Western Rail Corridor / Rail Trail Discussion

One of our problems is that we seem unable to think outside the box.

Do trains need to be five carriages long? Could we not have shorter, more frequent trains, depending on demand on a given line, of even just two-carriage railcars? I've travelled on these on the continent, and for improved frequency on low-demand lines they are hard to beat.

No, the trains do not run to Dublin.

Are you aware of what freight services actually exist?

Shorter, more frequent trains? You would need extra line capacity for that (more crossing loops, shorter block sections). You would also nee many more train crews. Furthermore an existing 4 ot 5 carriage ICR train may do four to six trips in a day. Some of these will be fairly empty, but one or two will be at peak times, and full. You can't tailor train size to always exactly meet demand.

Having said that, I would love to see greater frequency on the Limerick Jcn-Waterfors and the Nenagh lines. On the Limerick-Ennis-Athenry line, there is a dire need for a passing loop at Sixmilebridge before you can do much about frequency.

Very true, and while the current infrastructure doesn't allow everything we might like, surely the whole point of the discussion is to suggest alternatives that we could plan for?

More passing loops, more train crews? Well I never!

You seem to be saying things should stay the same, and we should not try to improve the service. At least that is what I'm reading here.

You remind me here of the lost opportunity to get the Luas up and running in the 1990s.

So what smaller measures were you thinking of? Did you actually intend to propose more trains crews and more passing points? Re the latter, there are lots of closed down stations, and many if not all of them would have had a siding that could be turned into a passing point at no great cost.

no as it's more road transport ultimately which we need to be cutting the reliance on.

+ by the time you build that segregated infrastructure you may as well have built a railway or a tram if you are going to that expense.

there is a reason why all of these get out of building rail type solutions either end up being a one off or a very minority solution.

The most Ryan can do for the WRC in the remaining time of the current government is commission another report on its potential reopening. He'd have to hope for very different findings to all the previous reports but even then, submitting a Business Case, if a plausible one can be cobbled together, will likely fall to the next Minister.

The AIRR is no where near a Business Case for spending €400 - 600m. It sets out a whole load of potential projects, it is largely meaningless.

WRC is not part of the NDP or any current capital plans. There is no chance of it pass even the first PSC Gate in the remaining time of the current government.

So, I've reviewed the EY report from 2020 on WRC phase 2 and 3 (Athenry to Claremorris), which concluded a CBA of 0.21. I'm calling absolute utter horse crap on this report. It made basic, very significant, errors and questionable assumptions throughout. One can only conclude that EY were biased against the project in their analysis.

Journey Time:

The report assumes a capex to bring the line up to 150kmh design speed, and yet it assumes Tuam-Galway direct services would take 50mins versus 40mins by car. The real comparison, based on EY's own assumptions, should be 35mins (by train) versus 60mins (by car). This is a fundamental error which pulls the entire report into question.

The report includes -0.87m economic benefit (negative) due to Time Saving. This should, minimum, be +0.87 but in reality, much higher.

Tourists (wait for it)....:

EY assume 23,000 tourist journeys annually on the line, both domestic and international. This equates to 2 tourists, TWO, on each train. TWO!!! Imagine, a line linking Galway and Westport!!!!! Even assuming an additional 10x tourists on each train, 10euro single ticket, that would equate to 1.1m extra revenue (versus 2.2m total assumed).

The report uses Borders Railway (Edinburgh to Tweedbank) as an example of a "city to rural" line to compare tourist numbers, which conclude 4% of journeys would be tourists. If you read about this railway you'll see why it is BS. This line has shattered expectations with 184,000 journeys in 2016 for Tweekbank versus a predicted 19,000. A report in 2016 concluded that 40k car journeys were taken off the roads (versus a predicted 60k). Tourism numbers increased 12% in 2016 and the 2017 report indicated that 23% of visitors would not have gone there without the line. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borders_Railway

The fact that EY used this line as a proxy but failed to consider how successful that line has been speaks to their bias.

Noise:

The report includes -1.35m economic benefit (negative) due to train noise. This, despite the report assuming 18x lorry journeys are removed and replaced by one freight train. This is BS, so let's call that zero (it should be positive).

Emissions:

The report includes -0.02m economic benefit (negative) for emissions. But this is based on 50mins train versus 40mins car, which is totally incorrect based on the EY's own assumptions. The -0.02m number should be positive.

Fare prices / Revenue:

The report assumes 4.11eur for a single Tuam-Galway ticket, but assumes 4.28eur assumed for Athenry-Galway?!... A Tuam-Dublin fare was assumed to cost 7.01eur. This compares to Galway-Dublin or Claremorris-Dublin fares in 2023 of 16eur. EY's assumption for revenue is massively understated.

Summary:

The entire report is rubbish. The errors made on time (rail versus car) bring every number in the report into question. Even if I make some basic adjustments (extra tourist revenue, no noise impact, positive time savings), the CBA immediately improves from 0.21 to 0.5. This is before reviewing their 'demand generation' assumptions for accurate journey time comparisons.

Here's a snippet from the report to show how biased EY have been. Their tone and attitude throughout the report is v.loaded and negative and cannot be considered impartial.

In particular, the WRC should encourage people to move to areas on the North-West Coast (North of Galway City), supporting the development of those communities. However, most of these individuals will likely be drawn from other locations in Ireland (such as Dublin or Galway City), meaning the benefit to the Irish economy as whole will be limited.

I'm not anti rail, i think there should be a huge increase in rail spending, but rural and small town rail is a joke , its a bit like argueing for the return of canal travel and transport,

Commuter trains to a city , fine , intercity trains great , dart and luas , all for it ,

But connecting 3 or 4 small towns on 19th century infrastructure , and stations that are just half a mile out if the village.. daft and not in the slightest bit good for the environment,

Yup , but decent bus services ,

At times that suit - well thought out routes going to places people would want to use , preferably with decent stops,ticketing,and inline info/ tracking .

Its not free , and just cascade an old expressway bus onto a middle of nowhere route , thats been that route for 50 years ..

And its not going to be bus eireann that does it ,

How big are these main towns , ? Whats their future development plans ?

What are their current traveling numbers

And what are their travel options .. ?

And im not anti-public transport, its just rural rail is an 1860's dream , not even a 1960's dream ..

There are formulas for providing rail ,

( some irish rail guy ,at an info thing for another cork rail link over 15 years ago was telling me )

So , the age of the population counts , younger people travel more for school , college ,and work , the density of population counts ,around the station if people have to drive to the station they'll just drive on ,

The trip generators near station count , so if the train doesnt stop next to colleges,hospitals large employment hubs ,

Other means of transport count - if there's a decent road running parallel then thats going to take numbers ,

Journey times count , if its an hour on the train to do whats 30 mins in a car , people are going to drive ..

If any politican or official signs up to provide another limerick / ballybrophy line they should be taken out and shot for treason , ( i cant remember what the annual subvention is ,but it would cheaper , quicker and probably greener to transport their current customer base by taxi , not mini bus - ordinary taxi ..

Basically there was a carrigaline/ringaskiddy to balincolig via the city centre , hospitals and colleges , with major major employment hubs also along the line,( several thousand each) as well as linking with the train and bus stations,

It didn't have enough potential usage to warrant either rail or light rail , so the carrigaline part has been scrubbed and the rest may be delivered as a bus route in 20 or 30 years ..