Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Western Rail Corridor
Options
Comments
-
Nostradamus wrote: »I meant how much are they channeling from the public coffers into the WDC to fund this bizarre get together? Even with that I would imagine that most of the 100 euro payments will be delgates from the CoCo's and so on who will be attending at taxpayers expense.
Maybe Railusers Ireland should throw a hooley like that if having a party's the issue:P
No offence but if they want to have a PR leaflet drop/day out of the office on a bank holiday weekend then it's the attendees call to waste/spend ticket money as they wish. Lord knows, if they didn't go, they'd miss being talked about
IMO, it's quite a smart money spinner for WOT while keeping their PR trumpet playing.0 -
-
Hamndegger wrote: »Maybe Railusers Ireland should throw a hooley like that if having a party's the issue:P
No offence but if they want to have a PR leaflet drop/day out of the office on a bank holiday weekend then it's the attendees call to waste/spend ticket money as they wish. Lord knows, if they didn't go, they'd miss being talked about
IMO, it's quite a smart money spinner for WOT while keeping their PR trumpet playing.
The thing is that although I agree with most of what you are saying, the fact remains that this upcoming WoT/WDC circus is just proof that regardless of this massive economic depression Ireland is currently experiencing, it is business as usual for public servants. They can get paid to go talk utter rubbish about nothing menaingful, and then charge the tax payers on top of that to fund even more magical thinking.
It's only private sector workers who are left to suffer in the real world. While they are struggleing to keep a roof over their heads during these times the only issue these civil servants care about is their rail line.
The country is in bits and these civil servants are being funded by the taxpayers to live in a fantasy world when they should be at their desks that day doing real work. That includes Dempsey and O'Cuiv btw.
Maybe it is just as well as otherwise they might be chaining themselves to the crossing gates at Woodlawn.0 -
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
Too Late
Udarás na Gaeltachta is sending 4 delemegates (there are no railways in the gaeltacht ) while O Cuivs department is sending at least 6 delemegates and not all are travelling from the Knock office and of course they are not travelling together to save on the mileage expenses .
The civil service trough is still feeding the piggies 0 -
Exactly what these bloodsuckers are-pigs. Draining precious resources. The political system in Ireland means we will never have the balls to tell the regions that this or that project is away with the fairies.Sponge Bob wrote: »Too Late
Udarás na Gaeltachta is sending 4 delemegates (there are no railways in the gaeltacht ) while O Cuivs department is sending at least 6 delemegates and not all are travelling from the Knock office and of course they are not travelling together to save on the mileage expenses .
The civil service trough is still feeding the piggies0 -
DWCommuter wrote: »The car dealership is so supportive of the WRC and WOT campaign that they have laid a lawn over the track to protect it from heathen D4 types.
wrc buried.jpg
Ha ha, brilliant
0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
DWCommuter wrote: »Im sure he meant the gealtacht in the west. As for meath.......don't get me started.;)
Here, I fully expect the Letterkenny & Burtonport Extension Railway to be the next on the list to be reopened... some of the platforms are still standing and all! That serves lots of gaeltachts...
0 -
Had the local Fianna Fail councillor round to the house the other day on a (very) early canvass. In trying to deflect my rant about FF he tried to start talking about local issues and he told me how supportive he was of the WRC. When I told him I thought it was a waste of money he looked at me like I had ten heads!
Obviously not a reaction he was expecting 0 -
Had the local Fianna Fail councillor round to the house the other day on a (very) early canvass. In trying to deflect my rant about FF he tried to start talking about local issues and he told me how supportive he was of the WRC. When I told him I thought it was a waste of money he looked at me like I had ten heads!
Obviously not a reaction he was expecting
I saw a sign once in London once which read "POLITICS IS PIG****".
QED0 -
The 5th anniversary of Platform 11's rejection of the WRC has just passed. It was indeed April 04 when the unthinkable happened and a rail lobby actually dismissed a rail project. War broke out among trainspotters, activists, enthusiasts, politicians, internet warriors, the pope and even *Jesus Christ himself was heard comment in the *kingdom of heaven. (*all other religions insert appropriately. Non-believers of religion, organised or not, just bypass said comment.)
The much derided founders of that bastion of fear, P11, have moved aside and took their place alongside the ordinary internet moaners. Once again mere mortals with about as much influence as a cup of tea at an alcoholics beer festival. P11 has now become RUI and sits lonely amid the myriad of cyberspace honcho's, state plants and mudane issues. We have gone from an unprecedented boom to a recession that is, in an Irish perspective, uncharted waters. Throughout all this the WRC has remained steadfast. Its supporters committed (they should be anyway) its detractors blue in the face stating the obvious. But we must admit, P11 brought life to this topic. It provided the first alternative view in the media. It provoked a huge debate between all sorts of factions. From IRN, WOT to the average Joe hangin around the net. The unrelenting bish, bash, boff of opinion was entertaining at the very least.
So lets celebrate some special moments, when I and Thomas Sheridan as the driving force behind a shoestring organisation, took on the might of the west of Ireland.
The Wikipedia entry on the WRC still refers to the P11 "assault".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Railway_Corridor
An article in the Castlebar News[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Rail pressure[/FONT]
THE national rail transport pressure group, Platform II, has been accused of ‘a terrible act of sabotage’ following its stated opposition to the re-opening of the Western Rail Corridor, linking Sligo with Galway and Limerick. Fr. Micheál McGréil, who has campaigned for the re-opening of the Sligo-Limerick line for almost twenty years, said he was saddened and disappointed by the opposition of Platform II to the project. ‘I understand the group is made up of about five people and their stance is divisive and narrow-minded. It feeds into the centralist mind set which queries everything that is planned for outside Dublin’ he said. Platform II maintains that the estimated 300 million euro it would cost to reopen and upgrade the link along a mostly disused line could be better spent on other rail projects, such as the Cork-Midleton, Dublin-Navan and Athlone-Mullingar lines. The group’s spokesman, Mr. Derek Wheeler, said 300 million euro would go a long way towards securing the future of existing regional rail routes such as the Limerick-Waterford line. Mr. Wheeler said that Dublin remained the only capital city in the EU still without a rail link of any kind to its airport.
A response to the same article from a commentator.It’s disturbing when two lobby groups both interested in trains being to steam off in opposite directions. For sure this dispute will damage the case for the western rail corridor. From the Dublin commuters’ point of view the western rail corridor is irrelevant – sure it doesn’t even go to Dublin! But if resources are limited and the argument is a narrow economic one, then the Dublin-centric argument will hold sway. With the current government’s approach to economics, I think the Western Rail Corridor group may as well just pack up and go home - snowballs and hell come to mind regardless of all the upbeat coverage with Seamus Brennan last week. Remember folks there is an election in the offing so tune up those BS detectors whenever a politician grabs a mic.
It seems that P11 upset many more than the brave westeners. Who knew that they had northern connections!Madam, - Derek Wheeler, a spokesman for Platform II, is quoted (April 6th) as offering as a reason for opposing the reopening of the Western Rail Corridor (WRC) linking Sligo with Galway that "there was no major population centre north of Tuam which was not currently served by rail."
This is startling stuff. (Letterkenny?) It also suggests a remarkable lack of vision on the part of someone apparently speaking for a "national rail transport group." The Into The West rail lobby, formed in Derry earlier this year to campaign for the retention and upgrading of the Derry-Ballymena stretch of the line to Belfast, envisages an extension westwards and southwards from Derry to link up with the WRC at Sligo. The Northern rail operator, Translink, this week begins to take delivery of 23 new Spanish-manufactured trains at a cost of £80 million. These are designed to run on continuously welded track at speeds of 90 m.p.h. The upgrading of the Derry-Ballymena line, currently a badly maintained jointed track, would give a Derry-Belfast travel time of just over an hour, and would attract huge numbers away from the roads, to the considerable benefit of the environment and of travel safety. It will require a determined battle against the pro-road privatisers at Translink and the Northern Ireland Office to make this a reality. Into The West, however, has brought together rail workers, the wider trade union movement, tourism interests, environmentalists, rail enthusiasts and representatives of a number of political parties, including the Socialist Environmental Alliance, and the necessary battle is now under way. The all-Ireland dimension of this effort is vital. Upgrading Derry-Ballymena would offer a Derry-Dublin journey via Belfast of a little over three hours. This would be regarded by most travellers, as by those who care for the environment and about the death toll on the roads, as a better option than bus (four hours and 25 minutes) or plane - too expensive for use other than in emergencies, and travel time dependent on Dublin traffic. Instead of undermining the efforts of groups such as West on Track, Platform II should be co-ordinating its campaigning with those who are striving not only for the reopening and upgrading of the WRC but its extension through Bundoran and Letterkenny to Derry. Mr Wheeler says that the €300 million this initiative would require would be better spent on projects elsewhere. This proposition can be sustained only on the basis of the sort of short-sighted, weary, state profit-and-loss calculation which has blighted beauty everywhere we look and made so much of travel uncongenial. We in the north west are strengthening our links with fellow campaigners in the South. The Derry-Ballymena and Sligo-Galway rail links are essential elements of the modern people-friendly and environment-friendly transport infrastucture which the island needs and deserves. - Yours,
Of course those who were around at the time, will remember much more. Its been a funny 5 years and this galactic thread records most of the opinion. Ive re-read it all and its a very enlightening trip seen as though the arse has fallen out of the economy. I suggest people read it again. If there is one thread on Boards that has lasted through the great, good, not so good and really ****e times, its this one.
Has anything changed? Well I'll let people make up their own minds.;)0 -
-
-
-
Milesoneill wrote: »I've opened a Facebook Group for the WRC.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=61614819170&ref=ts
Feel free to join and add to the group.
Conor.
Sad, very sad could you not take up butterfly collecting instead? 0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
This discussion has been closed.
Advertisement