Freight rail in Ireland

SeanW · 21-11-2019 1:38am #1

Hi all,

Anyone know how much (if any) freight still runs on IE? Also, I'd like to see and get some pics of the Bord Na Mona trains before all that winds down in December 2020 when the peat power plants close. Do those run to schedule?

Thanks in advance.

L1011 · 21-11-2019 9:12am

Wood and containers from Mayo to Waterford Belview and Dublin respectively and Tara Mines to Dublin. That's it at the moment.

BnM schedules wouldn't be public. There will still be some turf harvesting after the power stations close, until briquette and peat moss sales stop which is a year or two later I think. And we haven't actually got a public date for BnMs own power station (Edenderry) to close yet

andrewfaulk · 21-11-2019 9:49am

L1011 wrote: »

Wood and containers from Mayo to Waterford Belview and Dublin respectively and Tara Mines to Dublin. That's it at the moment.

BnM schedules wouldn't be public. There will still be some turf harvesting after the power stations close, until briquette and peat moss sales stop which is a year or two later I think. And we haven't actually got a public date for BnMs own power station (Edenderry) to close yet

The timber only runs to Waterford West..

IWT Ballina-Dublin Port, 6 trains per week
Coillte Westport-Waterford West, 3 trains per week
Tara mines, navan-Dublin Port, 15 trains per week

Also not revenue earning but IE run new steel rail trains from Belview to Portlaoise.. About 1 train a week as required

dave 27 · 21-11-2019 9:55am

Irish Cement have a big factory outside Limerick, is that rail not used anymore?

I remember a few years ago in the boom seeing the trains leave going through one of the suburbs and it must have been about a mile long!

Del.Monte · 21-11-2019 9:59am

dave 27 wrote: »

Irish Cement have a big factory outside Limerick, is that rail not used anymore?

I remember a few years ago in the boom seeing the trains leave going through one of the suburbs and it must have been about a mile long!

Irish Cement traffic is gone for years now.

dave 27 · 21-11-2019 10:47am

Del.Monte wrote: »

Irish Cement traffic is gone for years now.

Do they just use trucks now?

thewexman93 · 21-11-2019 1:13pm

Isn't it the height of Irishness that the only port in the country owned by Irish Rail, doesn't have rail freight facilities

Del.Monte · 21-11-2019 3:02pm

dave 27 wrote: »

Do they just use trucks now?

Yes.

andrewfaulk · 21-11-2019 6:09pm

thewexman93 wrote: »

Isn't it the height of Irishness that the only port in the country owned by Irish Rail, doesn't have rail freight facilities

Not really, makes perfect sense if you think about it logically

thewexman93 · 21-11-2019 6:17pm

andrewfaulk wrote: »

Not really, makes perfect sense if you think about it logically

What's your logical reasoning then?

andrewfaulk · 21-11-2019 6:41pm

thewexman93 wrote: »

What's your logical reasoning then?

I’ve done a few posts on this and other fora already.

Short list:
-No demand for it
- Rosslare is a RO/Ro port, road trailers can’t be carried by rail in Ireland
- Lack of capacity on rail lines to from port
- Rosslare mainly serves south east and South of country, short length of hauls don’t make rail viable

You might not like to hear this, but in the general scheme of things Rosslare is a small port, with very little population or demand in the local area.. Road transport and Ro/Ro shipping is becoming more expensive for a number of reasons(driver shortage, fuel costs, Road tolls) so this will likely continue

easypazz · 21-11-2019 8:41pm

thewexman93 wrote: »

What's your logical reasoning then?

Irish rail primarily carry people, with a small bit of cargo.

50 years ago rosslare would have carried a lot of foot passengers who arrived by train, rather than ever being a cargo hub.

I presume at one stage it carried mail on the ferries, and maybe some small freight, but I dont think rosslare was ever much of a cargo hub.

thewexman93 · 22-11-2019 9:22am

But the lack of facilities and investment is exactly the reason why it isn't much of a cargo hub. If the facilities were there, no doubt it would see increased demand. And Rosslare is linked by rail to every part of the country via waterford line and via dublin line.

andrewfaulk · 22-11-2019 9:48am

thewexman93 wrote: »

But the lack of facilities and investment is exactly the reason why it isn't much of a cargo hub. If the facilities were there, no doubt it would see increased demand. And Rosslare is linked by rail to every part of the country via waterford line and via dublin line.

But why ship something to Rosslare to then rail it to somewhere else in the country, when there is probably a port closer to you destination.. in freight, cheaper is nearly always better.. And moving by sea if cheaper that by rail or road..

thewexman93 · 22-11-2019 10:28am

A container arriving in rosslare from france would be quicker to get anywhere in the country than from France to Dublin.

MrAbyss · 22-11-2019 3:17pm

thewexman93 wrote: »

Isn't it the height of Irishness that the only port in the country owned by Irish Rail, doesn't have rail freight facilities

When the major works on Rosslare was done in the late 1980s there was ample scope for a rail connections and developments - but at the time Irish Rail was planning to make Athlone the last railway station in Ireland and close down everything else. This is why they moved the station to the Leinster Side of the Shannon.

That is 100% true. An IE engineer told me so. He seemed quite shocked when I asked him, but what about population increases in the future. He was literally stunned.

It was that moment I stared into the soul of the CIE Borg and wished I hadn't.

dowlingm · 24-11-2019 11:19pm

thewexman93 wrote: »

Isn't it the height of Irishness that the only port in the country owned by Irish Rail, doesn't have rail freight facilities

The Fishguard and Rosslare Harbour Railways Company is a joint UK-Irish mess to be fair...

canuck22 · 04-01-2020 8:05pm

andrewfaulk wrote: »

The timber only runs to Waterford West..

IWT Ballina-Dublin Port, 6 trains per week
Coillte Westport-Waterford West, 3 trains per week
Tara mines, navan-Dublin Port, 15 trains per week

Also not revenue earning but IE run new steel rail trains from Belview to Portlaoise.. About 1 train a week as required

The IWT "Liner" seems to run under symbols K800/K801/K802/K803 depending on the day.

Could anyone provide what symbols the timber/Coilite, mines, or steel trains run under?

Lance Gleich

tabbey · 20-04-2020 1:58pm

How are rail freight operations faring during the Covid-19 lockdown?

Is ore still being extracted from Tara Mines or has it been suspended? and similarly Coca-Cola in Ballina, and timber from Coillte in Mayo to Waterford?

andrewfaulk · 20-04-2020 2:14pm

tabbey wrote: »

How are rail freight operations faring during the Covid-19 lockdown?

Is ore still being extracted from Tara Mines or has it been suspended? and similarly Coca-Cola in Ballina, and timber from Coillte in Mayo to Waterford?

Tara mines, still operating, about 10 trains per week from a usual 14 operating

IWT, still operating, may drop off in a week or two down to 4-5 trains per week

Timber, suspended, last train ran on 9th April ex Westport but is only being offloaded in Waterford today.. May resume in the next week or two

Losty Dublin · 21-04-2020 4:53pm

andrewfaulk wrote: »

Tara mines, still operating, about 10 trains per week from a usual 14 operating

IWT, still operating, may drop off in a week or two down to 4-5 trains per week

Timber, suspended, last train ran on 9th April ex Westport but is only being offloaded in Waterford today.. May resume in the next week or two

The timber plant is closed until at least next week. The Tara's have been slacking in recent times owing to a slight slowdown in processing but that's over a year and not Covid19 related. There was a renewal of the unloading facility recently which led to a cessation in the traffic.

There has been a few PW trains of late, with the new tamper seen recently in Mostrim and the works trains between Waterford and Limerick having worked through last week.

Effects · 30-04-2020 3:52pm

A friend on mine asked about the Irish Cement bubble freights the other day, and I can't remember last time I saw them running.
Have they been replaced by a different type? Or has it moved to road freight?

91wx763 · 30-04-2020 4:17pm

Effects wrote: »

A friend on mine asked about the Irish Cement bubble freights the other day, and I can't remember last time I saw them running.
Have they been replaced by a different type? Or has it moved to road freight?

The small bubbles were rather knackered anyway but they were all cut up when IÉ "withdrew" from the cement business in 2009. The bigger bogie tank wagons are derelict beside the line out of Limerick.

Losty Dublin · 30-04-2020 4:42pm

Effects wrote: »

A friend on mine asked about the Irish Cement bubble freights the other day, and I can't remember last time I saw them running.
Have they been replaced by a different type? Or has it moved to road freight?

Cement traffic ceased in 2009 in and around the time that the recession kicked in. Last I heard the cement tanks remain unused in Limerick and could be returned to traffic if needs be, unlikely and all that it would happen again.

L1011 · 30-04-2020 8:24pm

Once a company moves to road, the sunk cost of road vehicles and any new distribution methods means that going back to rail is exceptionally unlikely. Hence the ILDA strike is responsible for more loss of rail freight than anything else put together really; but also why Irish Cement won't be going back.

Losty Dublin · 01-05-2020 9:43am

L1011 wrote: »

Hence the ILDA strike is responsible for more loss of rail freight than anything else put together really; but also why Irish Cement won't be going back.

Complete misnomer. Those freight flows that ceased or diminished after the ILDA were well on their way anyway. As it is, ILDA drivers even undertook to work some flows under the shadow of market collapse; the flows still went anyway.

Easier to blame the illegal strikes than it was to blame government policy, the evolving marketplace and the cut yer neck that is road haulage. I say this as somebody who has a lot of contempt for Ogle and as somebody who happens to know a few people who were ILDA members at the time and who knows a little of their side of things.

L1011 · 01-05-2020 11:36pm

That's a pathetic attempt at blame shifting if I ever saw one.

Patchy service is worse than none when the alternative is reliable. ILDA pushed customers to use road transit and gave zero reason for them to come back.

Rulmeq · 07-05-2020 11:59am

L1011 wrote: »

That's a pathetic attempt at blame shifting if I ever saw one.

Patchy service is worse than none when the alternative is reliable. ILDA pushed customers to use road transit and gave zero reason for them to come back.

Brendan Ogle needed to make a name for himself some how

tabbey · 07-05-2020 2:33pm

Rulmeq wrote: »

Brendan Ogle needed to make a name for himself some how

Correct.

He is a pure psychopath.

Board Walker · 08-05-2020 12:17pm

dave 27 wrote: »

Do they just use trucks now?

Yep. And obviously the Gypsum is not brought from Kingscourt to the cement factory either

Hotblack Desiato · 08-05-2020 1:27pm

thewexman93 wrote: »

But the lack of facilities and investment is exactly the reason why it isn't much of a cargo hub. If the facilities were there, no doubt it would see increased demand.

"Build it, and they will come" :rolleyes:

Many, many, many more useful places where Irish Rail should be investing, where extra capacity is already sorely needed.

Losty Dublin wrote: »

As it is, ILDA drivers even undertook to work some flows under the shadow of market collapse

Business needs certainty - not "we'll work sometime, if we feel like it."

Cookie_Monster · 09-05-2020 1:39am

91wx763 wrote: »

The small bubbles were rather knackered anyway but they were all cut up when IÉ "withdrew" from the cement business in 2009. The bigger bogie tank wagons are derelict beside the line out of Limerick.

you can see them here on maps
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Limerick,+Ireland/@52.6544465,-8.6116282,261m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x485b5c611f545113:0xa00c7a997317330!8m2!3d52.6638367!4d-8.6267343

91wx763 · 09-05-2020 2:23pm

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

you can see them here on maps
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Limerick,+Ireland/@52.6544465,-8.6116282,261m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x485b5c611f545113:0xa00c7a997317330!8m2!3d52.6638367!4d-8.6267343

Weren't there a few more of those than are seen there ?

Sad to see some of the pocket wagons that hardly broke a sweat before IÉ gave up the business sitting derelict too, there are some in Waterford yard too, the drivers there run them up and down their siding every now and then, I doubt if that happens in Limerick.

end of the road · 09-05-2020 3:04pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Many, many, many more useful places where Irish Rail should be investing, where extra capacity is already sorely needed.

irish rail don't invest in anything, it is the government who invest.

Hotblack Desiato · 14-05-2020 12:02pm

...and who does the government give the money to on those admittedly rare occasions? :rolleyes:

I really don't know why you thought that was worth the keystrokes?

end of the road · 14-05-2020 2:06pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

...and who does the government give the money to on those admittedly rare occasions? :rolleyes:

I really don't know why you thought that was worth the keystrokes?

because it is the reality.
the government have to give irish rail money to implement the projects, the money isn't coming out of irish rail's pocket.
not my problem if you have an issue with that tbh.

Hotblack Desiato · 14-05-2020 8:36pm

Nobody said it was coming out of Irish Rail's pocket, we all know their pocket has a massive hole in it...

un5byh7sqpd2x0 · 16-05-2020 10:40am

dave 27 wrote: »

Irish Cement have a big factory outside Limerick, is that rail not used anymore?

I remember a few years ago in the boom seeing the trains leave going through one of the suburbs and it must have been about a mile long!

https://goo.gl/maps/PAuxu2GjbsVfWtmF8

91wx763 · 16-05-2020 2:06pm

Brianna Alive Karaoke wrote: »

https://goo.gl/maps/PAuxu2GjbsVfWtmF8

https://goo.gl/maps/Ym2nUauNh8LMM5ti6 This one works

Cookiemunster · 19-05-2020 12:08pm

91wx763 wrote: »

https://goo.gl/maps/Ym2nUauNh8LMM5ti6 This one works

That along with the crossings on the N69 and at Childers Road have been tarmaced over.

TheBoyConor · 19-05-2020 4:06pm

How is it that we are still discussing Irish Rail and freight in the same conversation?

Stop, stop, it's already dead!

end of the road · 20-05-2020 2:48pm

we are discussing it because.
1. because they still carry freight all be it in a small amount, so not quite dead yet.
2. because we can and wish to discuss it.

TheBoyConor · 20-05-2020 3:19pm

Your user name is quite apt for the subject under discussion.

Anyway, on those pocket wagons, what did IE originally buy those for, and when? Who was the client that they were intended to service?

And what was their purpose? What could they do that the regular flat wagons could not? Could they stack containers 2 high on them?

dowlingm · 21-05-2020 3:54am

TheBoyConor wrote: »

Your user name is quite apt for the subject under discussion.

Anyway, on those pocket wagons, what did IE originally buy those for, and when? Who was the client that they were intended to service?

And what was their purpose? What could they do that the regular flat wagons could not? Could they stack containers 2 high on them?

They could carry 9’6” High Cube containers on routes cleared for 8’6 on flat wagons, but fewer containers could be carried over the same train length
https://www.containercontainer.com/shipping-container-dimensions/

Ballina-North Wall being cleared for 9’6 on flats reduced the need for them.

TheBoyConor · 21-05-2020 11:14am

What happened on the Ballina to North Wall route that made it suitable for 9'6" containers? Was there works done or was it a paper exercise to approve it?
If the latter, surely it would have made more sense to just approve the route beforehand rather than buying a whole heap of rolling stock that ended up abandoned.

And the pocket wagons now, are any of them still in use or are they all parked up?

For the parked up ones, would it be prohibitively expensive to bring them back into service if a use could be found? I'd imagine all the electrics and pneumatics in them would be perished to hell now at this stage. Corrosion and water getting into wheel bearings probably has taken a toll too.

Might it be more likely that the next stop for them would be Hammond Lane rather than Ballina ?

sweet_trip · 22-05-2020 10:46am

I've seen some timber trains head into Waterford still. Presumably the Timber is going to the big timber factory in Belview port to be shipped out.

Why do they have to truck it from the railway depot in Waterford to Belview when the train could directly go to the port?

andrewfaulk · 22-05-2020 11:05am

sweet_trip wrote: »

I've seen some timber trains head into Waterford still. Presumably the Timber is going to the big timber factory in Belview port to be shipped out.

Why do they have to truck it from the railway depot in Waterford to Belview when the train could directly go to the port?

The timber is going to the Smartply plant is Belview Port Estate to be processed into wooden board products.. Some of this would be exported from the Port of Waterford, some goes ex Dublin and some is for Domestic use.. Currently one train a week ex Westport on a Monday

The timber is trucked from Waterford West yard to the plant as there is no rail access to the factory, and handling it in the port would be quite disruptive to operations there..

andrewfaulk · 22-05-2020 11:21am

TheBoyConor wrote: »

What happened on the Ballina to North Wall route that made it suitable for 9'6" containers? Was there works done or was it a paper exercise to approve it?
If the latter, surely it would have made more sense to just approve the route beforehand rather than buying a whole heap of rolling stock that ended up abandoned.

And the pocket wagons now, are any of them still in use or are they all parked up?

For the parked up ones, would it be prohibitively expensive to bring them back into service if a use could be found? I'd imagine all the electrics and pneumatics in them would be perished to hell now at this stage. Corrosion and water getting into wheel bearings probably has taken a toll too.

Might it be more likely that the next stop for them would be Hammond Lane rather than Ballina ?

The pocket wagons were ordered in the early 2000s, when 9ft 6 containers were starting to increase in usage. They allowed 9ft 6 high containers to be carried on routes where the loading gauge was limited. From 2003 to 2006 they were used to operate Dublin to Cork liners, as the tunnel on the approach to Cork station is quite low.. Once IE withdrew from operating it's own container trains, the CPWs were placed into storage..

They came back into use in 2011 I think it was, to operate 9ft 6 containers on the IWT NW-Ballina service.. The gauge clearance between NW and Kildare was done after that(2012 I think) and involved lowering of some tracks, slewing tracks to run more centrally through bridges and implementation of some speed limits for freight in certain areas.. The benefit being that 9ft 6in high containers can be carried on normal flat wagons that are shorter, allowing more wagons per train..

The CPWs could be brought back into use if needed, can remember the figure but I think its about 80K to bring 14(1 set plus 2 spares) back into use.. These are the ones that were used by DFDS until 2018.. The other 10 have been stored for longer and would most likely need more intensive work done on them to return to service.. Whether they will return to service is debatable but I wouldn't rule it out

road_high · 25-06-2020 11:53am

Ballina to Waterford port restarting again?
https://fleet.ie/xpo-logistics-to-create-a-new-ballina-waterford-rail-freight-service/?fbclid=IwAR2lri-nbOax4RdLpl7JBl4aFSKChPDqi1hvLwZdKYYIWR9r9uDwRo3uwbQ

tabbey · 25-06-2020 12:26pm

road_high wrote: »

Ballina to Waterford port restarting again?
https://fleet.ie/xpo-logistics-to-create-a-new-ballina-waterford-rail-freight-service/?fbclid=IwAR2lri-nbOax4RdLpl7JBl4aFSKChPDqi1hvLwZdKYYIWR9r9uDwRo3uwbQ

I take it that ballina beverages is coca cola.
The question is whether the existing traffic to Dublin by iwt will just change to Waterford, or is this additional traffic?

Jamie2k9 · 25-06-2020 1:28pm

The company is currently looking for potential customers in the West that are manufacturing and exporting/importing, which at present would have to use the Ballina Terminal for loading/unloading until additional collection points are created along the west-south railway.

Would be good to see this happen but I wouldn't be so confident.

Freight rail in Ireland

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