Western Rail Corridor / Rail Trail Discussion

The only two airports on the island of Ireland that are built along train lines are Derry and Belfast City - neither of which have stops that serve the airport.

This doesn't make sense BTW - infrastructure is needed to connect rural communities to one another, to carry produce from one place to another. There is nothing anti-urban about allowing rural infrastructure to gradually run down, or fall apart.

Look at our islands for instance, rural communities with a vengeance. Which of them had proper quays built in the first 50, 80 years of independence? While the islands west of Carraroe were all connected together and to the mainland prior to independence, the other islands were allowed to fester and die - as was most of rural Ireland. In relative terms, imagine the social and economic benefits of building causeways or bridges between the three Aran Islands for the inhabitants of those islands, and having a bus run back and forth from Inis Oirr to Bun Gabhla in the west of Inishmore.

In mainland terms, how about running trains through from Cork to Belfast, Wexford to Sligo and so on, instead of everything running from a hub in Dublin. And we're still waiting for a good, high-quality road from Cork to Letterkenny and Derry.

Greatly needed too seeing as though it has well over 30 million passengers per year. You should also know the metro is about a lot more than connectivity to the airport.

Absolutely. While Ryan may not be aware of the basic realities, you'd hope the AIRR takes cognisance of the actual situation on the ground and recommends investing in Belview as a hub for rail freight. If not, and it spoofs about Rosslare, then the report will essentially be the equivalent of toilet paper.

The comments of Joe Gilmore from Knock Airport to the Inter-County Expenses Collection Committee being reported again, with sh1te about shuttles from Kiltimagh or Charlestown, neither of which have a hope in hell of ever being re-opened for rail - all to aid in his attempted greenwashing of the most unsustainable form of transport.

If he was actually keen on a rail link he'd be trying to get a shuttle to Ballyhaunis in place.

If anybody is enthusiastic rail freight about from Claremorris that is because there is an existing operational rail line running through there. We certainly don't have to spend more than €100m to accommodate that freight. Fairly modest upgrades could facilitate much more services to/from Mayo, be they passenger or freight.

If the AIRR recommends further reopening the WRC then it is basically toilet paper. There is so much untapped potential in the existing network which could be unlocked with relatively modest investment. Spending a nine figure sum to reopen another limited capacity line which connects into the existing network which has little capacity for additional services would be absolutely criminal.

Its not 100m. Its not even the 154m previously claimed (that should be rounded up, not down as its over 150, if you wanted a round figure) - its probably 300m all in. Plus ongoing running costs, with absolutely nothing to suggest a positive return on that.

And I mean in general, not in terms of notional profits. It will not deliver growth at the same rate as about a thousand individual other transport projects in the country would.

The main claim people currently make involves diverting existing rail freight flows that are perfectly well catered for on the existing network so there isn't even a climate argument to be made - the CO2 produced during the rebuild/reinstatement works would never be recovered in any tiny savings on existing trains. There will be a feck load of concrete poured to rebuild a railway, pouring out CO2 for decades (quickly then slowly)

If I had 154m to improve rail in Mayo, it wouldn't be spent on the WRC - even if it could be got for 154m, which it can't. It would be spent on freight yards, double tracking, station facilities, railcars, improving/guaranteeing bus connections to rail stations and so on. Because the return for those would be vastly, vastly higher than the return on reopening Claremorris-Athenry

The money would be better spent on other transport projects, that's why. Providing a faster, more reliable service on existing routes is of a much higher benefit than reopening a goat track to some villages

Yes I agree that generally priority has be to given to where demand is greatest. I'm certainly not blindly saying put loads of money into the west and stop things elsewhere. You will actually meet people with that mindset but thats just a parish pump mindset.

I totally get your point about the major population at Limerick end and I'd never suggest that the numbers compare. However I'm talking about the region as a whole and how the country will look in the future. The Northwest was recently ranked 218th out of 234 EU regions based on lack of infrastructure. For a country as small as we are I think that's kind of embarrassing for us on the European stage. We are probably the most capital-centric country in the EU based on the dominance of Dublin.

We need to maintain spending on public infrastructure in Dublin and I'm fully in favour of the metro despite the earth-watering cost of it. Its a European capital and we need a proper airport link. But beside that there's a bit of chicken and egg situation in Dublin - keep investing there and dragging more and more people into its spraling boundaries and then you need to keep pumping money into services and infrastructure as a result.

Its only a single north-south rail line in the northwest and west region we are asking for (forget the north of Claremorris part) not a warren of tracks throughout the region. Other countries are much better than Ireland at long term planning - often catering for 50 to 100 years ahead. Our population is expected to keep increasing albeit it more slowly in the West than the East. So its a choice between continuing to prioritise other areas with greater demand or else give those areas the bulk of the investment and let the west have a small slice of the pie, even if it means a spending bias.

Tourism is a low value industry, which adds next to feck all to the Irish ecobomy. 90%+ of people employed in tourism are earning half or less of the median income, its valuable to countries like Egypt where the additional jobs can help lift people from poverty, but it doesn't add much to developed economies, least of all one of the most developed economies that has ever existed. Ireland has extremely low unemployment, we actually don't have the staff available to fulfill a large expansion of tourism and attracting staff to remote regions for a low wage is basically impossible. The hospitality industry even in Dublin is awash with staff wanted signs.

People oppose further expansion of the wrc because its seen as diverting money from projects that are actually needed and will actually get people out of cars like Cork's light rail or expanding heavy rail to places where there is actually a demand like Navan or the large towns in west Cork, the villages in Mayo theoretically served by the wrc are mostly empty as planning policy encouraged people to abandon villages in favour of dispersal of the population to isolated dwellings in farm land.

no just modernisation.

every rail line in the country is victorian.

realistically if there is wide scale support for the reopening of a line then there is obviously justification for it as otherwise any proposals would be ignored and have no support outside a specific individual advocating for them.

the reality is that generally any line that would be reopened more then competes with the bus, as even if it does have a slightly lowere speed then the main road part of the journey, traffic rates along part of the route make road based transport slower as a whole over all due to the traffic rates.

when we get people out of the cars on to rail along routes like the atlantic corridor, then the bus can offer fast journeys from areas that genuinely do have a low population and genuinely wouldn't justify rail.

the atlantic corridor has areas where that wouldn't apply hence why ryan wants to reopen the closed part of the east-west railway corridor and hopefully improve the speeds finally on the opened part, and reopen part 2 of the western railway corridor.

so yes modernisation as far as i can see and long, long over due.

now whether it will be delivered is another question but at least it is getting support in government circles.

With probably one or two changes on a service that can't compete with bus.

it would still not negate the need for the reopening of the rail line.

the works should still be done as it will benefit those who want to use bus services, but the rail line is needed as well as it will give greater public transport options and services, which is better over all and will encourage greater PT take up, which is what we all want.