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An argument for upgrading the Waterford-Limerick railway(or at least part of it)

ohographite

I am unsure whether the Waterford-Limerick railway actually will reopen as the country reopens, but I am arguing that it should and that it should have a better service.

Clonmel is the largest town on the Waterford-Limerick line, and has a similar population to Sligo town.
Sligo has a far busier station than Clonmel does, so I think Clonmel would have a station possibly almost as busy if it had a better train service to Dublin(Sligo has a better service to Dublin)
If you ran 6 return trains daily from Waterford to Limerick, which departed Waterford just after an arrival from Dublin, then there would essentially be 6 trains from Dublin to Clonmel(and the 3 smaller towns on the Waterford-Limerick line)
I think more people would use the Waterford-Limerick line if this was introduced, because if you want to travel from Dublin to Clonmel(or any of the towns on the line) you need to take a train to Waterford or Limerick junction, and then wait around half an hour for the connecting train to leave(there were only 2 return services daily on the Waterford-Limerick line before the Lockdown).
I'm not sure what the travel demand is like from Waterford to Limerick themselves, but I'd say it's about as much as from Limerick to galway(galway is bigger, but Waterford is connected to Limerick by a worse road).
So if you combine the Waterford-Limerick potential travel demand with the demand from Dublin to Clonmel and the other towns on the Waterford-Limerick line, I'd say there is a case for 6 return services daily from Waterford to Limerick.

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end of the road

whisky_galore wrote: »

Waterford is the one city station that always looks dead any time I happened to stop by. Apart from being remote from the city centre, it's not the faintest bit attractive or inviting from a prospective passenger point of view.

exactly, it's a glorified halt now.

IE 222

Limerick - Waterford has a catchment of roughly 200,000 people plus any connections from Dublin & Cork services.

As pointed out already by so many the main issue here is time tabling. Its currently run backwards with services targeted towards connections into mid morning Dublin trains. It needs to run peak morning services into each city but mainly focus on Waterford.

Best option I can see is using 2 Limerick based 2800s sets. Run a early morning Limerick - Waterford skipping the junction and split them in Clonmel. One set returns to Limerick Jct for 7:45 arrival to connect with Limerick, Dublin and Thurles trains and then returns for Waterford with a pre 10am arrival into Waterford (currently the first arrival is sometime after 11am). The other set can offer a pre 8am Waterford arrival and connect with the 7:50 ex Waterford.

Offer a midday service each way and do an extra late afternoon Wat-Clom-Wat. A early evening peak service each way and a late evening departure ex Waterford connecting with the 17:35 Dub - Wat will have both sets back in Limerick.

bobbyy gee

How many passangers does it get now
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news/new-160m-train-line-is-failing-to-get-passengers-30719976.html

IE 222

bobbyy gee wrote: »

How many passangers does it get now
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news/new-160m-train-line-is-failing-to-get-passengers-30719976.html

Think it was around the 100 mark between boarding and alightings in the last one which sounds terrible but in fairness given the shocking timetable and journey times and for only 4 services it's reasonably good going. There is still an interest and a will to use the service.

Del.Monte

bobbyy gee wrote: »

How many passangers does it get now
https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news/new-160m-train-line-is-failing-to-get-passengers-30719976.html

From the "not" paper of record from 2014. :rolleyes:

esposito

"ohographite wrote: »

If, on top of what I'd suggested, the trains went to and from Limerick city rather than Limerick Junction, I am certain the passenger numbers would be higher still.

That’s a very valid point.

Jamie2k9

First services this moring cancelled, assuming a train failure.

TheBoyConor

When the bus has a more frequent service, goes regularly and stops in the city and town centres, and goes limerick to waterford direct, and probably faster and more reliable, then that is the option people will choose.

If a morning train is cancelled, then that is your day finished. At least if a bus is cancelled, there will be another in 2 hours or so.

As for Dublin connecting trains from Clonmel, they will involve a change. There are Dublin direct services from both Clonmel and Cahir which are regular, the via Cahir X8 is particularly good as it is non stop on the section from Cahir to Dublin.

As much as I am a fan of rail, I honestly think that the LJ-WD line is just a zombie line kept artificially alive for political reasons. The numbers bear this out - no-one uses the scarce, ill timed services on the line bar the IE staff and the odd person with hours to kill. The bus service is frequent and well utilised.

We also must bear in mind that there is a finite market for public transport and all of it on this corridor is run by CIE. If they expand an already loss making train service, then they will be doing so at the expense of fairly healthy BE bus services on the corridor, for no real benefit, even to the detriment of the overall level of service on the routes.
The reality is that on the LJ to WD route, people can be moved from A to B and back faster, more, more frequently, more reliably and with a greater level flexibility and all probably for much cheaper. Cheaper because the bus uses existing road infrastructure, rather than maintaining 70 odd miles of PW and a load of staff to move 3 or 4 non-paying old age pensioners on a day between Waterford and Clonmel.

It is a dead duck and I swear I will eat white dog crap the day that there more than half the seats sold on a service.

road_high

whisky_galore wrote: »

Waterford is the one city station that always looks dead any time I happened to stop by. Apart from being remote from the city centre, it's not the faintest bit attractive or inviting from a prospective passenger point of view.

I was in it late last year and thought it had actually gotten worse. Any facilities that were there seemed to have shut up shop and only one platform in use? I could not understand this as the Dublin service is fairly frequent with departures/arrivals so this leaves it very short for any expansion of services (or perhaps this is yet another IR trick to use as an excuse not to..)? They appeared to have shut off the other 2 platforms and think the tracks were gone. Very short sighted and silly

ohographite

TheBoyConor wrote: »

When the bus has a more frequent service, goes regularly and stops in the city and town centres, and goes limerick to waterford direct, and probably faster and more reliable, then that is the option people will choose.

If a morning train is cancelled, then that is your day finished. At least if a bus is cancelled, there will be another in 2 hours or so.

As for Dublin connecting trains from Clonmel, they will involve a change. There are Dublin direct services from both Clonmel and Cahir which are regular, the via Cahir X8 is particularly good as it is non stop on the section from Cahir to Dublin.

As much as I am a fan of rail, I honestly think that the LJ-WD line is just a zombie line kept artificially alive for political reasons. The numbers bear this out - no-one uses the scarce, ill timed services on the line bar the IE staff and the odd person with hours to kill. The bus service is frequent and well utilised.

We also must bear in mind that there is a finite market for public transport and all of it on this corridor is run by CIE. If they expand an already loss making train service, then they will be doing so at the expense of fairly healthy BE bus services on the corridor, for no real benefit, even to the detriment of the overall level of service on the routes.
The reality is that on the LJ to WD route, people can be moved from A to B and back faster, more, more frequently, more reliably and with a greater level flexibility and all probably for much cheaper. Cheaper because the bus uses existing road infrastructure, rather than maintaining 70 odd miles of PW and a load of staff to move 3 or 4 non-paying old age pensioners on a day between Waterford and Clonmel.

It is a dead duck and I swear I will eat white dog crap the day that there more than half the seats sold on a service.

You make a point that the bus service is more frequent and has a more relevant timetable than the train service. That can be changed, and if the train service was more frequent and more relevant, a lot more people would use it.

Then you make a point that the bus stops in the centre of all towns on the route. This is a fair point in the case of Waterford, even if the proposed new train station in Waterford goes ahead. The train stations in Tipperary, Cahir, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir are all close to the centre of the towns they serve, though.

As for your point that Cahir and Clonmel have direct buses to Dublin, this is also a fair point, and does limit the railway's potential for journeys from these towns to Dublin.
However, I don't think the need to change trains makes a big difference in patronage, and a direct train from Dublin to Clonmel could even be tried.
The X8 bus from Cahir to Dublin serves different places along the way to the places which a train would serve.
The X8 serves Cashel, but a train would serve Thurles and Portlaoise if via Limerick junction, and it would serve Thomastown, Muine Beag, Carlow and Kildare if via Waterford.
None of these towns are served by the JJ Kavanagh 717 bus route from Clonmel to Dublin, either.

While on the subject of buses, it seems to me that buses and trains have separate markets to a certain extent.
Of course there are plenty of people who take the train if there is a train, and who would take the bus only if there's no train, but there are also plenty of people who aren't willing to take the bus even if there's no train(but who would take the train if there was one).

end of the road

TheBoyConor wrote: »

When the bus has a more frequent service, goes regularly and stops in the city and town centres, and goes limerick to waterford direct, and probably faster and more reliable, then that is the option people will choose.

If a morning train is cancelled, then that is your day finished. At least if a bus is cancelled, there will be another in 2 hours or so.

As for Dublin connecting trains from Clonmel, they will involve a change. There are Dublin direct services from both Clonmel and Cahir which are regular, the via Cahir X8 is particularly good as it is non stop on the section from Cahir to Dublin.

As much as I am a fan of rail, I honestly think that the LJ-WD line is just a zombie line kept artificially alive for political reasons. The numbers bear this out - no-one uses the scarce, ill timed services on the line bar the IE staff and the odd person with hours to kill. The bus service is frequent and well utilised.

We also must bear in mind that there is a finite market for public transport and all of it on this corridor is run by CIE. If they expand an already loss making train service, then they will be doing so at the expense of fairly healthy BE bus services on the corridor, for no real benefit, even to the detriment of the overall level of service on the routes.
The reality is that on the LJ to WD route, people can be moved from A to B and back faster, more, more frequently, more reliably and with a greater level flexibility and all probably for much cheaper. Cheaper because the bus uses existing road infrastructure, rather than maintaining 70 odd miles of PW and a load of staff to move 3 or 4 non-paying old age pensioners on a day between Waterford and Clonmel.

It is a dead duck and I swear I will eat white dog crap the day that there more than half the seats sold on a service.

CIE get payed for what they operate so losses aren't their concern, except when it comes to playing politics.
as we will all know, it was decided upon splitting of CIE in 1987 that there would be separate companies and they would just do their own thing, so the bus operations of bus eireann are not irish rail's concern anymore and are not an argument against them expanding rail services since while they may have the same parent they are ultimately different operations focusing on different things.
a line is a dead duck in the 21st century if it is left to rot, if operated properly then it will attract patronage, the genuine dead ducks went in the 50s and 60s.
so to be honest all you are saying in a very long winded way is there is a frequent bus service, which we know, however as we also know bus services frequent or otherwise are not an argument against rail.

TheBoyConor

a bus service in itself is not an agument against rail but when the bus service is frequent, reliable and had ample capacity to move the requried number of people from point a to point b then it very much is a mark against upgrading the rail service.
If you are putting passengers on the train, you are taking them off the bus. The market is limited.
The bus is there it works, people can get to and from limerick and waterford easily by it. Upgrading the rail line is just rail for the sake of rail. It is different in Dublin or maybe, at a stretch cork, where bus services are full to the brim and you need the train to move volumes of people.
Down the country, the people simply don't exist.

With the exception of Clonmel, the main bus stops are closer to the main busy town centres for all the other towns on the route.

For the dublin connection suggestion, people will want to go to Dublin. No-one will want to go Cahir or Tipp town to Muine Bheag.

The problem with this forum is that it seems to want rail and trains just for the sake of rail and trains. If people can be moved efficiently and cheaper from LK to WD by an existing bus service, then what is the point in investing many many millions in an ailing train service that does not have anywhere near the same level of flexibility and has huge costs of maintaining permanent way? You've be better of investing it in the bus services. you would get better value for money.

this really is a question of economics rather than trains. 99.9% of punters, bar the train enthusiasts, don't give a damn about what public transport they use as long as they get where they need to go promptly, reliably and for a reasonable cost.

Del.Monte

@ TheBoyConor

The problem with this forum is that it is frequented by a mixture of people who don't want railways; people who don't use public transport at all unless the second car is also broken down; people who regard trains as something to be chased and photographed from a car; people who talk a lot of factually incorrect twaddle about lines that they have never travelled on and lastly by people who refuse to see the bigger picture.

end of the road

TheBoyConor wrote: »

a bus service in itself is not an agument against rail but when the bus service is frequent, reliable and had ample capacity to move the requried number of people from point a to point b then it very much is a mark against upgrading the rail service.
If you are putting passengers on the train, you are taking them off the bus. The market is limited.
The bus is there it works, people can get to and from limerick and waterford easily by it. Upgrading the rail line is just rail for the sake of rail. It is different in Dublin or maybe, at a stretch cork, where bus services are full to the brim and you need the train to move volumes of people.
Down the country, the people simply don't exist.

With the exception of Clonmel, the main bus stops are closer to the main busy town centres for all the other towns on the route.

For the dublin connection suggestion, people will want to go to Dublin. No-one will want to go Cahir or Tipp town to Muine Bheag.

The problem with this forum is that it seems to want rail and trains just for the sake of rail and trains. If people can be moved efficiently and cheaper from LK to WD by an existing bus service, then what is the point in investing many many millions in an ailing train service that does not have anywhere near the same level of flexibility and has huge costs of maintaining permanent way? You've be better of investing it in the bus services. you would get better value for money.

this really is a question of economics rather than trains. 99.9% of punters, bar the train enthusiasts, don't give a damn about what public transport they use as long as they get where they need to go promptly, reliably and for a reasonable cost.

it's not a mark against upgrading the rail service because to an extent both will target different markets, and if we are to grow public transport usage then generally rail is the more likely one to grow it, if operated properly of course.
if you are putting passengers on the train and in turn that takes passengers off the bus, then it shows the train is a better offering and the bus didn't cut the mustard, because if it was good then an expanded rail service would make no difference to bus usage and would grow it's own.
the bus works because there is nothing else, upgrading the rail is upgrading rail to provide greater public transport services and access, whereas keeping things as they are with the bus the only option and nothing else = cronic traffic issues for waterford at least.
the people exist along the waterford to limerick line, both are cities which have large enough towns along the access between them served by the rail line.
this supposed problem on the forum where people only want rail and trains for the sake of rail and trains doesn't exist, nor has it ever done so, it's a myth, i have been around here since 2012 and i have never saw such postings from anyone.
the reason people want rail and trains on certain corridors is because they are proven to attract usage when operated properly, and ireland has an unhealthy obsession and dependence on road transport which we are not going to be able to afford to cater to going forward, meaning we will have to provide other options to negate the costs, as in rail investment, for which the point of upgrading the rail service along the limerick waterford corridor is to cut road traffic and negate the costs of more road expansion which we cannot afford.
it's about economics and better transport, economics favour rail because the infrastructure is over all cheaper and the capacity you get is huge.
there is no evidence for at least the first stat you mention in the final part of your post, as no survey has been done to determine it to be the case, i don't even know if any survey has been done to determine the second part but i do know it's not 99%.
again, your argument is essentially a very long winded, round about way of saying we shouldn't upgrade the rail service because there is a bus service, which as an argument already got debunked as far back as the 1960s.

ohographite

TheBoyConor wrote: »

a bus service in itself is not an agument against rail but when the bus service is frequent, reliable and had ample capacity to move the requried number of people from point a to point b then it very much is a mark against upgrading the rail service.
If you are putting passengers on the train, you are taking them off the bus. The market is limited.
The bus is there it works, people can get to and from limerick and waterford easily by it. Upgrading the rail line is just rail for the sake of rail. It is different in Dublin or maybe, at a stretch cork, where bus services are full to the brim and you need the train to move volumes of people.
Down the country, the people simply don't exist.

With the exception of Clonmel, the main bus stops are closer to the main busy town centres for all the other towns on the route.

For the dublin connection suggestion, people will want to go to Dublin. No-one will want to go Cahir or Tipp town to Muine Bheag.

The problem with this forum is that it seems to want rail and trains just for the sake of rail and trains. If people can be moved efficiently and cheaper from LK to WD by an existing bus service, then what is the point in investing many many millions in an ailing train service that does not have anywhere near the same level of flexibility and has huge costs of maintaining permanent way? You've be better of investing it in the bus services. you would get better value for money.

this really is a question of economics rather than trains. 99.9% of punters, bar the train enthusiasts, don't give a damn about what public transport they use as long as they get where they need to go promptly, reliably and for a reasonable cost.

Not all of the passengers who would use an upgraded Waterford-Limerick train service would have travelled by bus instead. I wouldn't even say most of them would have.
The markets for train services and bus services do not completely overlap.
Train journeys are usually more scenic and comfortable than bus journeys, so they have potential to encourage people out of their cars who wouldn't leave their cars for a bus service.
Some people are prone to motion sickness, and travelling by train doesn't give people motion sickness as much as travelling by bus would, so anyone prone to it may not want to take a bus, but would take a train.
The market is limited, but it isn't too limited for a train service to be successful.

I accept that the amount of people who'd take a train from Cahir or Tipperary to Muine Beag is insignificant.
However, the amounts of people who'd take a train from Cahir to Carlow, and to Kildare, and so on, do add up to a significant amount of patronage.
This would likely be almost as much as the amount of people who'd be just going to Dublin.

It would of course be cheaper to replace all intercity railway services with bus services, but I am certain that such bus services would attract much less passengers than the railways they would replace.

whisky_galore

road_high wrote: »

I was in it late last year and thought it had actually gotten worse. Any facilities that were there seemed to have shut up shop and only one platform in use? I could not understand this as the Dublin service is fairly frequent with departures/arrivals so this leaves it very short for any expansion of services (or perhaps this is yet another IR trick to use as an excuse not to..)? They appeared to have shut off the other 2 platforms and think the tracks were gone. Very short sighted and silly

Had a brief conversation with whoever was the gaffer there a few years ago, may well be still in charge, I can only describe the man as an unpleasant tw*t and an example of everything that is wrong with the type of staff IR see fit to both promote and interface with the public.

dowlingm

road_high wrote: »

I was in it late last year and thought it had actually gotten worse. Any facilities that were there seemed to have shut up shop and only one platform in use? I could not understand this as the Dublin service is fairly frequent with departures/arrivals so this leaves it very short for any expansion of services (or perhaps this is yet another IR trick to use as an excuse not to..)? They appeared to have shut off the other 2 platforms and think the tracks were gone. Very short sighted and silly

there was the little matter of the rocks falling from the cliff face...

Del.Monte

dowlingm wrote: »

there was the little matter of the rocks falling from the cliff face...

Which conveniently suited IE's agenda.

zxcvjbnm

I know it's not feasible, but would a rebuilt/reopened Clonmel to Thurles line see higher passenger numbers the Waterford to Limerick Junction line?

Working class heroes

Del.Monte wrote: »

Which conveniently suited IE's agenda.

What agenda?

esposito

zxcvjbnm wrote: »

I know it's not feasible, but would a rebuilt/reopened Clonmel to Thurles line see higher passenger numbers the Waterford to Limerick Junction line?

Interesting. Could be feasible. A line of single track short enough distance of approx 45 km. Serving towns like Fethard along the way. Personally would love it to happen!

Working class heroes

zxcvjbnm wrote: »

I know it's not feasible, but would a rebuilt/reopened Clonmel to Thurles line see higher passenger numbers the Waterford to Limerick Junction line?

I think that could be next on the agenda after the South Wicklow like.

dowlingm

zxcvjbnm wrote: »

I know it's not feasible, but would a rebuilt/reopened Clonmel to Thurles line see higher passenger numbers the Waterford to Limerick Junction line?

About 42km. For that sort of money you could build a direct curve at the Junction and fully automate signals and gates between Clonmel and Tipp, and a few more things besides.

lostweekend3

dowlingm wrote: »

About 42km. For that sort of money you could build a direct curve at the Junction and fully automate signals and gates between Clonmel and Tipp, and a few more things besides.

Nah. Not gonna make a difference for a lightly used line - Even if services improve we're probably talking a max of 4 trains in each direction Mon - Sat and maybe Sunday if we're lucky. I say keep the mechanical signalling and manual gates on the Waterford to Tipperary section.

Pump the money into reopening the branch line between Clonmel and Thurles.

end of the road

manual signalling and staffed gates are a big cost, they absolutely have to go.
staff should be redeployed and trained up to do other jobs on the railway if they want.
reopening thurles clonmell is not something i'm against but it would be down the list for me and certainly not at the expence of clonmell to limerick.

lostweekend3

end of the road wrote: »

manual signalling and staffed gates are a big cost, they absolutely have to go.
staff should be redeployed and trained up to do other jobs on the railway if they want.
reopening thurles clonmell is not something i'm against but it would be down the list for me and certainly not at the expence of clonmell to limerick.

We’ll agree to disagree.
In any case signalling upgrades won’t be happening anytime soon.

IE 222

lostweekend3 wrote: »

Nah. Not gonna make a difference for a lightly used line - Even if services improve we're probably talking a max of 4 trains in each direction Mon - Sat and maybe Sunday if we're lucky. I say keep the mechanical signalling and manual gates on the Waterford to Tipperary section.

Pump the money into reopening the branch line between Clonmel and Thurles.

What would the branch deliver that a €100+ million investment into Limerick- Waterford wouldn't.

julyjane

I saw a campaign on Facebook once to put a greenway on the old Clonmel to Thurles track and even that hit a lot of stumbling blocks. There's not much, if anything, left of the old track, in some parts near Fethard it's even hard to imagine there ever was a railway track there. It's a pity there's no railway because the road isn't great.

ohographite

lostweekend3 wrote: »

Nah. Not gonna make a difference for a lightly used line - Even if services improve we're probably talking a max of 4 trains in each direction Mon - Sat and maybe Sunday if we're lucky. I say keep the mechanical signalling and manual gates on the Waterford to Tipperary section.

Pump the money into reopening the branch line between Clonmel and Thurles.

I would prefer an upgrade to the Waterford-Limerick line to the reopening of Thurles-Clonmel.
Doing away with Waterford-Limerick and then reopening Thurles-Clonmel with a good service would be an interesting and strange decision, but I would however prefer it to leaving the Waterford-Limerick line as it is with no change in service quality.
I still think the best of the three scenarios I just outlined would be upgrading Waterford-Limerick, though.

TheBoyConor

lostweekend3 wrote: »

Nah. Not gonna make a difference for a lightly used line - Even if services improve we're probably talking a max of 4 trains in each direction Mon - Sat and maybe Sunday if we're lucky. I say keep the mechanical signalling and manual gates on the Waterford to Tipperary section.

Pump the money into reopening the branch line between Clonmel and Thurles.

The Clonmel -Thurles line doesn't exist any more to be reopened. For much of the route all traces of the line are erased and it has been incorporated into fields. Especially around fethard. Around there many of the embankments have been levelled and bridges removed.

Definitely a suggestion for the Walter Mitty thread.

Sure why not re-open the Listowel monorail while we are at it!