The Strategic Rail Review will consider how the rail network on the island can improve sustainable connectivity between major cities, enhance regional accessibility including to the North West and support balanced regional development.
actually i believe a train did venture up part of the northern section in the 80s to deliver carrages to a museum in i think charlestown? i believe another train ventured up earlier, think it was a weedspray train, and had to reverse as part of the track was missing presumed lifted for whatever reason.
I'd imagine that it was something to do with population centres. Plenty of rails were abandoned in low population rural areas of Mayo such as Westport-Achill and Ballina-Killala.
Whereas the WRC between Sligo and Galway was linking 2 larger centres and was probably seen as having potential to come back at some stage in the future and were therefore classified as disused.
Then again Tralee was linking to Limerick so I dont know about those cases.
One question I'd have regarding the WRC is why the Claremorris-Collooney section was left in situ when others, such as the North Kerry and numerous branches, were lifted in 1988? I know the rest of the line was used for freight in the 1990s but the northern end hasn't seen a train since 1975.
Argument? Seeing as your comment was just a general angry stream of words you didn't make any points for me to argue against.
When you’re reduced to snide comments and “playing the man instead of the ball” it’s generally a sign of how weak your arguments are.
Irrespective of your views on the WRC my point was that it's not acceptable to try and bully someone off a thread just because you don't like or agree with what they are posting. There is no evidence that the WRC is getting more comments than the rest of the network (especially in recent months) so there's no point pretending otherwise.
There are plenty of healthy debates on the thread about things like electrification and passing loops with people being accused of being activists and having fetishes.
I don't have a chip on my shoulder. What I do have is a general idea that there are an awful lot of rail projects which are orders of magnitude more cost-effective than the WRC (esp the Northern bit). Anything which pre-empts resources that have more urgent or valuable uses, I am dead against.
Another very angry customer. 😄
What a complete and utterly pointless waste of money. Nothing but a gormless publicity stunt.
You have quite the chip on your shoulder about that line. People are quite entitled to post updates without such condescending comments.
The comments on this thread relating to the WRC occur only occasionally and the thread is dominated by discussions on other lines. Even the WRC thread itself is quieter these days.
Do we call people leaving comments on other lines 'activists' with 'fetishes' as well? Of course not.
what was the point in clearing it (which they did a few years ago as well).
did they do the whole way from Athenry to Sligo?
This hopeless bit of track gets more attention from rail "activists" than the rest of the ntwork combined.
A lot of people think that railways are a thing of the past, and this fetish only confirms that view.
There is zero intent to run trains on it without complete reinstatement
Also, it's disconnected at both ends and has a hole in the middle where the N63 bridge was removed. It's also tarred over at many level crossings.
So no, they won't and they can't
Are IR going to run test or trial runs on the line to see if it is safe?
Can't recall seeing images posted of the recent work on the WRC, so posting here.
On Nov 30, 2023, Eamon told Irish Rail in the Dail to clear the line and one week later it started and it was done by January. Looks great.
Even if we had a tunnel to the UK in the future it would make more sense to have the standard gauge train terminate in Dublin and have connections to Irish gauge services
Changing gauge is like changing driving on the left to the right - absolutely no way does it make economic sense.
There are better project to be spending money on - like electrification of the lines.
As an island, we don't have a break-of-gauge problem, and that's the only reason why countries spend money on dual-gauge tracking. But as an island shared by two jurisdictions and two operating companies, we definitely would have a break-of-gauge problem if we tried to to change ours.
From previous discussions, the long term savings (mainly from being able to buy refurbished rolling stock) just don't make up for the enormous cost: you're effectively re-laying the whole length of the network, and if you're going to do that, isn't it better to not end up with the exact same size of network afterwards?
Sad that the idea of dual-gauge conversion wasn't even mentioned in this report. Probably something Ireland should be looking at long term.
@CrabRevolution - really good point about governments restarting plans to make them "better". Perfect is the enemy of good, but we keep falling for this trick - Health is the worst offender, but it happens everywhere.
I would rather see incremental improvements made year by year to make a good system better, rather than have nothing done at all because any works would be superseded by a future "super-project" that has a chance of never happening..
The Rail Review is actually quite good in allowing incremental implementation: it has only a couple of high-cost projects (Cavan-Portadown, Portadown-Derry), but everything else could be divided into pipelines of 1-2 year improvement works. The problem is getting the political will to start filling that pipeline of projects.
In contrast, if a High Speed Rail line had been recommended, that would have been a perfect example of the kind of "jam tomorrow" project that guarantees nothing else gets done.
Ah I don't think anyone is viewing the AIRR as binding. It's neither something to be viewed as a firm plan or, equally, something to be dismissed. The AIRR is a blueprint for a national network and it's about time the country had one.
Nothing truly ground breaking in the AIRR - all very sensible upgrades and additions. Maybe just the new sections of rail near Dublin to improve the intercity network, and the Cavan line - but even these are hardly ground breaking.
It's naïve at best to see the AIRR as some form of binding document. What gets built is what the government wants built. I worked in the HSE for years and was often involved in planning teams for new projects, from bike sheds to hospital extensions to entire residential villages for elder care. Ministers can at the stroke of a pen scrap entire projects which are shovel ready, with nothing more than a vague "circumstances have changed" (without ever elaborating what has changed) or "This project was a great idea, but we want to make it even better by sending it all the way back to the drawing board".
They don't feel bound at all by reviews or recommendations.
Take the example earlier this year where the speed limit review recommended across the board lowering of speed limits; the government were trumpeting it front and centre declaring ""The experts have spoken and we can't argue with them. We have to decrease our speed limits in the interests of safety. It's our only option, we're doing this to save your life etc."
A few weeks later a separate review said we'd need to spend a huge amount on road infrastructure to improve road safety, and out of nowhere the experts were wrong and very fallible. Ministers were declaring that it wasn't a priority for them and there were other ways around it.
They're not in govt (yet) but look at SF too. When the AIRR was published they too came out with the "We came up with these ideas first, and now the experts agree with us, build it all now!" but last week at their WRC event SF were saying that they'd build whatever they wanted regardless of whether it was in the AIRR or not.
I see the review as a sort of master-plan, of which we'll see maybe 60% turning out roughly as shown, plus other things that aren't even on the plan.
I remember the 1998 Roads Needs Survey being similar: it did the sane assessment for the road network. Abd even though it was overtaken by an economic boom that saw some routes ending up at a higher standard, there are still recommendations from there that have not been put in place, 25 years later, and things (e.g. M3) that were not recommended at all.
I agree with you on cars: Cars are freedom only while very few people have one. I am in the generation that discovered this first hand, as car ownership exploded in the late 1990s: we went through traffic growth in 5 years that other European counties took 20 years to see.
But it's not just younger generations who have fallen out of love with cars: I cannot believe that the people sitting in traffic jams for an hour or more every morning and evening would not swap them for a faster public transport service.
(I know there are long distance commuters, but their journeys are a tale of two halves: free flowing traffic in the oter section followed by jams close to the city - park and ride is the solution here)
Just because it's an aspirational design doesn't mean it's not a firm plan. Plans change, but that doesn't mean we should not make plans. Any significant changes to this 'plan' will need to be scrutinised and justified. The AIRR has set the tone, expectations and priority for the individual projects needed - which will become self fulfilling.
I think you're right, road building typically happens faster as it can immediately be used by anyone with a car, to drive wherever they want. A symbol of freedom. But that's changing and younger generations expect better public transport - being connected to a city with a train and not dependent on a car is now a symbol of freedom.
I am more optimistic about the plan!
People are talking about the Rail Review like it’s a firm design. It’s an aspirational document that would proceed as dozens of lesser projects if at all and there is realistically no end date. We’ll get bits of it at different times and maybe in different forms from what was envisioned.
As for expecting that public transport investment will ramp up from now on, it’s unlikely to be like what happened with motorways in the 2000s. Roads are passive, you build it and the public make their own way onto it. Public transport requires a service to be provided, which means staff, salaries and admin. This is the reason globally that road building proceeds faster than public transport building.
All the red are under electrification, including Derry/Dublin. The Cyan and Green are decarbonised.
Just to be accurate, they don’t say these lines will be electrified, they say they will be “decarbonised”. That leaves it open for them to use hydrogen or battery as well as electrification. From presentations they definitely want to electrified Cork to Belfast, but the others parts could still be up for other options. I’d say they need to study the options in detail.
As for other comments above, they are definitely going to do AC.
For new trains, the tender for the Enterprise replacement is for either bi mode or tri mode trains. Basically they will be Diesel powered and can use both DC and AC overhead. Once the line is fully electrified then diesel will be removed. I’d assume the Cork replacement trains will also take the same approach.
Apologies, absolutely correct, it looks like Letterkenny went form less then 20k in the 2016 census to 22k in the 2022 census. Well done Letterkenny.
Per the Rail Review, Dublin/Cork,Limerick,Galway and Belfast are planned to be electrified by 2050. We should have plenty of Diesel stock to infill the remaining lines via refurb rather than buying brand new Diesel stock. Even Irish Rail aren't planning on buying any more new Diesel stock per their capital investment department.
Irish Rail got Connecting Europe Facility funding of 2.6m to study the Dublin Cork Line improvements, decarbonisation formed part of the study. Wouldn't take much to electrify Limerick services as well if do it right and make passive provision as part of the double tracking.
