Athlone - Mullingar line

Itssoeasy

Actually where in the parish and what film was it that an A class was painted into a French livery ?

Eiretrains

Itssoeasy wrote: »

Actually where in the parish and what film was it that an A class was painted into a French livery ?

Pink Panther Strikes Again - on the Navan branch

metrovick001

Itssoeasy wrote: »

Actually where in the parish and what film was it that an A class was painted into a French livery ?

Filmed around Lougher, east of Beauparc in 1976
Two helicopters involved - one in the shot lifting a stunt man off the roof of the train & the second filming the sequence!

dennis124wwr

Does someone have old timetables from that line.

dennis124wwr

Does someone have old timetables from that line.

dennis124wwr

simon_24 wrote: »

I live close to the now derelict Athlone/mullingar line, I was wondering does anyone has pictures of it in its heyday, trains, stations, from the 70s or 80s, I'm only a newcomer to the area and always wondered what it was like???

Did you walk some of the line.

demanufactured

Work going on at Athlone on this line today at the level crossing and I also saw a few workers on one of the bridges it crosses over too...
Anyone any clue what's happening???
Getting ready to be lifted perhaps??

gobnaitolunacy

Is that shell of a signal cabin still there, or is it demolished?

Think it was called the 73rd Mile Box or something?

Temp101

73rd Mile is gone some years, but the concrete blocks of the base may still exist as rubble in the undergrowth.

demanufactured

Temp101 wrote: »

73rd Mile is gone some years, but the concrete blocks of the base may still exist as rubble in the undergrowth.

Was that the small hut at the gates in Athlone ??

Temp101

73rd Mile was an intermediate block post between the 72nd and 73rd mile posts, intended to break up the Athlone - Moate section in the days when there was enough traffic to justify block posts every five miles or so. Closed in 1962.

Losty Dublin

demanufactured wrote: »

Was that the small hut at the gates in Athlone ??

73rd was some distance from Athlone station. It was built to split the block section between Athlone and Moate stations. I'd say the hut you are thinkong of was probably just a crossing keepers hut.

Eiretrains

Temp101 wrote: »

73rd Mile is gone some years, but the concrete blocks of the base may still exist as rubble in the undergrowth.

That's right, when I photographed the site, the concrete foundation is still there but the cabin is gone, just a few pieces of wood left lying around. Photo cabin in situ but derelict.
http://eiretrains.com/Photo_Gallery/Railway%20Stations%20M/Moate/slides/Moate_20120718_011_CC_JA.html

demanufactured

So anyone any ideas what's going on in Athlone....they were clearing growth on the line last year and again this week.
I have never seen anyone clearing anything on the line until lately.

demanufactured

http://irnirishrailwaynews.yuku.com/topic/2709/Mullingar-to-Athlone-Line

Grandeeod

I'm going for lifting of the line.

yachtsman

It looks like the future for the railway between the Gateway Towns of Athlone and Mullingar is a cycle path. At a time that a single railway track between Athlone and Portarlington is congested we are turning the former mainline double track alignment into a cycle path! OK.

Its probably an indication that railways are a declining element of economic infrastructure as far as those in charge of regional development are concerned - nothing surprising there. Ironic that the agency that is proposing to spend millions on this exercise (cycling on railway lines - get it) is the National Roads Authority!. And not a peep out of the National Rail Authority CIE. Its a great tactical stroke on the part of the Road Authority to get rid of a potential rival for funds; and a great relief to the Rail Authority that they will not be expected to use it as an actual railway.
Consider if CIE were proposing to spend money turning the national road accessing a major tourist destination into a cycle path in order to give the railway greater control over access. Slightly exagerated but a point worth making all the same. There are examples of restricted road access to tourist destinations in Europe.

Its ironic that at a time we are priding ourselves at constructing a new motorway between Dublin and Galway which will get you between the points in two and a half hours we feel the need to put the icing on the cake and give people the choice of cycling the 125 miles between the two points and we're going to spend €10m building part of a new cycleway on top of a former double track intercity railway alignment.

If it were a storyline on an episode of the Simpsons we'd cry foul for portraying the Irish in a bad light.

The cost of doubling the 13 mile section from Galway to Athenry was costed by CIE a few years ago at €190m so it is safe to assume to double Athlone to Portarlington which is 40 miles would be about €700m especially when you consider the existing formation was never designed for double track while the Galway Athenry section was. The cost of re-opening the 30 mile Athlone to Mullingar route in contrast is about €100m according to information given to Westmeath County Council in May. Cost Benefit Analysis?

It appears cycling may be the future for other mainline routes unless there is a serious upgrade of rail services nationwide in the near future. And I mean upgrade of services as distinct from infrastructure because we have new trains on new tracks with new signalling but sadly slower services than we enjoyed before all this investment. The railways are in danger of being "engineered" out of existance.
Passengers are complaining of headaches caused by the blowing of horns at level crossings - even farmers crossings. Consider there are about 170 crossings between Athlone and Westport and you will get the idea. Of course with recordings now available post incident it is imperative that such a rule is obayed rigidly or the mis-user of the crossing will win in any court action against the railway where it is proven that the train did'nt sound its horn, " so I just drove straight out in front of it Your Honour, Sir".

When people make silly rules they should think about the consequences. When there was a locomotive between the passenger and the horn, combined with the greater discretion then available to the Driver, there was less disturbance to the passenger. Consider if every car truck and bus had to blow their horn at every junction, including farmers gates they pass on the road. But these are the rules and if you travel by train expect noise. When trains were first invented a flagman had to walk in front to warn of its arrival. The RSA is steadily engineering our railways back to those times - ie. 10mph approaches from a mile outside intercity termini and such like.

Now I must oil the aul tandum 'cause I have to meet a potential inward investor I'm bringing to The Wehst from Dublin Airport in the morning and shure we'll have a great chat during the three day cycle down along the closed down intercity mainline!

corktina

a tad over top methinks

dowlingm

It looks like the future for the railway between the Gateway Towns of Athlone and Mullingar

arrah come off it. Nobody gives the National Spatial Strategy To Preserve As Many Seats As Possible much credence.

The 190m figure for Galway Athenry has long been considered an oddly high one - given Ennis-Athenry cost 60% of that - we never got the full story on what the breakdown was.

Markcheese

Always thought the train blowing it's horn would give you just enough time to turn your head to see the train crash into you..
In the uk I had to cross the main Cornwall to Bristol line a few times at a farm crossing... There was a phone at the gate and I had to get clearance to cross .....

davidlacey

If the line was never reinstated during our most prosperous period of economic growth, it will never happen now sadly. And although the line would bring greatly flexibilities within the network as many people have said already, Connolly has capacity issues, so it would not make economic sense! and thats all it comes down to..

demanufactured

It'll never re open that's for sure

end of the road

we could have so much more in relation to our railways, but it wasn't to be, but i suppose we got intercity 125s running between galway and limerick so shur its grand, oh wait, this line should have never been closed in the first place, i believe 1 train left mote around midnight? thats a great time to have a train service isn't it, still unlike other viable lines like navon that shouldn't have been closed but were and completely lifted because CIE knew they would have been candidates for reopening in the future so wanted to make sure that couldn't happen at least this one survives for now

Losty Dublin

end of the road wrote: »

i believe 1 train left mote around midnight? thats a great time to have a train service isn't it,

That was the Galway Mail train. It ran via Moate into Connolly for easy access to the then Sheriff Street sorting office.

davidlacey

Was it a busy line?

Grandeeod

davidlacey wrote: »

Was it a busy line?

Up until Western trains were rerouted via Tullamore.

xtradel

Losty Dublin wrote: »

That was the Galway Mail train. It ran via Moate into Connolly for easy access to the then Sheriff Street sorting office.

That was known as the ghost train. As far as i know it was possible to travel on it as a passenger......paying or not i dont know.

Losty Dublin

xtradel wrote: »

That was known as the ghost train. As far as i know it was possible to travel on it as a passenger......paying or not i dont know.

There usually was a passenger coach on the mails, yeah. Usually being the operative word.

demanufactured

The lovely green fences have been put up on the bridge near the hospital in Athlone....

Grandeeod

demanufactured wrote: »

The lovely green fences have been put up on the bridge near the hospital in Athlone....

It's over. Greenway, once they make their minds up and choose a route. But I believe Athlone - Mullingar is already part of the mix and any Greenway will be laid "beside" the line and not on top of it. IR will lift the tracks anyway. But local council boyo's will feel they have achieved victory. Lucky for us that the MGWR built it as a double track set up. If only the WRC planning & development department had done the same! Then we could hook it up at Athenry and cycle the ****e out of ourselves all the way to Sligo and beyond!

demanufactured

They have completely cleared the growth at the level crossing in Athlone , it actually looks like a passable railway now....
Unfortunately this is the view a mile or 2 away....

Markcheese

demanufactured wrote: »

They have completely cleared the growth at the level crossing in Athlone , it actually looks like a passable railway now....
Unfortunately this is the view a mile or 2 away....

Seen stuff on you tube of freight trains in usa traveling tracks like ploughed fields...(think it was posted here) would mullingar line be travelable after a weed spray, clearing operation

corktina

I'd say so , at very slow speed with as little weight as possible, probably the same could be said of the WRC Northern section provided no-one nicked the rails!

demanufactured

some of the level crossings between mullingar and moate have been tarmaced over

corktina

i was assuming the line was cleared, a bit of tarmac isn't a huge problem (probably is for the Council though..)

dowlingm

I think there's a case you can make for reinstating Athlone-Mullingar but the stars have to really line up because there's a lot of expense to be contemplated - mini CTC, automated LCs, rehab of the alignment, inspection of bridges and after that what do you get? Not an awful lot without a platform on the East bank in Athlone plus you have additional movements on a Mullingar-Broombridge setup which is already heavily committed. Now you're talking about a LOT of money or else reduce the number of movements over that line to freight and maybe some Gaeltacht/GAA specials which don't have to call at Athlone.

flyingsnail

Can anybody tell me how (or why) the current station won out to be the single station to remain open?

Grandeeod

flyingsnail wrote: »

Can anybody tell me how (or why) the current station won out to be the single station to remain open?

Closer to the centre of Athlone.

GerardKeating

dowlingm wrote: »

I think there's a case you can make for reinstating Athlone-Mullingar but the stars have to really line up because there's a lot of expense to be contemplated - mini CTC, automated LCs, rehab of the alignment, inspection of bridges and after that what do you get? Not an awful lot without a platform on the East bank in Athlone plus you have additional movements on a Mullingar-Broombridge setup which is already heavily committed. Now you're talking about a LOT of money or else reduce the number of movements over that line to freight and maybe some Gaeltacht/GAA specials which don't have to call at Athlone.

Not sure of the local terrain, but would a diversion of the line be posible, so that it could call at the current Athlone Station.

The satilite imagary on Google maps shows mostly open space between the two lines where you would want a deviation to go.

end of the road

their are a lot of obsticals in the way of re-opening but i believe the line being re-opened should be a long term aspiration. so if i had the money how would i achieve the capacity problems?
1. get the turn back facilities at GCD on stream (if their not all ready)
2. reopen the 3 closed platforms at pierce station along whatever work that would need to happen to make that possible, 3 would be a terminating platform from the south and 4 from the north, 5 i don't know yet (yes i believe this should happen, it might mean over capacity but it would be future proofed for when things do get good again)
3. double tripple or more the track around the dublin area on the connolly side where possible, do it as far out as needed.
4. re-jig the signaling to allow as many trains in the shortest possible time, the only train to be able to terminate at either platforms 5 6 or 7 will be the rosslare train, all other commuters in most cases go to pierce station anyway.
to reopen the line from athlone would mean looking at ways to avoid reversal if possible along with the usual works to get a line like this back into working order.
obviously none of this is ever going to happen and their will be many obsticals in the way but couple all this work with dart underground and we should be able to sort out any future capacity issues in connolly and around that area, if anything we could then get rid of docklands, even if athlone mullingar didn't ever re-open

flyingsnail

GerardKeating wrote: »

Not sure of the local terrain, but would a diversion of the line be posible, so that it could call at the current Athlone Station.

The satilite imagary on Google maps shows mostly open space between the two lines where you would want a deviation to go.

I know it is a bit drawing with crayons but it certainly looks possible, the M6 is the biggest obstacle but it may be possible to go under it. All pie in the sky at the moment though

GerardKeating

flyingsnail wrote: »

I know it is a bit drawing with crayons but it certainly looks possible, the M6 is the biggest obstacle but it may be possible to go under it. All pie in the sky at the moment though

I was thinking of a slightly shorter route, Looking mostly open fields or sports grounds.

dowlingm

I imagine it would be cheaper than that to buy out some of the houses between the two sets of tracks and extend accesses across Auburn Drive to a new platform than build a large amount of new track. It does speak to the short sightedness of Athlone's/area's municipal thinkers that a shorter path between the lines wasn't preserved before sprawl prevented such a thing.

In terms of what that would enable, it would facilitate Athlone residents to commute to Maynooth/Leixlip while enabling Mullingar residents to commute to Athlone IT or Galway. The 0730 dep Athlone - 0830 arr Galway could be extended back to Mullingar departing 0700, with a service like the 0715 Maynooth extended through Mullingar (~0630) to a start in Athlone around 0600.

In the boom time, when housing in the regional towns could have acted as a sink for the Dublin property madness, maybe something like that could work. Hard to see a cost-benefit working out now.

cml387

Losty Dublin wrote: »

There usually was a passenger coach on the mails, yeah. Usually being the operative word.

I used that train,it departed at 20:10 from a remote platform in Connolly which was filled with mailbags.
It was the last departure to Mullingar and I had to take it because I was stuck in dublin on Fridays until six and missed the sligo train at 18:20.

It was quite well supported as I remember, but just one coach.
Could it have been classed as a "parliamentary";)

dennis124wwr

demanufactured wrote: »

Work going on at Athlone on this line today at the level crossing and I also saw a few workers on one of the bridges it crosses over too...
Anyone any clue what's happening???
Getting ready to be lifted perhaps??

I have a report from the newspaper saying '' The route for the Dublin - Galway cycleway, to include the stretch along the Athlone Mullingar rail corridor, is expected to be selected by the end of June, after which it will go out for public consultation, with construction to begin in 2014.
I do not know if this will happen but I think they are seeing the bridges to make sure they are in good order
P S Can you post me more detils of the men and what they are doing. And some pictures of the railway and the men if you can.
Thank you

dennis124wwr

demanufactured wrote: »

some of the level crossings between mullingar and moate have been tarmaced over

When did they do that?

dennis124wwr

Temp101 wrote: »

73rd Mile is gone some years, but the concrete blocks of the base may still exist as rubble in the undergrowth.

What is the 73rd Mile? Is it a signal house?

Temp101

73rd Mile was a signal cabin, yes.

dennis124wwr

Temp101 wrote: »

73rd Mile was a signal cabin, yes.

Thank you!!!

Cyberbeagle

Does anyone know how Dara O'Briain, Rory McGrath and Griff Rhys Jones managed to do this on the line??

http://youtu.be/_r7nZuEAymI?t=2m33s