here's the rub on battery run locomotives….we won't be using them. Just wanted to see what your answer would be, like your answer to my repeated request for your source on the McKinsey report. It seems you like to make stuff up unfortunately
are you Eamon Ryan?
it wasn't a ministerial whim, i understand it's hard to come to terms with that you can't have a go at ryan on this one but ultimately a case was put forward and the government agreed with it.
i have heard it all before about how reopening x rail line will stop investment in rail/be another knail in the coffin of rail freight as you have just claimed ETC ETC.
neither are true, the game has changed and the government will be investing more in rail and rail freight, a mix of at their own hands and pressure from elsewhere.
2 things done that were wrong to do don't make everything wrong.
stupidly closing a&es don't make the reopening of a rail line with a case to reopen, wrong.
it's really at the moment just a whinge about ryan because he wants to make motorists who will choose the car no matter what, actually pay for what they use.
yes and you are still incorrect about them using more energy then a hospital to charge, because as i explained, charging systems and batteries are way way more efficient then when it was the case that your claim had validity, which was years ago. many governments were lied to by the manufacturers about diesel cars and the technology within them to clean up emissions and the refinement of diesel to apparently clean it up, clearly it was the case that any monkey would not know that was complete nonsense seeing as the purchasing of diesel cars increased and the government bought in to what the manufacturers were telling them. you are just saying this in hindsight to try and discredit ryan and blame him for something which wasn't his fault, you haven't discredited him as it was ultimately government policy to encourage the buying of diesel cars and ryan had no actual say in it. the poor state of the haulage industry is a fact, operating on poor wages and ultra low margines was always unsustainable ultimately and now the chickens are coming home to roost, not ryan's fault.
Thanks for all your certainty that a business case exists, and the circumstantial evidence you dredged up. Unfortunately it amounts to nothing. Contrary to your unsubstantiated beliefs, no business case appears to have been prepared and or presented. The decision to reinstate the line was a ministerial whim. And the risk is that when it turns out to be a massive white elephant it will be yet another coffin nail in the future of rail freight in the country.
firstly, freight is carried on wagons not carriages..
Road being laneways, again you are talking about 20 plus years ago, I am talking about today and in the future.. We have had an extensive motorway network for a good while, which is effectively a subsidy to road freight as haulage doesn’t pay for access on large parts of the network.. Despite this, rail freight actually grew from 2009- 2018..
Rail already works under 300km given the right circumstances, as I’ve already explained the 300km is not gospel..
Lift charges are part of the rail cost, but it’s hardly a level playing field of rail pays and road doesn’t, and it is disIngenious of DPC to ignore this key fact..
Your electronics co in Kells is meaningless, rail has a niche which is high volumes of long(by Irish standards) distances.. we could talk about hypotheticals all day but unless they have volume and or distance they are meaningless
This was in planning before this Government but it being a shovel ready project in a constituency where the local Green TD dreams about trains in the shower, it was very well placed to go ahead to be fair.
Business cases are very malleable and could easily be made to look very favourable when climate concerns are accounted for. (I'm not suggesting that took place here)
i don't think the Ryder Cup has any influence on the rail. The government gave an undertaking to the European Tour that the motorway would be complete by then. The pro am welcomed 40k attendees to the event in 2022 and the traffic management system worked very well.
building a passenger rail system is a hell of a lot different than a freight system for obvious reasons
we spent 1bn on decentralisation on the back of paying consultants 75m on the business feasibility study. We shut down Nenagh and Ennis A&E on the back of a feasibility study and people are now dying in Limerick A&E due to massive overcrowding. Business feasibility study is Gov's use to justify a fait accompli
Correct, but SFPC have wanted this for years and were being dismissed. The Ryder Cup gives the government an incentive to rebuild it. That's one of the reasons why the N7 from Red Cow to Naas was built to the standard that it is. It's probably just me being cynical, but that's down to the government's disinterest in rail over the last 60+ years.
23rd July 2019.
As the Deputy is aware, Shannon Foynes Port Company (SFPC) has been leading on work in relation to a potential reinstatement of the Limerick to Foynes rail line as part of the Port's overall masterplan redevelopment.The detailed design process and associated reports commissioned by SFPC were completed at the end of 2018. I understand SFPC and Iarnród Éireann are currently working together to determine a viable business case for potential reinstatement from a rail freight perspective. This process will require a feasibility study which SFPC and Iarnród Éireann estimate will take six months to complete.
As the Deputy is aware, Shannon Foynes Port Company (SFPC) has been leading on work in relation to a potential reinstatement of the Limerick to Foynes rail line as part of the Port's overall masterplan redevelopment.
The detailed design process and associated reports commissioned by SFPC were completed at the end of 2018.
I understand SFPC and Iarnród Éireann are currently working together to determine a viable business case for potential reinstatement from a rail freight perspective. This process will require a feasibility study which SFPC and Iarnród Éireann estimate will take six months to complete.
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2019-07-23/2497/
There has definitely been a business case put forward for this line.
Funny how no one moans about money spent on roads that don't get much traffic and don't "make a profit" but throw the toys out of their pram in the rare instance when a rail line gets reopened.
and there it is, so now 100s of millions is a bargain, still haven't indicated where McKinsey have been discredited.
I'm taking about battery run locomotives replacing diesel engines which use more energy than a hospital to charge.
lied to about what diesel situation? He said we should buy diesel cars which is a cleaner fuel than petrol. Any monkey would know that's complete nonsense.
using the poor state of the haulage sector another of Ryan's gaslighting.
below is Ryan speaking in Leinster House Feb 23, amazing that he seems to follow expert opinion when it suits,
below is Jim Meade….. question is really what is a short hop on an island about on average 120 miles between the cities
of course Irish Rail will find a business case to build railways. It's like discussing fire with a pyromaniac
how about ask the minister seeing as he will have it.
i can say with absolute certainty that if no case was put forward for reopening this line it would not happen, and i will not be convinced otherwise.
ireland just does not reopen lines on a whim, it has never happened and it never will.
even to get big projects like dart + done has taken decades in reality as there have been plans going back as far as the 70s at least for a much more expansive operation.
hundreds of millions for the network as a whole, an absolute bargain in reality. multiples more will be spent on the road network and really only the main roads as the local ones are in ****. governments were lied to about the diesel situation, we weren't the only country duped by that so blaming aemon ryan is just whinging nonsense. charging infrastructure is miles ahead in efficiency to what it was years ago, the amounts of electricity they use are getting smaller and smaller by the day. the old charging systems may have used more then a hospital for a charge but it's definitely not the case now, by any feet. the line reopening makes sense hence it is happening, if it didn't, it wouldn't, it's as simple as that.
actually, it's not quite true to say irish rail closed down rail freight for economic reasons.
while a lot of it went away by itself, irish rail did in the end decide to try and close it all so as to simply rely on the subsidies for the passenger service.
mayo stood up and said no hence it still has it's freight trains however.
of course each country has specific cost structure but you have to compare costs of competing entities within the same market, costs are increased across all sectors within the market, Irish Rails employee costs are more than 50% of revenue. Length of carriage is a less economical in Ireland than within other countries due to the fact we can't carry as many carriages . You haven't explained how rail will work in 2025 inside 300km when it was a bust when we had lane ways for road infrastructure.
I still believe lift charges are baked into the overall cost to the user
if you had an electronics manufacturer in Kells say for arguments sake would you loads your wares on a train or get them delivered to the door in less time by the motorway network?
@end of the road
Any chance you could point us to where the "credible case to reopen the line to foynes has been shown, proven and accepted" please ? As far as I know no business case was prepared or put forward and the decision was nothing other than a whim.
Ireland is an outlier in many ways when it comes to rail freight, including geography, wage costs, permitted train lengths, to name just a few..
Irish rail exited a lot of freight business, but that was twenty years ago and a LOT has changed since then.. A lot has even changed in the last 4 years in transport, it’s a dynamic industry that is constantly evolving.. As you were told already, driver wages and fuel costs have risen considerably since the 2000s, the days of Eastern European drivers working for poor wages is coming to an end as they are all heading home as the gap in the standard of living has closed.. Fuel costs jumped drastically after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 10% fuel surcharges on top of increased base haulage rates aren’t unusual anymore, they are the norm for the past 2 years..
Find it hard to believe or not but it’s a FACT that IWT pay lift charges to have boxes loaded onto and off the train and no haulier does..
What has a freight line got to do with the Ryder Cup? Even in the unlikely event that some passenger services are available for the week of the tournament, that is only 10km of the 40km line that's being reopened.
in fact it is 100s of millions, just look at Irish Rail company accounts.
clear case is the green minister for transport in his infinite wisdom. This is the man who said diesel engines were the way to go a decade ago when my dog knew better. This is the man who now says the future of rail is battery engines when a charge will use up more energy than a hospital and run for about 100km. The man is a plank
Then you have the like of the management at foynes port driving this clear case. They'd sell their granny for investment in the port.
If it made sense of course I'd support it. I despite the poor driving of hgvs on Irish roads.
you think Ireland is some kind of anomaly when it comes to costs? Out of kilter with the oecd for example? Come off it.
Access to ports has been restricted for 4 years and this is why rail freight has cratered over recent decades. Irish Rail closed close down to freight for an economic reason, what is different now other than we have a motor way system we didn't have then?
rail pays for loading in the ports? Are you saying that's not baked into the price of transport? Find it difficult to believe
I’ve said this before but the cynic in me keeps going back to the Ryder Cup. Because there’s nothing more that this country likes than a major sporting event on its doorstep and the government pull out all the stops for one.
well it's not hundreds of millions for a start.
investment in rail is buttons compared to investment in roads so it's not a big deal especially when it's only being done where a clear case has been shown to do it.
the idea that we are just reopening lines for the craic is just nonsense.
so it’s a top end figure, likely based on a cost per km calculation from the U.K. or somewhere in Europe and not allowing for any of the variables in the Irish context( driver wages, fuel costs, road access charging, train lengths, railway access charges).. So as a working figure it might tell us something but that doesn’t mean it’s in any way gospel..
The DPCs 1% figure came up when they were using rail freight as a political football to try get land back from the revenue as they misjudged where the demand would arise from Brexit.. It suited their agenda but again it ignores a few keys points including
1) rail pays to have containers loaded in the port and road doesn’t
2), The 1% figure is only based on their throughout.. Rail moves some of the heaviest containerised loads in this country(laden ISO tanks) over longer than average distances so in terms of laden tonne kilometres would have a higher percentage.. DPC are only looking at it from their perspective rather than rail as part of the overall hinterland transport to/from/through the port..
3) Access to the port for trains is limited and has been since 2020
4) Only 1 of the container terminals has a direct rail link
discredited? This article below??
Please direct me to this. Thanks
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/travel-logistics-and-infrastructure/our-insights/bold-moves-to-boost-european-rail-freight
so the solution is to spend hundreds of millions of euro on rail by government because there there is wage disequilibrium in the private sector???? How about just pay them more until we reach equilibrium
economics are going to change for some flows as poor wages for driving trucks is coming to an end hence price increases for movements.
