Western Rail Corridor (all disused sections)

Del.Monte

westtip wrote: »

Missed this one last week

http://amp.irishexaminer.com/ireland/iarnrod-eireann-seeks-to-permanently-axe-10-closed-lines-430881.html

I didn't pick this up from last weeks report this is from the examiner article

This is all part of the 'deluge' plan to muddy the water coming up to Christmas and see what they can get away with. The list of the lines that they wish to abandon is staggering and more than half of them shouldn't be allowed under any circumstances.

Muckyboots

Del.Monte wrote: »

This is all part of the 'deluge' plan to muddy the water coming up to Christmas and see what they can get away with. The list of the lines that they wish to abandon is staggering and more than half of them shouldn't be allowed under any circumstances.

Abandoned ? It's just passing the rotten parcel. This is where the greenway & railway advocates have common ground. Leasing out the lines on licence basis , as per Great Southern Trail, to the local authorities, while retaining ownership, is a far more sensible way forward. There would be EU funding available to maintain and restore the railway infrastructure including stations, gate-houses & towers. The relevant local authorities won't and shouldn't run with this without a prospect of European funding, as it would mean having to increase local property taxes substantially and with no return on investment.

with no return on investment.

Tourism,health, public amenity etc etc

plenty of return on investment right there

eastwest

Del.Monte wrote: »

This is all part of the 'deluge' plan to muddy the water coming up to Christmas and see what they can get away with. The list of the lines that they wish to abandon is staggering and more than half of them shouldn't be allowed under any circumstances.

But which half? The ones that are politically sensitive, or with an eye to giving best value to the taxpayer?

eastwest

Muckyboots wrote: »

Now for the fright argument. What are we transporting exactly, again?

I think that milk collection from farms is a good place to start; they are the trucks I seem to get stuck behind a lot. Also bin lorries, they need to be taken off the road, they hold up everybody. And concrete trucks, them feckers are hoors for driving slow. And don't forget cattle lorries, and sheep lorries, sure why can't they use the train for that? It's just a matter of putting a branch line to every farm, I'm sure Sean Canney can promise that.
And tractors bringing in silage, the train could do that easily.
The more you think of it, there's some merit in the WOC freight argument after all.

NiallBoo

eastwest wrote: »

Also bin lorries, they need to be taken off the road, they hold up everybody. And concrete trucks, them feckers are hoors for driving slow. .

actually if our waste policy goes from landfill to incineration, it'll mean having only a few large incinerators on the whole country.

A sensible way of doing this could be to have waste compacted locally and then put onto trains the rest of the way.

I'd be surprised if large precast concrete weren't transported by rail if the infrastructure were there.

eastwest

NiallBoo wrote: »

I'd be surprised if large precast concrete weren't transported by rail if the infrastructure were there.

Eh, no, actually. It makes no sense to haul a large casting to a railhead on a lowloader, crane it on to a special rail car, crane it off a few miles down the road, load it on to another lowloader and bring to to site,and then crane it off again into position. I'm not sure which branch of the construction industry you work in, but I'd be sacked if I suggested something like this. And I'd probably never work again in this town if the word got out!

NiallBoo

eastwest wrote: »

Eh, no, actually. It makes no sense to haul a large casting to a railhead on a lowloader, crane it on to a special rail car, crane it off a few miles down the road, load it on to another lowloader and bring to to site,and then crane it off again into position. I'm not sure which branch of the construction industry you work in, but I'd be sacked if I suggested something like this. And I'd probably never work again in this town if the word got out!

Thanks for your reasoned consideration.
Obviously it was for over larger distances and where multiple pieces are involved, allowing greater capacity of rail to be used.

Glad I have you this chance to though.

Isambard

Landfill is switching to recycling rather than incineration in civilised countries although it's not unknown for recycled materials to be exported to less developed countries (not necessarily from Ireland) and dumped there. Recycling (in the UK as an example) has been made economical by charging huge sums for Landfill.

concrete sections are usually built as near as possible to the build site, or even on it.

eastwest

In Ireland most of the precast work is done by Concast; they do everything from entire shopping centres to car parks and motorway bridges. The sections are trucked to site and craned into position.
Because Ireland is so small, the notion of double and treble handling this material by using trains for part of the journey, with all the additional cranage costs is just nonsense, apart altogether from the delays and risk of damage to sections.
Still, it's no more nonsensical than the idea that mayo might need a second freight railway, when the existing one carries a miniscule level of freight traffic. And it's no dafter than the proposal in last week's Tuam Herald by a WOC supporter that the Athenry Tuam line be rebuilt using unemployed labourers! The letter to the paper just showed people in the real world what they suspected already -- that the WOC mindset is firmly rooted in the nineteenth century.

Muckyboots

Isambard wrote: »

Landfill is switching to recycling rather than incineration in civilised countries although it's not unknown for recycled materials to be exported to less developed countries (not necessarily from Ireland) and dumped there. Recycling (in the UK as an example) has been made economical by charging huge sums for Landfill.

concrete sections are usually built as near as possible to the build site, or even on it.

There were two proposals for anaerobic digesters in Tuam. Public outcry has forced both of them to take their plans off the table. One was on the old sugar factory site and could have proposed to utilize the rail line- but didn't. This says a lot about rail feasibility in itself. The point was highlighted from the campaign that anaerobic digesters are only feasible on a small scale where the raw material ( waste) is already on site, ie. as an annex to a food processing plant. Bar a fleeting "thinking out loud" bit of madness about opening a new sugar factory and asking farmers to start growing beet again it's about as close as we have come to anyone suggesting anything worth even considering for use on the line in 40 years. Question is still there- what are we going to be hauling up and down the WRC ? Anyone? Anyone? Ideas for freight on the WRC?

eastwest

Muckyboots wrote: »

There were two proposals for anaerobic digesters in Tuam. Public outcry has forced both of them to take their plans off the table. One was on the old sugar factory site and could have proposed to utilize the rail line- but didn't. This says a lot about rail feasibility in itself. The point was highlighted from the campaign that anaerobic digesters are only feasible on a small scale where the raw material ( waste) is already on site, ie. as an annex to a food processing plant. Bar a fleeting "thinking out loud" bit of madness about opening a new sugar factory and asking farmers to start growing beet again it's about as close as we have come to anyone suggesting anything worth even considering for use on the line in 40 years. Question is still there- what are we going to be hauling up and down the WRC ? Anyone? Anyone? Ideas for freight on the WRC?

The food waste/anaerobic digester argument holds no water when entered into the rail debate. There is no logic in a small island of collecting this material from one or multiples sites with tankers and then diverting to put it on a train to be shipped to Tuam or Claremorris and then moved again by tanker to a waste site. You'd have it done with the truck and be home in bed while the train would still be hauling it half way around the country at a much higher cost. It's easy for the anti-tourism brigade to throw out these generalisations about freight, but when you dissect them, as with the Concast argument, they lack substance and indeed any kind of common sense.
In logistics, less handling means less cost, and where bulk loads are involved, trucks do it so much better. If they didn't, we'd have a major rail freight business in Ireland already, but we don't.
You know what they say, 'if you've got it, a truck brought it!'

end of the road

eastwest wrote: »

In Ireland most of the precast work is done by Concast; they do everything from entire shopping centres to car parks and motorway bridges. The sections are trucked to site and craned into position.
Because Ireland is so small, the notion of double and treble handling this material by using trains for part of the journey, with all the additional cranage costs is just nonsense, apart altogether from the delays and risk of damage to sections.
Still, it's no more nonsensical than the idea that mayo might need a second freight railway, when the existing one carries a miniscule level of freight traffic. And it's no dafter than the proposal in last week's Tuam Herald by a WOC supporter that the Athenry Tuam line be rebuilt using unemployed labourers! The letter to the paper just showed people in the real world what they suspected already -- that the WOC mindset is firmly rooted in the nineteenth century.

what double handling or tripple handling. either you aren't aware that this no longer happens in terms of rail freight in this country, or you are over stating things to try and support a viewpoint.

eastwest wrote: »

The food waste/anaerobic digester argument holds no water when entered into the rail debate. There is no logic in a small island of collecting this material from one or multiples sites with tankers and then diverting to put it on a train to be shipped to Tuam or Claremorris and then moved again by tanker to a waste site. You'd have it done with the truck and be home in bed while the train would still be hauling it half way around the country at a much higher cost. It's easy for the anti-tourism brigade to throw out these generalisations about freight, but when you dissect them, as with the Concast argument, they lack substance and indeed any kind of common sense.
In logistics, less handling means less cost, and where bulk loads are involved, trucks do it so much better. If they didn't, we'd have a major rail freight business in Ireland already, but we don't.
You know what they say, 'if you've got it, a truck brought it!'

yup. to me it does sound like you are over stating how it could actually work to support a particular view point.
the reason we don't have a rail freight business is that government do not wish to implement such a policy, and IE shut and even in some cases sold off the yards. the government didn't insure factories and similar were built beside a rail line. and no doubt they're is more.
trucks actually don't do things better in a lot of cases, but they are all we mostly have because IE and government with their own policies effectively insured that rail freight couldn't be made viable. if we had implemented a policy of shifting toards rail freight, we could have diverted some road spending to finishing the road projects needing doing and even made some effort to maintain the lesser roads properly. that would be of huge benefit to more people over all.
trucks might be cheep for the user but they aren't for the tax payer. changing the mindsets and miss-conceptions would be a hard thing to do but those fines for our carbon emissions + our road maintenence costs for the ridiculous amount of trucks are only going to rise hugely unless we start encouraging alternatives where possible. i have no doubt they're are some flows which can be moved to rail but it's going to mean a mindset change and no doubt stricter planning laws in terms of new build industry. it will take a generation or 2 but had ireland started it during the good times we could be a long way now. they're is still time.

Carawaystick

end of the road wrote: »

what double handling or tripple handling. either you aren't aware that this no longer happens in terms of rail freight in this country, or you are over stating things to try and support a viewpoint.

If there's no double handling, how do you get stuff from concast to a train at hazelhatch, and from that train to the site the precast concrete thing is to be used at?

eastwest

end of the road wrote: »

what double handling or tripple handling. either you aren't aware that this no longer happens in terms of rail freight in this country, or you are over stating things to try and support a viewpoint.

yup. to me it does sound like you are over stating how it could actually work to support a particular view point.
.

I thought it was obvious, but let me clarify.
If I want to build a road bridge somewhere between Athlone and Galway (say), I will first build the buttresses/columns etc in situ using concrete that is delivered by mixer truck. Not much potential to do this by rail, I think you'll agree!
Now lets get to the precast elements, specifically the span beams. I order these from Concast and they manufacture them in Newcastle just in time to be properly cured and ready for the lift on to the built in-situ elements. They load them on a trailer and bring them to site and they are lifted on by the crane that is hired in specifically for this lift -- this is an expensive element and I don't want it hanging around. All in all, the beams were handled twice, once on to the trailer, and once off the trailer and directly into position. The first lift, on to the trailer, is the manufacturer's problem; the other lift is my headache, both from a logistical as well as a safety perspective and to avoid incorrectly stressing or damaging the piece. Clear so far?
Or I could do it the WOC way. Lift the casting on to a lowloader in Newcastle, bring it to a railway station and have a crane and qualified personnel in place to lift it on to a train. Then send it by train to the nearest station to the site, and arrange another crane to be there to lift it off on to a lowloader (probably the same one that has the contract for bringing it to the railhead, because they understand the business, but that's an additional piece of lunacy). Then drive it to site and arrange the crane to follow on and lift it into position, or arrange a separate crane because the first one would be half the day demounting and getting there and then reassembling the jib. That amounts to handling the casting four times, three times on my watch instead of one. That's called 'triple handling' and it means what it says, doing it three times instead of once. That's not to mention a lot of additional expense for having cranes and suitably experienced personnel in two other sites to handle the lifts.
Assuming that all that handling didn't do any damage, this would amount to a process so uncompetitive that it wouldn't matter -- some other company would have the job anyway.
You see, there's the real world, and the WOC world where everything works fine in theory as long as you don't introduce such tiresome elements as economics or practicalities, or even common sense.

end of the road

eastwest wrote: »

I thought it was obvious, but let me clarify.
If I want to build a road bridge somewhere between Athlone and Galway (say), I will first build the buttresses/columns etc in situ using concrete that is delivered by mixer truck. Not much potential to do this by rail, I think you'll agree!
Now lets get to the precast elements, specifically the span beams. I order these from Concast and they manufacture them in Newcastle just in time to be properly cured and ready for the lift on to the built in-situ elements. They load them on a trailer and bring them to site and they are lifted on by the crane that is hired in specifically for this lift -- this is an expensive element and I don't want it hanging around. All in all, the beams were handled twice, once on to the trailer, and once off the trailer and directly into position. The first lift, on to the trailer, is the manufacturer's problem; the other lift is my headache, both from a logistical as well as a safety perspective and to avoid incorrectly stressing or damaging the piece. Clear so far?
Or I could do it the WOC way. Lift the casting on to a lowloader in Newcastle, bring it to a railway station and have a crane and qualified personnel in place to lift it on to a train. Then send it by train to the nearest station to the site, and arrange another crane to be there to lift it off on to a lowloader (probably the same one that has the contract for bringing it to the railhead, because they understand the business, but that's an additional piece of lunacy). Then drive it to site and arrange the crane to follow on and lift it into position, or arrange a separate crane because the first one would be half the day demounting and getting there and then reassembling the jib. That amounts to handling the casting four times, three times on my watch instead of one. That's called 'triple handling' and it means what it says, doing it three times instead of once. That's not to mention a lot of additional expense for having cranes and suitably experienced personnel in two other sites to handle the lifts.
Assuming that all that handling didn't do any damage, this would amount to a process so uncompetitive that it wouldn't matter -- some other company would have the job anyway.
You see, there's the real world, and the WOC world where everything works fine in theory as long as you don't introduce such tiresome elements as economics or practicalities, or even common sense.

the real world is what i have given you. the world where my taxes are funding the roads which your trucks use, but which cause a huge amount of damage to said roads, meaning extra maintenence, meaning other roads lose out on basic maintenence. now, i'm well aware nothing will change, but i still believe you are over complicating something which in this modern day could be done quite simply for a lot of flows, to use rail freight.

eastwest

end of the road wrote: »

eastwest wrote: »

I thought it was obvious, but let me clarify.
If I want to build a road bridge somewhere between Athlone and Galway (say), I will first build the buttresses/columns etc in situ using concrete that is delivered by mixer truck. Not much potential to do this by rail, I think you'll agree!
Now lets get to the precast elements, specifically the span beams. I order these from Concast and they manufacture them in Newcastle just in time to be properly cured and ready for the lift on to the built in-situ elements. They load them on a trailer and bring them to site and they are lifted on by the crane that is hired in specifically for this lift -- this is an expensive element and I don't want it hanging around. All in all, the beams were handled twice, once on to the trailer, and once off the trailer and directly into position. The first lift, on to the trailer, is the manufacturer's problem; the other lift is my headache, both from a logistical as well as a safety perspective and to avoid incorrectly stressing or damaging the piece. Clear so far?
Or I could do it the WOC way. Lift the casting on to a lowloader in Newcastle, bring it to a railway station and have a crane and qualified personnel in place to lift it on to a train. Then send it by train to the nearest station to the site, and arrange another crane to be there to lift it off on to a lowloader (probably the same one that has the contract for bringing it to the railhead, because they understand the business, but that's an additional piece of lunacy). Then drive it to site and arrange the crane to follow on and lift it into position, or arrange a separate crane because the first one would be half the day demounting and getting there and then reassembling the jib. That amounts to handling the casting four times, three times on my watch instead of one. That's called 'triple handling' and it means what it says, doing it three times instead of once. That's not to mention a lot of additional expense for having cranes and suitably experienced personnel in two other sites to handle the lifts.
Assuming that all that handling didn't do any damage, this would amount to a process so uncompetitive that it wouldn't matter -- some other company would have the job anyway.
You see, there's the real world, and the WOC world where everything works fine in theory as long as you don't introduce such tiresome elements as economics or practicalities, or even common sense.

the real world is what i have given you. the world where my taxes are funding the roads which your trucks use, but which cause a huge amount of damage to said roads, meaning extra maintenence, meaning other roads lose out on basic maintenence. now, i'm well aware nothing will change, but i still believe you are over complicating something which in this modern day could be done quite simply for a lot of flows, to use rail freight.

Of course, I forgot. Railways don't cost money to maintain, and the services that run on them all make a profit so there's no cost to the taxpayer. Best example of this is of course the wrc which is only the third worst line in Ireland when it comes to sucking my money and yours.

BoatMad

eastwest wrote: »

Of course, I forgot. Railways don't cost money to maintain, and the services that run on them all make a profit so there's no cost to the taxpayer. Best example of this is of course the wrc which is only the third worst line in Ireland when it comes to sucking my money and yours.

roads dont make profits either, unless artificially packaged in a PPP, which is really a loan disguised as a pay per use road

NiallBoo

I think it's funny that I pretty-much just tacked on the bit about precast concrete as an after-thought, but it's the bit that was taken to heart.

The idea re: waste to incinerators was the main drive of that but got ignored.

I also think it's funny that the arguments against here have all been completely black-or-white, ignoring that in any decision there's a tipping point where things start to pay off financially.

Anyway, best of luck.

eastwest

BoatMad wrote: »

eastwest wrote: »

Of course, I forgot. Railways don't cost money to maintain, and the services that run on them all make a profit so there's no cost to the taxpayer. Best example of this is of course the wrc which is only the third worst line in Ireland when it comes to sucking my money and yours.

roads dont make profits either, unless artificially packaged in a PPP, which is really a loan disguised as a pay per use road

Exactly. All infrastructure -- roads and railways-- is ultimately paid for by you and me and everyone else who pays taxes. However it is also true that roads carry a lot of paying customers via car and truck tax, as well as tolls. The big difference is that trucking companies don't need to have unlimited losses picked up by the taxpayer-- you and me again.

Muckyboots

NiallBoo wrote: »

I think it's funny that I pretty-much just tacked on the bit about precast concrete as an after-thought, but it's the bit that was taken to heart.

The idea re: waste to incinerators was the main drive of that but got ignored.

I also think it's funny that the arguments against here have all been completely black-or-white, ignoring that in any decision there's a tipping point where things start to pay off financially.

Anyway, best of luck.

You're right , we did miss that one. I think the town of Claremorris would be an ideal location for a national waste incinerator, served by rail from north, south & east. Anyone not blocked from the WOT FB page want to try running this idea over there?

end of the road

eastwest wrote: »

The big difference is that trucking companies don't need to have unlimited losses picked up by the taxpayer-- you and me again.

no but they do get a hidden subsidy. in fact they get a few. that's fine but lets not pretend it isn't the case.

BoatMad

eastwest wrote: »

Exactly. All infrastructure -- roads and railways-- is ultimately paid for by you and me and everyone else who pays taxes. However it is also true that roads carry a lot of paying customers via car and truck tax, as well as tolls. The big difference is that trucking companies don't need to have unlimited losses picked up by the taxpayer-- you and me again.

it depends on whether you see transport infrastructure as purely self financing or that certain aspects of it are , or none are.

its clear that had the anti -rail policies of the 60s carried on into the 80s and 90s, Dublin would have been left with virtually no railways, the reconstruction of several rail lines and reopening to passenger traffic of the phoenix tunnel are a clear demonstrator of that mis guided thinking,

Hence while closing a railway is unfortunate , removing and retaking the infrastructure such that it cannot easily be reopened is an entirely different issue and one that has shown to be demonstrably false.

For example ,its clear that in time Youghal etc will be reopened as a commuter traffic facility into cork, Yet at the time , many would have removed the rail infrastructure completely


This is the kernel of the issue , rail activity may ebb and wane , but the ability to re-use it must be retained

westtip

BoatMad wrote: »

i

This is the kernel of the issue , rail activity may ebb and wane , but the ability to re-use it must be retained

I believe this is the view of Irish Rail as well, which supports the idea of retaining closed routes in public ownership as greenways. Irish Rail are on record of supporting this view, so why are people opposing the Western Rail Trail from Athenry to Sligo (Collooney) when they know full well no matter how much spin is put on it, the route north of Athenry is not going to be re-opened to facilitate one freight train a day.

serfboard

BoatMad wrote: »

Hence while closing a railway is unfortunate , removing and retaking the infrastructure such that it cannot easily be reopened is an entirely different issue and one that has shown to be demonstrably false.

For example ,its clear that in time Youghal etc will be reopened as a commuter traffic facility into cork, Yet at the time , many would have removed the rail infrastructure completely

This is the kernel of the issue , rail activity may ebb and wane , but the ability to re-use it must be retained

I'm curious to know what you mean when you refer to infrastructure. Are you referring simply to the routes themselves, or to things like tracks and sleepers? Because if it's tracks and sleepers, then if ever the line north of Athenry is to be re-opened, these will have to be replaced anyway, just as they were south of Athenry.

If you are referring to the routes and to structures like bridges, then a greenway is one certain method of ensuring that the infrastructure is maintained, and prevents encroaching by land-grabbers.

eastwest

BoatMad wrote: »

Dublin would have been left with virtually no railways, the reconstruction of several rail lines and reopening to passenger traffic of the phoenix tunnel are a clear demonstrator of that mis guided thinking,

Hence while closing a railway is unfortunate , removing and retaking the infrastructure such that it cannot easily be reopened is an entirely different issue and one that has shown to be demonstrably false.

For example ,its clear that in time Youghal etc will be reopened as a commuter traffic facility into cork, Yet at the time , many would have removed the rail infrastructure completely


This is the kernel of the issue , rail activity may ebb and wane , but the ability to re-use it must be retained

Although you can't compare the greater Dublin and Cork areas to the route served by the WRC, given the population difference and the movement patterns of people, the point about retaining infrastructure is a valid one, and one that is at the kernel of the pro-tourism campaign.
The existing tracks, sleepers and ballast are irrelevant in the context of any new railway north of Athenry; they are of no value to Irish Rail except as scrap. IR is on record on this and have clearly said that a new railway would mean just that, building a new railway from the ground up.
I suspect that WOC know that too, they're not at all stupid despite the outward appearances, and the only reason they want to retain rotting tracks is for optics, to show that the various pro-tourism and pro-jobs campaigns along the route have been blocked. That's the same reason that politicians pay so much homage to this scrap metal, it looks like they're doing something to keep rail services alive when in fact it is nothing of the sort.
The only ways to ensure that the route stays in public ownership are to build a railway on it, or build a greenway at a tiny fraction of the cost. The latter has a proven business case and the funding is there, but the former is a proven loss-maker and there is no funding available either to build it or subsidise it. A greenway moreover would not impact on any future plans for a railway, and could be rebuilt as part of the railway project at a small extra cost -- the proverbial 'no-brainer.'
So, if I was a politician, what would I do? Simple, I'd do nothing, except a lot of can-kicking with report after report, and press conferences to launch reports that promise vague things 'when things get better.' I wouldn't worry too much about the loss of the asset, as long as I got the requisite few years out of it to build up the pension. Sound familiar?

eastwest

I see they've started lifting the rails at Tuam!
https://www.facebook.com/Offdarails/?hc_ref=SEARCH

Del.Monte

eastwest wrote: »

I see they've started lifting the rails at Tuam!
https://www.facebook.com/Offdarails/?hc_ref=SEARCH

Somebody with too much times on their hands and a schoolboy sense of humour (?) is behind that daft page.

eastwest

Del.Monte wrote: »

Somebody with too much times on their hands and a schoolboy sense of humour (?) is behind that daft page.

Waaay too much time, for sure; it's all fne until someone loses an i, as they say.
Still, they didn't start it; the 'original' is within a short head of being every bit as daft.

Muckyboots

For your delectation "Residents in one part of Galway have voiced their opposition to a stretch of the Galway-Dublin Greenway going through their area because it would assist criminals. The opposition centres on the proposed route from Roscam to Renmore, a short stretch of about 5km to the east of Galway City. And at a meeting of local residents in recent days a councillor from the area said he was opposed to “fat cat” consultants and managers forcing the project through. Local man John Grealish, who chaired the meeting, said there were real fears that the Greenway – a cycling route across the country – would bring crime into the area. Specifically he said the Greenway would expose the backs of properties to passers-by, adding burglars on motorbikes could escape down the cycle route after carrying out their crimes. “The area is a peninsula and one of the benefits of that is that there is only one way in and one way out,” he said in remarks reported by the Connacht Tribune. “This proposed route will expose the back of private property to people who could escape on motorbikes on the cycleway – and we are only two kilometres from the motorway so we are very open. “There is one man that the route is so close to the back of his house, he could hand tea through the window to people passing.” He insisted he was not opposed to the project, rather the project’s current proposed route. “There is already a proposal that they are going to run a pathway from the city out to Curragreen, but a footpath; why couldn’t a cycleway be included?
“Farmers have indicated that of a small amount of land had to be taken for this, they wouldn’t mind. The issue here is splitting land in two.” The Greenway, which would run to 277km, has already hit a variety of problems. The western section of the route was halted last year by then minister for transport Paschal Donohoe after complaints by farming organisations and a perceived lack of consultation with people living along the route. Galway City Councillor Mike Crowe said he would be requesting the council take the Roscam to Renmore proposed Greenway route out of the ‘city development plan’ amid complaints locals had not been consulted.
And once that was done local stakeholders should be given the opportunity to make their views known to the National Transport Authority. His view was supported by four other councillors at this week’s meeting. “This community.. will not stand idly by while fat cat consultants and senior officials try to drive a coach and four through our community with little or no regard for the effect on the residents and the environs,” said Cllr Crowe. He also believed the proposed route would take longer than of the Greenway ran along the Coast Road out of the city. “It’s grand on a July afternoon if you’re a tourist out for a cycle,” he said. “Other than that, it just doesn’t make sense.” “We… have an opportunity to remove this madness from it and send a message to these officials that we do not support this route.” Courtesy of http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/locals-oppose-277km-irish-cycle-route-because-burglars-might-use-it ( and for the benefit of the mods, similar soundings are being expressed by Western Rail Trail WRC objectors- a sure sign we are making real progress !).