Western Rail Corridor (all disused sections)

westtip wrote: »

But why? Why SligoT. would you see the line been reinstated as part of a wider regeneration of the wests broader infrastructure - you simply don't build infrastructure on such a woolly premise and weak argument - By all means give me the argument in favour of the WRC, but don't go give us this general type of idea - sure anything they do has to be good and add value. Think about the gas/broadband/greenway argument along the alignment and seriously apply your seemingly intelligent thinking to what would add real value for the west, think about it, that's all you need to do.

Thinking about it doesn't come into it when an issue is emotive rather than logical.
The pro-rail issue is about more than trains; it's about a perceived unfairness in the way that the country is governed. Dublin has trains, Luas and Dart, and Mayo has nothing.
It doesn't matter that railways need a certain critical mass of passengers to make them viable; the pro-rail gospel says 'build it, and they will come'. It doesn't go as far as saying where they will come from; it doesn't have to. Just go back to the unfairness argument and continue playing in a loop, while the politicians smile and reap the harvest of votes from the disgruntled.
The missing link is leadership, but don't expect that; we've never seen it in respect of the west's problems, so we can't expect it now.

The Idyl Race wrote: »

Seems to be gone now for some reason

SMG is still there

http://www.facebook.com/sligomayogreenway?ref=hl

The Idyl Race wrote: »

Sorry but won't endorse the destruction of the railways for the benefit of private bus operators.

In 1967 Lismore had a regular train service. It now has no public transport at all except for schemes aimed at local pensioners and not the public. That's not the Ireland I want, but appears to be the consensus here.

I wouldn't be too hung up on whether buses are owned by private or public companies. A well-regulated bus service is a great public service, and the ownership of the fleet is irrelevant. London's red buses are now owned by a plethora of companies, but the system works fine. In the case of rail, the key asset ownership issue is the tracks, not the trains.
I'm not familiar enough with Lismore to comment on the rail v bus issue there, but I do know that the north-west doesn't need underperforming railways, it needs better roads and bus services.
The Dublin - Sligo road is in reasonable shape, but peters out around Castlebaldwin and is little more than a cart track between there and Collooney.
With regards to the N17 from Galway to Sligo, again parts of it are fine but it needs to be updated in a lot of places to provide safer and quicker access to all the towns along the route. Knock Airport needs a regular and fast bus service to Sligo via Collooney to connect with the Dublin - Sligo rail and bus services. A slow train twice or even four times a day won't be any use in serving an airport; all arrival and departure flights need to be servicced by a public transport. You can't provide that kind of flexibility with a train, particularly one with a level crossing or a house driveway every hundred yards.
The big piece of transport infrastructure that Mayo needs is good road access to Dublin, either on the existing route or via a connection to the Dublin - Galway motorway. Slow trains on branch lines are not the answer, nice and all as they may be for a day out with the sandwiches and flask.
The airport at Charleroi is served by bus from Brussels, not by train, and it works very well. If Brussels can't get a rail line to serve its second airport, given the volume of traffic on that route, what chance Knock?
Rail travel is great, where appropriate, but to be successful it needs a fast and regular service that can only be justified by a critical mass of population. The east Mayo and south Sligo area just doesn't have the necessary passenger numbers, and a good bus service is the most appropriate and flexible way to serve this kind of thinly spread rural population.
If everyone in the Sligo/Mayo area abandoned their cars and took to the train, there might, at a pinch, be enough customers for this railway. The reality though, as happened with Ennis - Athenry, is that people like to have a train service in case that they might ever want to use it, sometime; in practice, they don't actually desert their cars in sufficient numbers to make it work.
Sligo/Mayo has a thinner population along the WRC, so a railway plan for this route will suffer from planned failure from the outset. We'd all love a railway, but who would use it?
While the debate continues, the route is being lost to public ownership. Sadly, the brain drain seems to have affected the west of Ireland more than anyplace else.

westtip wrote: »

And in 1966 England, apparently won the world cup.

Now if we only had a train service to Claremorris, we could host the Olympics.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

I see that a new private bus service is starting from Athenry. Picking up at three different locations in the town and dropping at all the major industrial estates before hitting GMIT, Eyre Square and the University. This would seem to challenge the option of commuter rail from Athery to Galway.

At least it goes to where people need to be. how does it compare cost wise for a day return/weekly ticket or if they do it monthly ticket.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

As an aside, apart from the Clifden route, the current draft Walking and Cycling Strategy for Galway County contains no mention of converting any other named railway alignments to Greenways. This is despite the fact that the Tuam Greenway group made a specific submission on that section and are listed among the consultees.

It does not even discuss using the section of railway within Tuam as a walking/cycling facility within Tuam - not to mind going anywhere else with it.

However under Appendix G - Policy Review it states


http://www.galway.ie/en/Services/RoadsTransportation/WalkingandCyclingStrategy/

You will probably find this submission was dutifully ignored - and forced out buy members of the Western Intercounty Railway Committee, the Tuam group should lobby every single councillor in the county by text and email to get the greenway concept included either as a parallel greenway or greenway until such time as th WRC can be restored - if this is a draft walking and cycliing strategy they need to act quickly and lobby now - to get it as a concept written into the plan. The idea of a greenway on the sligomayogreenway route is written into the Sligo county plan - even though the WRC lobbyists tried to get it taken out, and they did scupper it slightly by getting a clause in to say the council supports a greenway on the route insofar as it does not interfere with the prospects of the WRC being reinstated - indeed as there are no prospects of the latter happening I think we can safely say nothing will happen. But the Tuam group need to act on this immediately.

MayoForSam wrote: »

Article in this week's Tuam Herald referring to certain county councillors complete reticence towards a proposal by Energise Tuam to create a greenway in the town along the old railway alignment to serve as a civic amenity and to promote walking and cycling tourism in the area: http://www.tuamherald.ie/2013/01/16/tuam-greenway-plan-runs-foul-of-rail-corridor-backers/

Just typical really, the council have their heads in the sand completely. I for one will be contacting Galway CoCo to make my feelings known but it will probably fall on deaf ears.

Just last weekend myself and the family had to drive for 20 minutes outside Tuam to find a suitable area for an afternoon stroll. These lads sitting around the council chamber obviously don't get out much or see the public need to make best use out of the decrepit rail line.

That's one of the problems; a lot of the public representatives in ireland are couch potatoes whose only exercise is shaking hands at funerals.
One Mayo councillor (and member of the inter county railway committee) commented last year about the WRC and tourism -- he said that "they" (touring walkers and cyclists) should be happy enough with Coillte roads and the Castlebar ring road.
Can you imagine a German tourist deciding to come to ireland to cycle around and around the Castlebar ring road? Unfortunately that is the intellectual level we are operating at, and we need to be aware of that if we want to see progress. There's not a lot of point in trying to explain 'complicated' concepts to these guys, we have to spell it out slowly, using short words and small sentences.

MayoForSam wrote: »

Article in this week's Tuam Herald referring to certain county councillors complete reticence towards a proposal by Energise Tuam to create a greenway in the town along the old railway alignment to serve as a civic amenity and to promote walking and cycling tourism in the area: http://www.tuamherald.ie/2013/01/16/tuam-greenway-plan-runs-foul-of-rail-corridor-backers/

Just typical really, the council have their heads in the sand completely. I for one will be contacting Galway CoCo to make my feelings known but it will probably fall on deaf ears.

Just last weekend myself and the family had to drive for 20 minutes outside Tuam to find a suitable area for an afternoon stroll. These lads sitting around the council chamber obviously don't get out much or see the public need to make best use out of the decrepit rail line.

The more that contact them - the more the message gets through - yes it may fall on death ears, get your cousins, siblings, friends and parents to contact them - network the idea - bombard them with messages from all directions from as many people as you can to get the message home. The vested interests need to be challenged, again and again and again.

The Idyl Race wrote: »

So, destroying any chance of using Tuam-Athenry-Galway as a commuter route is the only option?

The phrase cutting your nose off to spite your face comes to mind.

Destroying what commuter route? How many people would actually use this route, the service levels needed to make it a realistic commuter route would mean the subvention would be astronomical - why can't the Sustrans solution be used in Ireland? Quite simply Sustrans have taken old rail alignments in the UK from Railtrack - who have retained ownership and a legal arrangement has been put in place that a railway will have precedence on the line when and if they can be built, why can't we adopt this simple attitude in Ireland?

Why would a greenway destroy the possibility of a railway in the future - if a greenway protected the route - why not the option of a greenway now (that is affordable) and railway with parallel greenway in the future. we all know the railway is not affordable, likely or even needed now. Why do those that espouse the railway oppose the greenway idea when it will protect the route for ever and when a railway is affordable, likely and needed it can be built.

What's wrong with a new idea? What are these councillors afraid of?

The Idyl Race wrote: »

So, destroying any chance of using Tuam-Athenry-Galway as a commuter route is the only option?

The phrase cutting your nose off to spite your face comes to mind.

I believe the Tuam greenway proposal was for the northern end leading out of Tuam, which runs in parallel with a populated area as far as Kilbannon and would be a very useful local amenity.

There was no mention of a greenway on the Athenry section out of Tuam (AFAIK), this section is in relatively good condition. However, the upcoming construction of the M17 would cast even more doubt on the viability of the Tuam-Athenry commuter line.

MayoForSam wrote: »

There was no mention of a greenway on the Athenry section out of Tuam (AFAIK), this section is in relatively good condition. However, the upcoming construction of the M17 would cast even more doubt on the viability of the Tuam-Athenry commuter line.

Its been said before the fact that even in these harsh times, the M17 from Gort north of Tuam is pencilled in as one of the few infrastructure projects that may get the green light really says it all about the future of the so called Western Rail Corridor. In the meantime as EastWest points out, we will have to sit and watch as more land gets snatched from under our noses, and our councillors continue to ignore the reality of life. Only in Ireland.