Western Rail Corridor

Judgement Day

ODS
'I'm Dublin-based without interests in the WRC area, other than I look forward to day whereby I'm able to take my bike from Waterford, Cork, Rosslare, Limerick, to Galway, Clare, or Mayo - without having to go via Dublin.'


Given that most of these services are going to operate with 'Commuter' railcars I wouldn't bank on being able to take your bike with you!

KC61

Judgement Day wrote: »

ODS
'I'm Dublin-based without interests in the WRC area, other than I look forward to day whereby I'm able to take my bike from Waterford, Cork, Rosslare, Limerick, to Galway, Clare, or Mayo - without having to go via Dublin.'


Given that most of these services are going to operate with 'Commuter' railcars I would bank on being able to take your bike with you!

The Limerick based fleet are 2700 Class railcars which are fitted with bicycle racks already.

Judgement Day

Ok so some 2700s are fitted with bike racks but how many bikes can say a 4 or 6 piece set carry? Unlike the good old days where you could pile any amount of bikes into the guards/gen van - will you have to book your bike in advance on these glorified tin cans?

alan4cult

Judgement Day wrote: »

Ok so some 2700s are fitted with bike racks but how many bikes can say a 4 or 6 piece set carry? Unlike the good old days where you could pile any amount of bikes into the guards/gen van - will you have to book your bike in advance on these glorified tin cans?

IMO:
Bicycles were made for cycling and I rarely see them on trains and I travel every week. If you want the old gen vans back then you can write to Irish Rail and tell them you unhappy with railcars and would prefer loco hauled passenger carriages. You know that the guards van was never intended to hold bikes so there is no grounds for presuming Irish rail will accommodate large numbers of "bicycle only" areas on their trains. I have travelled on trains in Europe and the bicycle storage isn't huge either.

Judgement Day

alan4cult wrote: »

IMO:
Bicycles were made for cycling and I rarely see them on trains and I travel every week. If you want the old gen vans back then you can write to Irish Rail and tell them you unhappy with railcars and would prefer loco hauled passenger carriages. You know that the guards van was never intended to hold bikes so there is no grounds for presuming Irish rail will accommodate large numbers of "bicycle only" areas on their trains. I have travelled on trains in Europe and the bicycle storage isn't huge either.

Call me thick but as far as I know the guard's van/gen.van has been used since time in memoriam for the carriage of parcels, mails, bicycles, small livestock (day old chicks) etc.and it is only on today's - engineer dominated railways - that the raison d'etre for railways ie. the carriage of traffic has been forgotten!

alan4cult

Judgement Day wrote: »

Call me thick but as far as I know the guard's van/gen.van has been used since time in memoriam for the carriage of parcels, mails, bicycles, small livestock (day old chicks) etc.and it is only on today's - engineer dominated railways - that the raison d'etre for railways ie. the carriage of traffic has been forgotten!

I'm not doubting what you say for one second. I'm just saying they weren't necessarily designed to carry the stuff they were carrying. I may be wrong but I never saw a bike rack in a gen van nor chicken coops for that manner! I know that stuff like you mentioned was carried simply because it could be, but since the generator vans have mostly been done away with I don't think Irish Rail are pushed on accommodating large volumes of goods on passenger trains.

Judgement Day

The trouble with CIE/Irish Rail is that they are not pushed about carrying anything - freight or passengers!

alan4cult

Judgement Day wrote: »

The trouble with CIE/Irish Rail is that they are not pushed about carrying anything - freight or passengers!

You're right there!

D'Peoples Voice

ODS wrote: »

According to Seán Barrett, TCD economist, the national roads budget went from 5.6 billion to 16.4 billion already spent, with only 50% built so far.

Would you mind subtracting out the costs of land acquisition from those figures, I think its only fair, afterall the courts decide the cost of land in a CPO, hardly the NRA's fault. Oh and there was a property boom over the period in question.
Now of course, if you want to talk about why local authorities decide on certain routes to go through the lands of certain vested interests, thats a different matter and for a different thread.

Victor

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

Would you mind subtracting out the costs of land acquisition from those figures, I think its only fair, afterall the courts decide the cost of land in a CPO, hardly the NRA's fault. Oh and there was a property boom over the period in question.

Most CPOs are sorted by agreement or arbitration and don't end up in court. The NRA messed up by budgeting only for basic motorways and forgot to take into account things that were anything but the basic.

Nostradamus

Judgement Day wrote: »

The trouble with CIE/Irish Rail is that they are not pushed about carrying anything - freight or passengers!

That should be their Corporate Mission Statement.

CIE - "We're Can't Be Arsed"

marmurr1916

alan4cult wrote: »

IMO:
Bicycles were made for cycling and I rarely see them on trains and I travel every week. If you want the old gen vans back then you can write to Irish Rail and tell them you unhappy with railcars and would prefer loco hauled passenger carriages. You know that the guards van was never intended to hold bikes so there is no grounds for presuming Irish rail will accommodate large numbers of "bicycle only" areas on their trains. I have travelled on trains in Europe and the bicycle storage isn't huge either.

There are dedicated areas for bicycles in ordinary passenger carriages on most trains in Germany.

Even the S-Bahn carriages in Berlin carry bicycles.

Tadhg17

http://www.galwaynews.ie/6246-galwaylimerick-line-delayed-until-summer

GALWAY-LIMERICK LINE DELAYED UNTIL SUMMER
Mon 19th January 2009
A rail link between Galway and Limerick, which had been scheduled to open last year, is now due to open this Summer.

Coen Holdings had lodged an appeal against the County Council's decision to grant permission to Irish rail to build a new station in Gort, which had delayed the Western Rail Corridor.

However agreement was reached between the two parties and the appeal was withdrawn.

Irish Rail says retendering for the works due to the withdrawal of the planning objection was just one factor leading to a delay in reopening the route.

Spokesperson for Irish Rail, Barry Kenny told Keith Finnegan that people should be able to travel by train from Galway to Limerick by the end of the Summer.

Tadhg17

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0119/1232059658820.html


Irish Rail expects delay in opening western line

DELAY in the reopening of the €106 million Western Rail Corridor is being anticipated by Irish Rail in spite of a planning appeal being withdrawn against a new train station along the route.

Last year Coen Holdings Ltd lodged an appeal against the decision by Galway County Council to grant planning to Irish Rail to construct a new train station at Gort, with a decision not expected before January 24th.

The reopening of the rail line between Ennis, Co Clare, and Athenry, Co Galway, will allow for the restoration of intercity services between Galway and Limerick and Cork after a gap of 33 years, along with increased commuter services into Galway.

Originally due to be operational in 2008, and more recently to open in the spring, the spokesman said the retendering for the works due to the withdrawal of the planning objection was one of a number of factors leading to the delay in reopening the rail link.

“We are told that line is going to open in the summer, but at the moment we don’t know what part of summer that will be.”

The spokesman said Irish Rail would first see how the line performed before deciding on a proposal to construct a crossing point near the Co Clare village of Sixmilebridge, which would significantly increase capacity on the route.

Five stations, including Gort station, are to be upgraded.

dowlingm

does anyone have a copy of the CIE calendar which denotes the seasons? Stuff like Autumn, Winter etc. doesn't fall on the same time of year that most of us are used to :rolleyes:

Tadhg17

dowlingm wrote: »

does anyone have a copy of the CIE calendar which denotes the seasons? Stuff like Autumn, Winter etc. doesn't fall on the same time of year that most of us are used to :rolleyes:

CIE's summer calendar finishes at the end of September no doubt. I would'nt be surprised if another delay was anounced then too due to external factors or some other nonsense :rolleyes:

Eco Eye will be doing a program on the Western Rail Corridor at 7pm on RTE 1 tonight:
http://www.rte.ie/tv/ecoeye/

Nostradamus

Tadhg17 wrote: »

Eco Eye will be doing a program on the Western Rail Corridor at 7pm on RTE 1 tonight:
http://www.rte.ie/tv/ecoeye/

Paid for apparently by the Western County Councils (ie our taxes) - so expect a balanced and objective view of the project with honest passenger and freight projections based on realistic data...

Thank God I got rid of my TV and no longer pay the RTE gombeen propaganda tax.

Judgement Day

God help us, this programme was even worse than I had anticipated but I made myself watch it. It finished on a really surreal note with some bod from Donegal County Council advocating a new standard gauge (?) line linking Sligo to Derry via Donegal Town. Duncan lapped it all up and I was trying not to eat the carpet.........more shots of of Duncan's arse disappearing down the road on his bike.

Somebody in Tubbercurry said they needed the railway for freight so that they could attract new industry. Somebody in Kiltimagh mentioned rosary beads and the smell of steam.....I love trains!!!

Cut to shots of Norfolk line trains - how much longer will they last (?) and timber trains already gone from Sligo and soon from Westport. Somebody official in Tuam seemed to be suggesting that 30-40,000 people would be using the line to Galway daily! I could have got this wrong because it was hard to keep up the concentration on this simplistic rubbish. No mention of the fact that there will be no local freight at all - even if Norfolk Lines trains are diverted to the route. No so much as a parcel, internal IE weekly circular or even staff pay slip will be carried on the delightful 'Commuter' railcars which will soon grace the Ennis/Athenry section of the WRC........and on and on it went!

Vorsprung

Judgement Day wrote: »

God help us, this programme was even worse than I had anticipated but I made myself watch it. It finished on a really surreal note with some bod from Donegal County Council advocating a new standard gauge (?) line linking Sligo to Derry via Donegal Town. Duncan lapped it all up and I was trying not to eat the carpet.........more shots of of Duncan's arse disappearing down the road on his bike.

Somebody in Tubbercurry said they needed the railway for freight so that they could attract new industry. Somebody in Kiltimagh mentioned rosary beads and the smell of steam.....I love trains!!!

Cut to shots of Norfolk line trains - how much longer will they last (?) and timber trains already gone from Sligo and soon from Westport. Somebody official in Tuam seemed to be suggesting that 30-40,000 people would be using the line to Galway daily! I could have got this wrong because it was hard to keep up the concentration on this simplistic rubbish. No mention of the fact that there will be no local freight at all - even if Norfolk Lines trains are diverted to the route. No so much as a parcel, internal IE weekly circular or even staff pay slip will be carried on the delightful 'Commuter' railcars which will soon grace the Ennis/Athenry section of the WRC........and on and on it went!

I saw this. I particularly liked the bit where be interviewed the guy from West on Track - in an otherwise empty station!

Zebra3

I only caught the end of it, but what did people expect? Eco-eye is an enviroment programme and is hardly gonna come out and moan about rail. It's the likes of Prime Time that should be ripping the WRC apart.

DWCommuter

I thought it was an absolutely brilliant piece of comedy!

"Carry on Railway". Sid James would be proud.

It didn't make me angry. It made me laugh. The usual heads were rolled out spouting the same hilarious script. Who cares. The playing field has changed now. They're history.

One thing that caught my eye was Duncan on his bike up in Collooney talking about how the track is hard to find up there as he was stopped on someones driveway that was laid across the line! Mel Brooks would piss himself to have material like that.

Schuhart

DWCommuter wrote: »

I thought it was an absolutely brilliant piece of comedy!

Was I hearing things, or at one point did Duncan actually use the phrase 'the densely populated village of Ballyglunin'? At which point I reckoned the script was written by someone who was enjoying the laugh as much as us.

munchkin_utd

Ecoeye is now available online
http://www.rte.ie/tv/ecoeye/avlong.html?2478322,null,243

Not available to anyone abroad unfortunately as RTE have it blocked.

DWCommuter

Schuhart wrote: »

Was I hearing things, or at one point did Duncan actually use the phrase 'the densely populated village of Ballyglunin'? At which point I reckoned the script was written by someone who was enjoying the laugh as much as us.

He was in Ballyglunin when he referred to the area as a densely populated region.

All it needed was Barbara Windsor and Kenneth Williams. Brilliant stuff!

bill_ashmount

Schuhart wrote: »

Was I hearing things, or at one point did Duncan actually use the phrase 'the densely populated village of Ballyglunin'?

Nostradamus

Does anyone know a good suicide cult I can join?

Victor

Nostradamus wrote: »

Does anyone know a good suicide cult I can join?

I hear Bertie has one.

invincibleirish

Thanks for the link, its great entertainment. They all seem pretty sure the next phases are getting built and all:o.

Nostradamus

Did you notice that not one single potential commuter was interviewed. All civil servants, new age healers, priests and so on. Not one single commuter saying they would use the line every day. Not one.

For me the best bits were; the foxhunt on the road (open the WRC so they can slaughter foxes in safety to save the environment) and the "densely populated village" line. Oh and "you can finally have a railway holiday in Ireland". The bewildered looking chick from the WDC (FAS-on-Track) hoping the interview would be over before the auditors are called in to check their accounts was pretty good too.

I was waiting for a final shot of Ducan Stewart standing beside a Famine Grave with tears rolling down his cheeks screaming "never again!!!"

Incredible entertainment. Simply magnificent. It was a Fr Ted episode come to life.

Anyone else sick of Duncan Stewart sticking his arse at us constantly?

dowlingm

DWCommuter wrote: »

One thing that caught my eye was Duncan on his bike up in Collooney talking about how the track is hard to find up there as he was stopped on someones driveway that was laid across the line!

Anyone who followed Platform 11's (as they were then called) review of the line a few years back won't find that news.

Don't suppose anyone's got the ability to fire some clips on youtube for the expats?