deleted User]

If you want to see rail user numbers increased, double track all the routes in and out of Dublin, Galway to Dublin being a prime example

Would avoid the farcical situation of stopping in the middle of nowhere to allow other trains to pass and would allow for an expanded timetable

GerardKeating

eastwest wrote: »

There's plenty of room on most of the athlone mullingar alignment to build a railway line and a new greenway, should that be necessary.
Where additional slivers of land might need to be acquired, landowners won't have much difficulty since these are along the edge of holdings and not cutting farms or fields in two.

While the alligement was origionally double track, not sure if H&S would allow the greenway so close to a working railway.

eastwest

GerardKeating wrote: »

While the alligement was origionally double track, not sure if H&S would allow the greenway so close to a working railway.

Obviously not as close as the current greenway is to the residual old track that wasn't lifted during the construction of the trail, but they'd have no issue with accommodating both within the alignment; there's plenty of room. There are existing parallel setups in Ireland that operate with no problems.

end of the road

eastwest wrote: »

In the case of the western rail trail/corridor, the people just aren't there.
If they were, the rail lines would never have closed in the first place.

of course they would. the government weren't going to continue to subsidize the large network we had, they actually didn't want to have to subsidize it at all, and CIE didn't want parts of the network for their own reasons not to do with profit and loss or passenger numbers or population.
so whether there were people or not parts of it would have closed. in some ways we got off lightly, compared to northern ireland and the north west.

Deleted User wrote: »

If you want to see rail user numbers increased, double track all the routes in and out of Dublin, Galway to Dublin being a prime example

Would avoid the farcical situation of stopping in the middle of nowhere to allow other trains to pass and would allow for an expanded timetable

agreed but enough people are going to have to push for it to happen.

Isambard

GerardKeating wrote: »

While the alligement was origionally double track, not sure if H&S would allow the greenway so close to a working railway.

and yet they allow footpaths (and cycle lanes) inches from road traffic. False argument.

Isambard wrote: »

and yet they allow footpaths (and cycle lanes) inches from road traffic. False argument.

I was thinking the same and Luas is a train too and runs on our streets inches from thousands of people every day.

I was in Italy a few weeks ago and it was pretty shocking standing on a jam packed platform full of tourists as a 200+km/h high speed trains blasted through the stations mere an inch or two from you! Seriously impressive, you could feel the rush of wind from the tunnel a good 30 seconds before the train blew by. And nothing but a yellow line to separate you.

I can't see why there would be an issue with a fence dividing the track from a footpath.

In fact there are many homes all over the country where the back garden and children are only separated from the train by a fence, that doesn't seem to be an issue. Also I'd note that as you come into Greystones along the Bray to Greystones Cliffside walk, the footpath is only about 2m from the track.

As an aside about trains in Italy. I was staying in a place called Cinque Terre, 5 little towns connected by a regional train. But the regional train was damn impressive. Even though the towns were only 3 to 5km apart, the train was quickly accelerating to 100km/h between the stations and double decker trains too, all for just €4! Imagine the DART going that fast between stops!

zom

bk wrote: »

I can't see why there would be an issue with a fence dividing the track from a footpath.

Money. If you count all costs - politics, managers, consultanst, designers, engineers, manufacturers and builders it will be the most expensive fence in the world.

zom wrote: »

Money. If you count all costs - politics, managers, consultanst, designers, engineers, manufacturers and builders it will be the most expensive fence in the world.

Rail tracks up and down the length of the country have fences, it doesn't cost hardly anything to put up a fence. Very minor cost, in the overall cost of a rail route.

There is absolutely nothing stopping a footpath and rail track being side by side and separated by a fence.

westtip

bk wrote: »

Rail tracks up and down the length of the country have fences, it doesn't cost hardly anything to put up a fence. Very minor cost, in the overall cost of a rail route.

There is absolutely nothing stopping a footpath and rail track being side by side and separated by a fence.

You don't gettit BK there is a mindset that wants to stop greenways at all costs! Of course a parallel greenway could go alongside a re-opened Athlone Mullingar line. Dacor in a post above is also right the greatest priority should be double tracking on all our mainline services. We have a huge housing crisis in Dublin, guess what in any European City you go to they have fast commuter services running into city centres, there is nothing wrong with working in a city and living 30 50 or 60 miles away but you need the train service running early, fast, frequently and with late night trains home to proper commuter towns. Take Longford, Mullingar Athlone they should all be no more than 40 minutes from the city centre by train and you should be able to train home at 11 at night and be home by midnight. Thousands of houses could be built in these areas, to grow the economies of these towns as long as there was fast reliable and heavily subsidized rail services into the city, there is nothing wrong with rail subsidisies to shift a lot of people quickly and safely into and out of city centres, we have to face facts about the western rail corridor the critical mass does not exist and cannot be created out of thin air with a wave of the wand.

Isambard

even a fence is only a sop to those who say it would be dangerous, it clearly wouldn't be.

In the US freight and even Amtrak trains run right up the main streets of some towns.

westtip wrote: »

You don't gettit BK there is a mindset that wants to stop greenways at all costs!

Oh I gettit, what I don't get is, why? What is the logic behind it, because I honestly can't see any argument against them?

Why would someone be against a piece of infrastructure that allows locals to go for a walk or run or bring their kids for a cycle in safety without having to worry about dirty diesel being blown into your face as cars rush by.

We have a beautiful countryside, but it is very inaccessible, small closed off fields and no right to rambling laws mean that ironically they are few places people in rural Ireland people can actually go to walk and enjoy the countryside!

And as a result, we have one of the most obese countries in the world! I absolutely believe that we need to build greenways, walkways and hiking trails all over the country for both the mental and physical health of our people.

Greenways bringing in tourists and extra jobs is the cherry on top. But the health benefits to the locals I believe is the most important thing.

Why anyone would be against this, I simply don't understand.

And I don't buy the excuse that it will make re-opening the rail routes harder. Actually the opposite is true. We all know that closed rail lines end up getting encouraged on and built on making them less likely to ever open again.

A greenway will protect the route, bring local pride in it and nothing stopping a rail route being built next to it. Non at all.

westtip wrote: »

Dacor in a post above is also right the greatest priority should be double tracking on all our mainline services. We have a huge housing crisis in Dublin, guess what in any European City you go to they have fast commuter services running into city centres, there is nothing wrong with working in a city and living 30 50 or 60 miles away but you need the train service running early, fast, frequently and with late night trains home to proper commuter towns. Take Longford, Mullingar Athlone they should all be no more than 40 minutes from the city centre by train and you should be able to train home at 11 at night and be home by midnight. Thousands of houses could be built in these areas, to grow the economies of these towns as long as there was fast reliable and heavily subsidized rail services into the city, there is nothing wrong with rail subsidisies to shift a lot of people quickly and safely into and out of city centres, we have to face facts about the western rail corridor the critical mass does not exist and cannot be created out of thin air with a wave of the wand.

I agree completely. In the past of been accused of being anti-rail, which is mad, since I want to see the government invest billions in improving rail!

But I want that money to be invested wisely. Invested in the areas where it is most badly needed and most sustainable.

The reality is that it isn't the 1850's anymore and things change. We have the car now and the reality is most people have one and it has radically changed the landscape for rail.

No one living in rural Ireland is going to take a train where a car will get them there in half the time. Hell even if the train was the same or faster, most will still take the car.

That is just the unfortunate reality and it isn't going to go away. If rail wants to expand and grow, then it needs to focus on delivering better services in the areas where rail can beat the car. Namely into and around congested cities as you say.

Here rail can absolutely beat cars stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and it is here where most rail investment should be focused IMO.

Greenways can today usefully use more rural alignments, while protecting them for future generations if circumstances change.

[Deleted User]

Yesterdays broadcast on Galway Bay FM

Piece starts at 41:00 give or take a few secs

eastwest

Deleted User wrote: »

Yesterdays broadcast on Galway Bay FM

Piece starts at 41:00 give or take a few secs

A serious own goal by WOT putting that lad on at this point in the debate.
I thought the lady who asked whether she should feel intimidated by candidates calling to their doors summed it up nicely.

[Deleted User]

Deleted User wrote: »

Yesterdays broadcast on Galway Bay FM

Piece starts at 41:00 give or take a few secs

Main points he raises

Claims someone is texting Councillors claiming to be a voter in multiple EA's and saying they won't vote for them next May. Says this individual is from Ballyglunin, Ballinastack and Galway City (huh??)
Says emails and texts are nusiances
Says being contacted by the same person multiple times is that person trying to make it appear they are more than one person (the mind boggles at this one. Are we only allowed to send a single communication to a Councillor on an issue???)
This is keyboard cowardice!
Offers to talk to people
Being contacted by constituents is a nuisance
Very much in favour of greenways
Against a greenway on the rail line or even adjacent
See's the line, not used for 42 years, as a valuable piece of infrastructure
Intercity rail line that could possibly connect Waterford > Cork > Limerick > Galway > Sligo > Derry
Keith reads out a litany of texts calling out the BS
Text calls out the poor usage according to WOT's original estimate, Michael then lies about the original business case
Que another flood of texts
Presenter is struggling to keep up with the volume of texts coming in
Presenter highlights the Tuam rally on Sunday 23rd at 3pm, meeting at the Tuam Cathedral
Later in the show presenter again talks about the volume of texts still coming in so says they will have to do more on the greenway over the next few days

eastwest

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Main points he raises
Claims someone is texting Councillors claiming to be a voter in multiple EA's and saying they won't vote for them next May. Says this individual is from Ballyglunin, Ballinastack and Galway City (huh??)

Says emails and texts are nusiances

Says being contacted by the same person multiple times is that person trying to make it appear they are more than one person (the mind boggles at this one. Are we only allowed to send a single communication to a Councillor on an issue???)

This is keyboard cowardice!

Offers to talk to people

Being contacted by constituents is a nuisance

Very much in favour of greenways

Against a greenway on the rail line or even adjacent

See's the line, not used for 42 years, as a valuable piece of infrastructure

Intercity rail line that could possibly connect Waterford > Cork > Limerick > Galway > Sligo > Derry

Keith reads out a litany of texts calling out the BS

Text calls out the poor usage according to WOT's original estimate, Michael then lies about the original business case

Que another flood of texts

Presenter is struggling to keep up with the volume of texts coming in

Presenter highlights the Tuam rally on Sunday 23rd at 3pm, meeting at the Tuam Cathedral

Later in the show presenter again talks about the volume of texts still coming in so says they will have to do more on the greenway over the next few days

He doesn't want voters emailing or texting him about issues that concern them, and he also says that he might sometimes answer a few of them -- effectively an admission he ignores any concerns coming from voters unless they coincide with the views of himself and his little group of cronies.
How do some of these guys get elected? Is the role of councillor so uninteresting that good people avoid it like the plague?

westtip

bk wrote: »

Oh I gettit, what I don't get is, why? What is the logic behind it, because I honestly can't see any argument against them?

bk I was being tongue in cheek, agree with all you say!

westtip wrote: »

bk I was being tongue in cheek, agree with all you say!

Oh I know, sorry, it wasn't aimed at you, more at those who actually want to block greenways, I really just don't get the logic at all.

Why would anyone not want a piece of infrastructure that will help make local people happy, healthier and bring tourists and jobs! It really is crazy and makes zero sense.

marno21

bk wrote: »

That is just the unfortunate reality and it isn't going to go away. If rail wants to expand and grow, then it needs to focus on delivering better services in the areas where rail can beat the car. Namely into and around congested cities as you say.

Here rail can absolutely beat cars stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and it is here where most rail investment should be focused IMO.

Greenways can today usefully use more rural alignments, while protecting them for future generations if circumstances change.

The above argument would be a great argument for reopening Tuam-Athenry for Galway services.

Except for the fact that most of the people on the N17 are people driving to the many car centric business parks around Galway, and other trip generators like NUIG and UHG, none of which are near the train station, and all have pathetic public transport service.

This is why I think the Midleton-Youghal railway is more viable. There is a serious drive in Cork to densify the city centre and have a vibrant city full of workers, and with people living nearby in the Docklands. That will require a major modal shift to public transport, it can't all be served by the car. The same can't be said for the Parkmore/Ballybrit.

Isambard

yes but if you ranked the various possible projects in order of cost/benefit, the Youghal line would be way down the list and any investment should go to the projects which offer the greatest return There's a danger that people will want to re-open old lines just "because they are there" and they'd love to see trains running on them, rather than looking at the greater picture.

Lord Glentoran

Isambard wrote: »

yes but if you ranked the various possible projects in order of cost/benefit, the Youghal line would be way down the list and any investment should go to the projects which offer the greatest return There's a danger that people will want to re-open old lines just "because they are there" and they'd love to see trains running on them, rather than looking at the greater picture.

Well once the cycleway is put on the track bed then that’s Cheerio and goodbye to the railway, permanently. Comber proves that.

Muckyboots

Lord Glentoran wrote: »

Well once the cycleway is put on the track bed then that’s Cheerio and goodbye to the railway, permanently. Comber proves that.

Useless circular argument. A city suberb cycle-link, in a different jurisdiction, with bus lanes not trains and a government who pulled the funding before the argument even got off the ground proves nothing.