Foynes Line

100% wrong on the Maigue Bridge. Planning permission to raise the height of the bridge is required and the plan to raise the height of the bridge has not been dropped, it's deferred pending planning permission. The failure to obtain planning permission in advance of the works commencing has added €1.5m to the cost of the bridge works, although given that this is an IE estimate the real additional cost will likely be a multiple of this.

ultimately it can and it has been used to justify the reopening.
the where the investment can't be justified exemption is for where the port never had a railway and you would have to barge through a mountain or build a large viaduct over a river.
but foynes doesn't tick any of those boxes so the exemption doesn't apply because it's a very easy and cheap reinstatement to do in the great scheme of things.

they will have been.

the government should publish it all if they haven't already but i suspect even if they did some wouldn't except it anyway.

The new road which will be complete by 2029 will take alot of the traffic off the N69. The 150 million plus euro railway line will take virtually nothing off the road, there will be more weeks of the years than trains on it every year.

Yeah I figured the road would be taking the brunt of the traffic. A bit further down the road than the rail road but it's coming none the less so happy days.

Out of interest....would the motorway to Foynes actually be quicker than going the n69? Currently it's about half hour to Foynes from say the start of the motorway, but the new motorway goes around by rathkeale, but it's still a motorway 🤔

Thanks all. Glad I found this as was very curious about this for a while now but couldnt find much info on it. Havent been on Boards in years also. Have been following Dronehawk (who I can see has been shared here) and I think hes great. I live in Castletroy but travel via N69 about twice a week, so this info is good to know.

Dronehawk’s latest progress report

great progress, but what will the line carry … I would hope the Foynes port people have their thinking caps on …. IMHO it may require industry or activity to be located there which could utilise rail …. Incinerator, timber processing?

When anything has to go onto a truck unless the distance left is greater than 100 miles it makes no sense to remove it from the truck After that you need volume to fill 50+ wagons. Take timber you need to put it on a truck to get it out of the forrest. How much will travel 100+ mile's to the port. This was a green vanity project just a larger scale than the Dail bike shed that can holds 18 bikes at 20k a pop.The incinerator are already in Cork and Dublin ports. The cement factory failed to get planning for an incinerator

Dream On. Bring it by ship to move it by train to Cork or Dublin when you can ship it there directly or in the case of Dublin to Dundalk or Risskare which are much shorter distances.

This is the railway to no where

the 100 miles and 50 wagons thing is just an arbitry thing you have come up with that has no basis as there are small loads travelling more then that every day by truck and in this country alone, there was one load travelling by train which was travelling a lot less.

the line has nothing to do with the greens, it passed everything required hence being reopened, it was committed to before the greens came to power.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0930/1472802-225m-of-exchequer-funding-written-off-on-3-rail-projects/

The report ‘identified a high level of noncompliance with the [public spending] Code for the Foynes project’.

THe €225m referred to in the headline was for sums written off in respect of Metro North (not to be confused with Metrolink), Metro West and the DART interconnector. None of this the fault of irish Rail.

The Foynes issue was more about procedures not being adhered to rather than outright waste. The jury is still out on that officially.

"It is noted that a key requirement for a core port under the Trans European Network (Ten-t) Regulations is that rail connection will be in place by 2030."

I suspect this is the real motive. It would have been cheaper for the State to ditch entirely the co funding under Ten t and fund the Foynes Port upgrade solely from its own funds. Once it approached the EU it was trapped despite the absurdity of the project. It may be the motorway element was contingent on a rail spur…to nowhere.

and you are still incorrect, there is no derogation.

derogations only apply where it would not be possible or it would be extremely difficult to instate a rail connection to a port.

so if there was never a railway to foynes and if instatement of such would require tunnelling for example, a derogation could apply on the basis that there are other 10 t ports available.

however none of that applies so foynes will be connected.