Western Rail Corridor (all disused sections)

GM228 wrote: »

There is no reason why that would be the case, in the unlikely (but not impossible) case the line ever re-opened it llwould be seperated from the greenway by way of fences/walls etc and the railway would not be subject to reatrictive speeds just because a greenway is on the other side of the fence.

Also if the line re-opened with the greenway retained alongside the tracks what argument would the lobbyists have?

GM228

None. Its a pity this kind of thinking wasn't applied to all the railway lines closed in the 1930 - 1970 period. There would have been no arguments about the Harcourt Sreet line, nor any issues about permissive access on the Great western greenway or, and there would have been a tailormade footprint/network of land to create the national cycle network back in the 1970s. We don't do the "vision" thing very well here do we.

Muckyboots wrote: »

Apply this arguement to the now broken WRC. How many minor and major road crossing are there between Claremorris and Tuam? Between Tuam and Ballindine alone there are at least 12 gated minor crossings. Then there are three quick succession Primary Route crossings between Ballindine and Claremorris. Three former station houses are occupied by families with children at Ballindine, Milltown and Castlegrove and each use the former platforms as part of their back gardens. There never was, and never will be, anything but "heritage speed" possible on the former WRC.

"Heritage speed" would be an improvement on the realistic potential for the Sligo section in particular. The "Burma Road" isn't exactly suited to the TGV.

mayo.mick wrote: »

If memory serves me correctly, from a local historian, he says there are 48 crossings on 47 mile of "burma road".

the McCann report of 2005 - the so called Western Rail Corridor blueprint said this in relation to the potential exhorbitant cost likely of Claremorris to Collooney:

I understand that there are two main reasons why the cost of the Claremorris-Collooney section is very high. Firstly, when it was built in 1891-1892 the section was constructed as a light railway. If it were to be brought into the IE network the formation would have to be rebuilt to the national heavy rail standard. The second relates to the cost of necessary alterations to level crossings, of which there are a total of 290 along the section, two of which alone would cost €24m to create grade separations.

Source: Report of Working Party into the Western Rail Corridor 2005

Claremorris collooney is 46 miles long that is an average of over 6 level crossings/easement rights to cross per mile, and there are actually people who claim to be of a right mind still campaigning for this section of railway to be re-opened as a vital piece of national infrastructure.....

eastwest wrote: »

There is an interesting little detail emerging with regards to the Mayo section of the disused line, one that may yet prove to be the final nail in the coffin of the rail lobby.
I'm not sure of the timeline, but it seems that a small number of people has managed to get the ball rolling on a velorail project on that section of the line. Now these projects generally produce more failures than successes, but what if this one bucks the trend and becomes a runaway success? It would be easy to relocate a greenway if a railway is ever built; the construction project could do it very cheaply and easily, but relocate a successful velorail business? That mightn't be as easy, and it would certainly cost a lot of money.
On the face of it, the support for this project by mayo county council seems to serve a very anti-rail agenda, so why wasn't the railway lobby screaming blue murder? Or have they accepted the inevitable and quietly decided that their new strategy is an extra freight train a day from claremorris?

Is a velorail an anti-rail policy? It runs on rails, clears the line and cuts down on people taking part of the line as their garden!

Havn't seen much reported on it in a while.

http://www.advertiser.ie/mayo/article/75789/velorail-could-bring-major-tourism-boost-to-kiltimagh

https://cyclist.ie/2014/02/sligo-mayo-greenway-development-in-county-plan/


GM228

eastwest wrote: »

It certainly protects the route, but a greenway would do that more effectively and would be simple to relocate.
If the velorail does prove successful (other than effective in eating up leader funding) it will be hard to justify closing it.

Why not have both!

http://www.mayenne-tourisme.com/en/Bougez/Loisirs-sensation/Velo-rail

GM228

Meanwhile on another disused closed railway in Mayo, which has been reinvented into the "Great Western Greenway" they have received another huge grant of €300,000 to rebuild the derelict Mulranny train station! With thanks to the "Minister for Westport"

Report in the Mayo News today,

Muckyboots wrote: »

You have to hand it to Ringer. Greenway my way but its not going to go your way. Auction and parish pump politics of the worst kind. €300,000 - enough money to........ ah, you know what ? we get what we deserve sometimes.

He's determined to keep all investment in cycling close to home, to keep the westport hoteliers happy.
They don't get it that the touring cyclist is a different business than the day tripper, and that the rail trail wouldn't leak cyclists from Westport.
They also don't seem to get that the Dublin clifden route will halve their business. Watch them clamour for connectivity to athenry-Sligo then.

BoatMad wrote: »

The Burma road was a key line of the Waterford and Limerick railway , it was built under balfours " light " railway legislation and its not a " light railway ". It carries significant amounts of heavy fright and upto 10 carriage passages trains at times.

All IR would do is relay it with modern Continuous rail and concrete sleepers for low maintenance and upkeep by modern rail maintenance equipment

Apparently the concept of relaying any tracks or sleepers is a no-no in Mayo and Galway.
The existing track mustn't be touched; it's a reserved sin.

savagethegoat wrote: »

All? well I think there might be a little matter of reinstating the drainage, replacing level crossings and fences, cutting down the odd forest, digging up people's lawns and driveways, and a few other jobs. It would be a fright really.

digging up peoples lawns and driveways would be the easy bit. do it in the middle of the night.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/objections-put-brakes-on-cycleway-from-dublin-to-galway-1.2411393

IFA and Galway farmers get their way, lets hope donohoe cracks it alongside the existing railway.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

For balance we should point out that the Galway Cycling Campaign - who are fully behind the idea of cross country cycling routes - also called for the plug to be pulled on the project as unworkable in the format that was put forward.

http://www.galwaycycling.org/cycling-campaign-say-old-n6-not-suitable-location-for-international-greenway/

It was doomed to failure from the moment it was given to roads engineers to deliver.

GC that's a great reponse Galway Cycling put in to the Minister thanks for the link. The N6 argument I don't believe is accepted by the Minister either, personally I think it is leaning towards the Lorraine Higgins suggestion she put to the Minister of working with Irish Rail to overcome the problem and go parallel with the existing railway, Works in other countries, but this is Ireland of course.

westtip wrote: »

Did you have some trouble reading that bit I put up from the McCann report or don't you accept a report that even West on Track agreed with?

Ive read the McCann report, most of what it stated is pulled out of thin air,

Its a widely misunderstood fact that Balfours Light railway act in 1860 was a piece of legislation to allow the state to underwrite the building of lines where private capital was impossible or difficult to acquire. IN particular pressure from irish nationalism had made obtaining private capital for rail lines difficult to get especially in the west

The subsequent rail lines built are not ' light " railways ( or rather they didn't have to be a light railway ) in the expected engineering terms of " light railways ". The burma road is an undulating line and built cheaper then some Irish mainlines, is not that dis-similar to many other secondary lines in Ireland

The Burma road carried main lines locomotives like the A class, and considerable heavy freight and large passenger trains on specials from time to time in its operational history

The re laying of CWR would produce track of similar standard to the southern WRC corridor ( with its issues as well of course ) . Lines speeds would always be an issue as the topology of the line compromises this, but this is no different to sections of the Dublin to rosslare line for example.

The main issues are level crossings , which in todays rail system either have to be removed by turning them into bridges or using automated barriers, thats a considerable cost on the Burma road.

eastwest wrote: »

It would certainly have more of an impact on jobs in Gort than a couple of pensioners looking up briefly from their sandwiches and asking 'where's this place?'

perhaps we could agree that neither option is a solution.