Expansion of Shannon Estuary

leakyboots

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/boost-for-limerick-with-major-expansion-of-dock-at-foynes-29088263.html

THE country's largest bulk port company has announced plans for a €12m expansion of dock facilities at the Shannon estuary. -



Planning permission has been secured by Shannon Foynes Port Company (SFPC) for the expansion of a new dock at Foynes, Co Limerick.

Construction work, employing 150 people, will begin in 2015 and plans are being prepared to attract the world's biggest supertankers to the western port.

SFPC has today unveiled plans to double its trade in the next three decades with the publication of it's masterplan, 'Vision 2041'.
Senior management at the company said 2,000 indirect jobs could be created over the next 30 years if transport links to the region were improved along with facilities on the estuary.

SFPC currently helps to facilitate international trade valued at over €6bn per annum through the six port facilities on the Shannon estuary.

Speaking in Foynes today, Transport Minister Leo Varadkar said he wanted to commend the port for drafting such a realistic, achievable and ambitious plan.

"Shannon Foynes Port Company is an important asset for the south west of Ireland, and for our national economy, and I welcome its goal to attract significant international investment," Mr Varadkar said.

Kess73

Smacks of talk from some years back about Supertankers using Foynes. The simple fact that things like river depth, and width coming into Foynes being unsuitable (as in a genuine supertanker simply being unable to fit) gets ignored. The draught of most supertankers (up to 24m give or take a metre) is far greater than the maximum the port can handle (10.5m). Pretty sure that the max beam that the port can handle is about half that of a real supertanker.

Also the port itself is physically too small to cater for even one supertanker. and doubling the size of it would still leave it too small.


One can only assume that those writing the articles or making the speeches have no idea what a supertanker is, and is trying to paint a picture of a port that simply cannot exist where Foynes Port is due to natural limitations.


One thing I do think though is that Foynes Port is horribly underused as it could deal with a hell of a lot more traffic than it does, and I would love to see the rail line which goes right into the port reopened and used.

So whilst I disagree completely with the supertanker claim, I think that an upgrade of the port, even a modest one like the proposed €12.5m one, is great news as I have a big gra for Foynes and the surrounding areas (grandfather on my mother's side used to work with one of the flying boat firms that used Foynes and have had and still do have relatives that are involved with the port)

RikkFlair

Kess73 wrote: »

One thing I do think though is that Foynes Port is horribly underused as it could deal with a hell of a lot more traffic than it does, and I would love to see the rail line which goes right into the port reopened and used.

Would love to see that reopened too but I hope they haven't left it too long that the line has gone into a very bad state, I believe the viaduct near Aughinish is structurally unsafe so that would need to be replaced.

Would be a great buzz to see a train go through Adare again.

Kess73

RikkFlair wrote: »

Would love to see that reopened too but I hope they haven't left it too long that the line has gone into a very bad state, I believe the viaduct near Aughinish is structurally unsafe so that would need to be replaced.

Would be a great buzz to see a train go through Adare again.

Funnily enough I was speaking with someone in town today who would have first hand info on that, and we got onto the topic of the announced expansion. I brought up the old rail line and what I got told was that it would have cost in the region of €10m to €12m to make the line usable or at least that was the figure when an estimate was last done on the idea.


The section near Aughinish that you mention would need to be completely replaced, as would a section near where the old stop near Askeaton was.


Totally agree that it would be nice to see a train go through Adare especially down where the railway bridge crosses the river ( Think that is Fisherman's wharf at the end of station road?)

flyingsnail

The bridge beside aughinish is the Robertstown viaduct and I believe it has been in a bad state for a long time. At this stage you would probably have to replace the entire track but the big advantage that the line may have in terms of restoration cost would be only bringing it back for freight use. That would mean rebuilding it to a lower overall speed and using train crew operated level crossings except for key locations reducing permanent way and signalling costs.

Faing

The line is officially "Mothballed", not closed, but has been effectively made redundant by lack of any maintenance since 2002. The Iron bridge at Robertstown was last rated at 20tons, great, considering the average loco weight exceeds that by several tons therefore making it all but useless. It would be fantastic to utilise the rail link and I am sure plenty of European Green project money would be available to take millions of tonnes of heavy traffic off the road every year. But will it ever happen? as much as I hope so and support all efforts to do so, probably not. Its all just at the feasibility stages and will remain there for the foreseeable future.
The line itself would need total replacement, I last walked it 3 years ago and in places it is pure derelict and would need complete replacement. Is that viable? in my opinion, it is. So fingers crossed, it will come to fruition in some guise or other as the new type of middleweight supertanker fleets are currently under construction and these would be ideally suited to a port like Foynes provided the infastructure is in place to deal with them.
Lets hope it happens.

Typical station condition on the Foynes Limerick line, this one is Cappagh.


Overgrown line near Cappagh

Mc Love

Would be great to restore that building for residential purposes, my granaunt and granuncle used to live in a station house on the Ardagh line.

trap4

Interesting article in the Limerick Leader this week regarding possible investment in Foynes by the Chinese city of Nanjing who "indicated the estuary is more suited to a deep sea trading port than other European locations".

Kess73

Would agree that in physical terms the estuary as a whole would be one of the most suitable of it's kind in western europe with regards to being suitable for a deep sea port.


But by the time you come up the estuary as far as Foynes the number of physical limitations have grown compared to further out the estuary.


Would also have some concerns, if work was to be done (and it would have to be work on a huge scale) for the population of bottlenose dolphin in the shannon estuary.

Not sure how many know this, but the Shannon estuary is home to Ireland's only resident population of bottlenose dolphin, and that population is also amongst the largest known resident population of them anywhere in Europe.