Cross-border review of rail network officially launched

There's nothing in it to consult on????

it would be correct to deliver a railway back in west cork but i can't see how they would deliver one now given i believe part of the alinement has been taken over, and of course the whole lot of the line was obliterated in the first place.

getting it through the city would require a tunnel, even if the main line had remained bypassing and removing the city railway would have been prudent.

so i can't see it being done, as much as i would support the campaign.

I stopped reading when they stated that 2,500 was a major population centre.

Would be great to see the towns of west Cork connected to the city by rail. But new lines at this point are very far happening. Modernising the existing network has to be priority.

Think someone failed to read the terms of reference, this review is about regional rail and connections between major population centres

"The Review’s focus is not on commuter rail services within the major cities, but it will consider the interactions between proposed improvements to inter-urban rail and existing, or proposed, commuter rail services."

Not very reassuring when the author needs to be alerted via Twitter of the types of trains (DMUs) run on the network outside of the Dublin-Cork mainline and forgets trains between Portarlington and Athlone (still forgetting Galway trains?), but hey it's all good as it is supported by "awesome" maps 😀

Anyone seen anything from the webinar on this today?

This "Rail Ambition" event, Eamon Ryan and Nichola Mallon were speaking at it about the review.

At best the review may say they should improve the journey time for Derry-Belfast line. Thats all that could ever happen in our lifetimes - NI does not have the funds, and ROI does not have the interest in rail connections to the NW.

Can’t imagine their being any political will to stand up to NIMBYs.

Just out of curiosity do you think that's a lot of money? It cost more to connect Tuam and Galway by motorway and you can bet that a Navan to Dublin rail link will be more heavily used than said motorway by an order of magnitude.

Regarding Derry. Our existing intercity rail network needs ALOT of work. If we invested in creating a Dub-Bel service that ran every half hour and took no longer than 90 minutes, and a Bel-Der service that ran every half hour and tool no longer than 60 minutes there wouldn't be much if a case for a direct Dublin-Derry route. Both are very doable with a bit of spending and a 2.5 hr rail journey from Dub to Der would be possible.

Jaysus. I hardly suggested we submit this for planning today like. My God. Calm down.

@cgcsb thanks for being very constructive there. I think you're spot on.

Okay so just to go back to my original 'pie in the sky' question - the answer is "no we can't have any vision in this country".

The NW will forever more remain without a direct rail link to Dublin.

Grand.

I think that we have to be realistic here.

Getting governments to invest in the existing network over the years has been like pulling hen’s teeth. It has been minimal and that needs to be fixed.

The notion of a new line on the scale of one from Dublin to Derry is fantasy I’m afraid. We need to get significant investment in the current network so that it is fit for purpose. That’s going to cost a lot of money in itself.

I can see small scale re-openings on the network happening, such as Portadown-Armagh, the Foynes branch and others.

But what I do hope to see is a commitment to increasing capacity and reliability on the existing network through additional double track on single track lines, more passing loops, four tracking some of the Northern Line, and line speed increases where possible.

A timetable that supports regional travel, connectivity and development, facilitating commuters has to be an outcome of this study, linked into the Connecting Ireland project, along with earlier and later services on main lines.