Ennis Limerick rail line

Great to see that there is a good bit of rail infrastructure being upgraded.

Dont know if you use twitter but @TipperaryRail will be putting up some photos and videos of the track upgrade being carried out near Cloughjordan station next month. Interesting to see how the process is done.

The success of the Limerick - Ennis line is a great motiviation for other "rural" railways to keep campaigning for improvements.

I think its just platform re-construction to bring it up to modern standards. Guessing one platform will be closed at a time and they cannot cross and trains at the station for the duration of works.

It does appear slow unless they are complexly replacing platforms.

Speed restrictions on the line. Think its mainly due to amount of level crossings. The service should be no more than 1hr30, considering the car can do it on a good day in 1hr 15m.

As posted above, the platforms at Ennis are being rebuilt, meaning that during the works two trains cannot pass one another in service there.

So the timetable had to be adjusted to allow the trains to pass at Gort.

Quite simply it's impossible to deliver a decent end-to-end timetable while this is ongoing, particularly in the evenings, due to the constraints of the single track between Galway and Athenry being full in the evenings, so retiming departures was not possible, and the desire to maintain the existing Limerick-Ennis timetable for local commuters.

If the person beside me coughs one more time with no mask or even into their elbow I might actually murder them !

Presumably it is the ongoing works at Ennis station and the engineers need a full possession.

It doesn't help that the shortest Galway-Athenry running time is, I believe, 18 minutes (and that's without stopping in Oranmore), meaning that the most frequent service possible on that section - if we assume an alternating down and up train - is every ~38-40 minutes each way at best...

What is the impact of this turnout being worked on ?

Larger turnout = larger train? This turnout always existed right ?

The passing loop at Oranmore is definitely happening. Funding has been committed towards it.

i have noticed the platform currently under construction now has a step/ramp down from the door to the platform whereas before it was step/ramp free. Does this mean the new platform is much lower than the previous version?

Photo: @FearghaloM on twitter

I’m afraid that the passing loop won’t really have any impact on journey times, but it will make it easier to schedule more trains between Galway and Athenry by allowing them to pass at Oranmore.

Galway loop will still need to be used - it’s a function of the lack of more than two platforms at Ceannt Station.

Until the station is refurbished and the number of platforms expanded, some trains will need to use that loop especially if frequency increases. Irish Rail have applied for changes to that refurbishment plan and news of when it may start is awaited! https://www.galwaydaily.com/news/transport/irish-rail-submits-further-plans-for-opening-up-ceannt-station/

FYI the 17:50 train is scheduled to wait six minutes at the loop from 17:52 till 17:58, but if it were passing another train at Oranmore, one of the trains will still have to have a wait like that built into the schedule to allow for the potential impact from delays. That's how single track railway lines need to be scheduled.

The Oranmore loop is the only investment planned and approved right now. Doubling tracks along the entire section would be something that may follow on from it but not in the immediate future.

"leaves the station at 17.50 and goes 200 metres down the track where it waits at least 10 minutes for an incoming train from Athenry to pass (thanks to the single track from Athenry to Galway) before going on its merry way."

I had to dig out the thick WTT book, and then I ended up cursing IE for not having normal graphical diagrams instead of a book that probably easily weights a kilogram. Anyway. A489 leaves Galway at 17:50, is in the loop from 17:52.5 to 17:56.5, then Oranmore 18:02-18:03 and arrives in Athenry 18:13.5. The train it crosses in Galway Loop is the A708, the 15.35 Heuston/Galway, which is in Athenry from 17:36.5 to 17:40.5, passes Oranmore at 17:49.5, the Galway Loop at 17:54.5 and arrives in Galway at 17:58.

The only way for A489 to not sit in the loop would be to have it leave Galway at 17:40 and cross with A708 in Oranmore around 17:50. That's keeping in mind that A709 crosses A717, the 17.20 Galway/Heuston, in Athenry.

Very crudely done in Excel, it amounts to something like this.

The current timing of A489 out of Athenry also makes A788 wait for it in Ennis, a 26-minute wait from 18:43 to 19:09 (A489 is a stop-and-go 19:07-19:08). Sure, moving A489 ten minutes earlier could make it be able to leave Athenry sometime closer to 18.04, cutting about 12-13 minutes out of A788's wait in Ennis... if not for the fact that A788 then waits in Gort (19:30.5-19:35.5) for A491 (19:32.5-19:33.5), the 18.40 Galway/Ennis - so realistically all we're doing is splitting the wait further along, unless we move A491, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Disclaimer: these are all I believe 2016 timings, but I think the basic structure of crossings has remained stable since even with minor adjustments here and there.

The 15:35 has to pass two other services en route at Tullamore and Athenry with very little recovery time, as well as the Galway-Limerick service at Galway loop.

Combining that with comparing the overall running time with other services would suggest little or no scope for accelerating it, so I can't really see your idea working.

Thanks for highlighting that - it turns out that the entire paragraph under the graph in my previous post can now be thrown into the bin, as I was calculating under outdated timings and crossings. It would appear that the 18.05 Limerick/Galway crosses with two southbound trains in Gort - ridiculous imho...

There is currently a temporary timetable in place between Limerick and Galway due to Ennis station being rebuilt. During this period only one platform is in actively in use and two trains cannot pass there, which results in the situation you mention above, as they try to keep the Limerick/Ennis and Galway/Athenry sections as close to normal as they can.

Damn, I keep on forgetting about all the tidbits that lead to this. Again I have to bite my own words back, which then makes the paragraph under the graph valid again, should that timetable be reinstated. But yes, @Geuze has a point, just double-track as much of it as possible, this section of the network would well warrant from the double track (notwithstanding the few bridges here and there).

Apparently it should be ready for the June weekend, which ties in nicely with Munster Final Day. Guaranteed to be a busy day at the station.

My mate was on the Shades of Grey tour and had a look when passing through, and he noticed they didn't replace the platform displays with the new spec - are they rolling them out in the Dublin region first before going further afield?

agree but that would require us growing up as a country so won't happen.