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Is Western Rail Corridor bo**oxd

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  • 02-09-2009 11:43pm
    #1
    dec25532
    Registered Users Posts: 809 ✭✭✭


    Read over emotional piece in Mayo News about the Western Rail Corridor and how it can be self financing and all that. The figures looked good but it was without substance. Irish Rail are finding it difficult to open the Athenry to Ennis section. Then this has to undergo a feasibility assessment before the section to Tuam is embarked upon so what are the chances to Claremorris and beyond. It seems a pipe dream. And nothing that will happen in many of our lifetimes.


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    #2
    Connacht
    Registered Users Posts: 447 ✭✭Connacht


    First I should say that I am a total supporter of better public transport and a reduction in the amount of new roads being built all over the place (except where current roads are dire, e.g. Curry to Collooney).
    But I would also consider myself a realist.
    It is fantastic that Iarnród Eireann is at last putting extra tracks down from Heuston out to Kildare / Laois, making 4 so commuter trains can run at the same time as intercity.
    However, I think the WRC even from Limerick to Athenry will struggle to attract anything like sufficient passenger numbers.
    Continuing from Athenry to Claremorris makes 'network' sense, in that it links in to the Westport line, but my doubts about its viability would be even greater.
    But I have to say that going then from Claremorris on up to Collooney jnc would be insanity of the highest order. Nobody lives up there.
    Also :
    The Atlantic Motorway is currently being built, to include the Shannon River tunnel at Limerick. Therefore, the road trip will be hugely imrpoved, reducing the chances of getting people to switch from car to train.
    Also :
    The new WRC will not even serve Shannon Airport - another classic example of how any Irish govt is terminally incapable of logical joined up thinking.
    Also :
    I'm guessing here, but I'd say IE will go for large heavy trains on low frequency here (as is the norm), rather than what is clearly required, i.e. low capacity, high frequency monotrains.
    Also :
    I note that small places like Crusheen (and presumably others) are not getting a station. Linked to the above point, this is insanity and once again demonstrates how management in many Irish public sector businesses are clueless. I sometimes wonder have they ever taken a train outside of Ireland in their lives ? Every small place should have a station - unmanned, with a ticket machine and with just a good shelter. Almost no cost involved.
    etc.


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    #3
    dec25532
    Registered Users Posts: 809 ✭✭✭dec25532


    Agree with everything the previous poster said. The Ennis to Athenry section is a sop to those campaigning for the reopening of the Western Rail Corridor and will not proceed any further north. There are those who foolishly believe that it is contained in the renewed Programme for Government but just look at the wording that is used. It is said that the Government remains committed to "the earliest possible delivery of the second (to Tuam) and third (to Claremorris) phases. Then in the Dail yesterday Transport Minister Dempsey said that these phases would be construced "as soon as financial circumstances permit". Twenty years time maybe.


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