Western Rail Corridor (all disused sections)

marno21

voz es wrote: »

A sweeping statement, you do make me laugh.

In your last post you were on about 'the anti-tourism brigade

Well on the other hand, promoting the use of the line for a rail freight hub in Claremorris is hardly pro tourism?

voz es

devnull wrote: »

A lot of the UK stuff is re-announcing stuff that has already been announced whilst the other stuff is simply asking for ideas, considering the fact that a large number of schemes have been cut entirely or scaled back because there is no money, as has been pointed out, there's little substance to these claims. It's all full of may, but, if, ideas, proposals, could and no will.

It's quite likely a deliberate distraction by the UK government from certain other topics with the word Beeching thrown in to hook the media and the media have actually taken it.

You made a very interesting point, so I looked for things currently happening, please have a look comparables in have lineed to the rest of the EU.

Here is a link to a Europe's biggest freight business DB Cargo doubling the sice of Wolverhamptons steel rail terminal:

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/business/2017/11/24/ground-is-broken-on-6m-steel-terminal-expansion-in-wolverhampton/

Here is EU and China battling overy who is allowed to expand the rail network in Eastern Europe:
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/news/world/884752/China-Hungary-EU-Serbia-summit-Budapest-high-speed-rail/amp

Europe is going crazy for rail

Clear Ink

marno21 wrote: »

Well on the other hand, promoting the use of the line for a rail freight hub in Claremorris is hardly pro tourism?

Why would it not?

voz es

marno21 wrote: »

Well on the other hand, promoting the use of the line for a rail freight hub in Claremorris is hardly pro tourism?

I think it would be indirectly promoting tourism. The more work the line gets the more money would be spent on it. The faster and more frequent the trains.

Del.Monte

eastwest wrote: »

The desperate sound of straws being clutched in Claremorris. They took one days figures and ignored the reality that numbers are actually falling on the wrc.
They're in trouble. Their pet TD is facing an election at the very worst time; if an election is called now his future is all behind him, back on the council at best and swimming around in the group think tank that is the inter county railway committee, aka the political wing of west on track.
And Sean Kyne is lining up to be the next sacrificial puppet. Backing the wrong horse is a bit of a trend in western politics.

Anything to back this up?

end of the road

Del.Monte wrote: »

Anything to back this up?

likely wishful thinking as from what i can gather numbers are up.

voz es

''PASSENGERS HIKE LEADS TO RENEWED CALLS FOR A RAIL EXTENSION''

http://connachttribune.ie/galway-limerick-passenger-hike-leads-renewed-calls-extension-222/

Just giving this headline the space it deserves

voz es

voz es wrote: »

NOVEMBER 2017 RAIL EXPANSION NEWS FROM A QUICK GOOGLE SEARCH

BRITAIN

Rail services lost under 1960s Beeching cuts may reopen

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/28/uk-rail-services-lost-beeching-cuts-could-reopen-chris-grayling

Reading that the plans are to reopen Cambridge to Oxford, I think about half the route is already still intact. But the route isn't going to be a very busy one, unless the plan is to run freight from the east coast ports like Felixstowe to the south & west avoiding London. Rebuilding this line would replace a missing link in the east - west rail network.

end of the road

Deleted User wrote: »

Reading that the plans are to reopen Cambridge to Oxford, I think about half the route is already still intact. But the route isn't going to be a very busy one, unless the plan is to run freight from the east coast ports like Felixstowe to the south & west avoiding London. Rebuilding this line would replace a missing link in the east - west rail network.

i believe the intact bit closed finally in 1993, being used for freight up until then.

Muckyboots

end of the road wrote: »

Del.Monte wrote: »

Anything to back this up?

likely wishful thinking as from what i can gather numbers are up.

Anything to back this up? The IR Census report explicitly states not to use the figures within to assume trends. From what I can gather numbers alighting at Gort are well down since the M17 opened.

voz es

Muckyboots wrote: »

Anything to back this up? The IR Census report explicitly states not to use the figures within to assume trends. From what I can gather numbers alighting at Gort are well down since the M17 opened.

Were you gathering, were you.....

Were you the same poster talking about 'nice numbers' when it came to greenway support....

Muckyboots

voz es wrote: »

Were you gathering, were you.....
Were you the same poster talking about 'nice numbers' when it came to greenway support....

No question marks, so I presume these are rhetorical.

From the last scattering of posts, it's like a bunch schoolyard kids, who were getting beaten on, found a new bullyboy to cheer behind. Good to get some exchanges going again, but really, they're a bit juvenile in nature. Educate us. Google searches and pasted links are perfectly acceptable.

eastwest

voz es wrote: »

''PASSENGERS HIKE LEADS TO RENEWED CALLS FOR A RAIL EXTENSION''

http://connachttribune.ie/galway-limerick-passenger-hike-leads-renewed-calls-extension-222/

Just giving this headline the space it deserves

That headline doesn't deserve space in any serious discussion.
Those census day figures come with a specific health warning, to the effect that they shouldn't be extrapolated to create an annualised figure, but that is what west on track have done. These numbers also include traffic on Athenry-Galway and Ennis-Limerick, skewing them further.
The true numbers (check with Irish Rail, they run the service) on the middle bit, Ennis-Athenry, are down this year and are likely to fall further when the motorway effect beds in fully.
If west on track think that a government or a department of transport will fall for such spurious figures, they are wasting their time. Pro-rail groups can spin this to their hearts content, but anyone who travels on the Ennis Athenry line can see that not enough people are using it.
It's all fine and well lobbying for another white-elephant railway to be built north of Athenry on the old alignment, but if it was built by some miracle, what then? It closed because nobody was using it, and nowadays there are better options than a slow train. Unfortunately the days when we could have lossmaking state-owned services kept open by politicians are over, we can't print our own money any more and we don't have the cash to build or run a railway built to no purpose and used by nobody.
Your contributions to the debate are welcome, but you need to look at the bigger picture and not at the group-think world view of west on track. If opinion formers in the west of Ireland were realists and not just populist message-shouters, the region might start to reverse its decline. As it is, the unwillingness of too many people to accept reality and to seek achievable goals is holding back the west, while other places recognise realities and power ahead.
If you don't believe me, go to Kilmacthomas or Dungarvan any weekend and look at the levels of economic activity, and the services that this activity has revived or created for the benefit of the entire community.

voz es

Hmmm, I would hate to make anybody feel bullied by highlighting that postings were not factual. I can't remember the terminology behind such posts but you might find it in marketing literature.

eastwest

voz es wrote: »

I think it would be indirectly promoting tourism. The more work the line gets the more money would be spent on it. The faster and more frequent the trains.

If a second line was run to Claremorris, unlikely as that might be, it wouldn't create one net job.
The small amount of freight that goes in and out of Mayo is already well catered for with the existing line, an diverting it to another line would make no difference to Mayo. A WOT inspired survey commissioned by the WDC a year or so ago found no case for another line, even when the consultants were allegedly made take their report away and purge it of references to tourism and leisure uses for the route.

eastwest

voz es wrote: »

Hmmm, I would hate to make anybody feel bullied by highlighting that postings were not factual. I can't remember the terminology behind such posts but you might find it in marketing literature.

The terminology that best describes posts spreading the story that the one day census shows an increase in users on the WRC is 'fake news'.
Still, like flat-earthers and people who believe that the moon landings were faked in the Arizona desert, some people will believe anything and no amount of reasoned debate around actual facts will convince them otherwise. There is a shrinking but minority view that a railway will somehow be built using no funds between Athenry and Collooney, in order to carry nobody anywhere, and you have to just let them sit in their corner and believe that, along with other certainties like the fact that the twin towers were blown up by the CIA.

voz es

eastwest wrote: »

The terminology that best describes posts spreading the story that the one day census shows an increase in users on the WRC is 'fake news'.
Still, like flat-earthers and people who believe that the moon landings were faked in the Arizona desert, some people will believe anything and no amount of reasoned debate around actual facts will convince them otherwise. There is a shrinking but minority view that a railway will somehow be built using no funds between Athenry and Collooney, in order to carry nobody anywhere, and you have to just let them sit in their corner and believe that, along with other certainties like the fact that the twin towers were blown up by the CIA.

More spin I see. More and more are understanding how much of an artery that rail road expansion would be.

voz es

I reckon this is fake news, however I said there is no harm in asking.

Is it true that some of the greenway grouping have an UK business man with a marketing company involved in some of their internet presence?

eastwest

voz es wrote: »

I reckon this is fake news, however I said there is no harm in asking.

Is it true that some of the greenway grouping have an UK business man with a marketing company involved in some of their internet presence?

You'd have to ask them. But if you believe the figures churned out by West on track and not the ones coming from Irish Rail, then I'm sure this particular story rings true for you.

voz es

eastwest wrote: »

You'd have to ask them. But if you believe the figures churned out by West on track and not the ones coming from Irish Rail, then I'm sure this particular story rings true for you.

You don't know the answer so?

eastwest

voz es wrote: »

You don't know the answer so?

I won't engage in a childish na-na-na-na na argument with you.

voz es

eastwest wrote: »

I won't engage in a childish na-na-na-na na argument with you.

I think you have said enough anyhow ; - )

serfboard

voz es wrote: »

You made a very interesting point, so I looked for things currently happening, please have a look comparables in have lineed to the rest of the EU.

Here is a link to a Europe's biggest freight business DB Cargo doubling the sice of Wolverhamptons steel rail terminal:

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/business/2017/11/24/ground-is-broken-on-6m-steel-terminal-expansion-in-wolverhampton/

Here is EU and China battling overy who is allowed to expand the rail network in Eastern Europe:
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/news/world/884752/China-Hungary-EU-Serbia-summit-Budapest-high-speed-rail/amp

Europe is going crazy for rail

Indeed - cross-continental rail carrying goods to very large countries and to mega-cities demonstrates the need for a train to slowly trundle its way through the villages and small towns of the West of Ireland.

Isambard

Indeed, if there's a future for rail in Ireland it is Inter City and suburban/commuter passenger traffic. That's where the investment is needed and where the biggest returns will be found. Were there a pressure group as resilient as WoT campaigning for that, we might actually see some advance.

voz es

Argentina awarded contracts to lay 416 kilo-metres of train track in the northern provinces of Jujuy and Salta as part of its “Plan Belgrano.”

The below link showing, Argentina plans railways to expand agriculture in north

https://www.producer.com/2017/04/argentina-plans-railways-to-expand-agriculture-in-north/

voz es

Queen Margethe II of Denmark arrived this November in Ghana with business delegation, the aim here is to explore bilateral economic engagements with Ghanaian businesses to include economic engagements on RAIL

https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/Danish-queen-Margrethe-II-leads-business-delegation-to-Ghana-s-port-605631

eastwest

voz es wrote: »

Argentina awarded contracts to lay 416 kilo-metres of train track in the northern provinces of Jujuy and Salta as part of its “Plan Belgrano.”

The below link showing, Argentina plans railways to expand agriculture in north

https://www.producer.com/2017/04/argentina-plans-railways-to-expand-agriculture-in-north/

Interesting story, but how is it relevant to this topic?
4.1% of Ireland's farmland is devoted to cereal production, but most of it is grown outside connaught for one simple reason -- most of the land is unsuited to cereal growing.
http://gis.teagasc.ie/soils/map.php

voz es

eastwest wrote: »

Interesting story, but how is it relevant to this topic?
4.1% of Ireland's farmland is devoted to cereal production, but most of it is grown outside connaught for one simple reason -- most of the land is unsuited to cereal growing.
http://gis.teagasc.ie/soils/map.php

Ovine, Horticulture and Forestry may well be the saving grace for the west of Ireland Beef Farmer should a hard Brexit result.
Interestingly Western agriculture had a very strong relationship with Rail prior to the 1960's, animal welfare became an issue then. If you look into what they were many modern remedy are now in place. There are a number of Irish Livestock Marts adjoining or close to rail lines.

http://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/the-end-of-the-line-whats-next-for-farming-along-irelands-railway-2/

http://www.westontrack.com/gallery/image002.jpg

marno21

voz es wrote: »

Ovine, Horticulture and Forestry may well be the saving grace for the west of Ireland Beef Farmer should a hard Brexit result.
Interestingly Western agriculture had a very strong relationship with Rail prior to the 1960's, animal welfare became an issue then. If you look into what they were many modern remedy are now in place. There are a number of Irish Livestock Marts adjoining or close to rail lines.

http://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/the-end-of-the-line-whats-next-for-farming-along-irelands-railway-2/

http://www.westontrack.com/gallery/image002.jpg

How does it make economic sense to reopen a railway line costing tens of millions to transport irregular, low volumes of "freight"?

Who is going to pay for this? Would make infinite more sense to dual the N17.

eastwest

voz es wrote: »

Ovine, Horticulture and Forestry may well be the saving grace for the west of Ireland Beef Farmer should a hard Brexit result.
Interestingly Western agriculture had a very strong relationship with Rail prior to the 1960's, animal welfare became an issue then. If you look into what they were many modern remedy are now in place. There are a number of Irish Livestock Marts adjoining or close to rail lines.

http://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/the-end-of-the-line-whats-next-for-farming-along-irelands-railway-2/

http://www.westontrack.com/gallery/image002.jpg

The railways were used to move cattle back in the day when they were wintered outdoors and when Western farmers were unable to finish them -- they were shipped out as 'stores'. Those days have long gone.
If west on track are suggesting reverting to this type of agriculture in the west, they have strayed a long way from the plot. A progressive lobby group should surely be seeking to have all western produced beef and sheep processed in the west, and not somewhere else?