Unused Train Station Needs €3.8m Refurbishment

RoTelly · 09-05-2022 2:37pm #1

https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2022/0509/1296967-train-station/

"You have to put it into the context that when this station was planned, and then when it was built, it was built on the premise that there would be significant development in that area," she said.

"That didn't occur, unfortunately, due to the economic climate. So for a long number of years there was no access into the station," she added.

"We had a problem because we don't own the land around the station, so we had to get a license agreement to get access and car parking in there," Ms Cregan said.

Do trains pass by this station? Could maintenance people drive to another close by station and hop on a train to get to this station?

L1011 · 09-05-2022 2:40pm

Trains go through it all the time, but an unscheduled stop can mess up a schedule and anyone going there via that method would need Personal Track Safety passes, which are a complete pain in the arse even for CIE staff to get.

So I imagine that nobody bothered due to the hassle.

Also, there's the perverse rational to support not maintaining it - Irish Rail would have had to fund the maintainence itself whereas now they can probably get state money for the retrofit!

Also, some of the cost is going to be changes in standards, branding, new passenger info screens that other stations would have got and the media would have screamed over being spent on a closed station.

donaghs · 09-05-2022 2:47pm

On the plus side, its nice to some planning being done in advance of housing developments. I've no doubt development will come that area eventually, given the demand for housing and our ever growing population of working-age people.

RoTelly · 09-05-2022 3:03pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037013#Comment_119037013

Schedule stops during non-peak hours. Surely a requirement for CIE maintenance staff is to have personally track safety pass.

They track would have been maintained due to the use of the railroad.

Don't put in place any market or any passenger information (expect laying the cables) until it is ready to open.

The government should tell them to f off, and not give any funding to this and completely lay the blame at IE and its management/mismanagement.

RoTelly · 09-05-2022 3:05pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037050#Comment_119037050

No problem with this at all, but planned maintenance would have been a better investment, rather than planned destruction in the hope of government funding.

Good luck to them on August 2023, expect it in August 2025.

Iarnród Éireann's communications executive Jane Cregan told RTÉ's News at One that it is anticipated it will be ready to open in the third quarter of 2023.

L1011 · 09-05-2022 3:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037119#Comment_119037119

Lift techs and so on wouldn't have those passes.

If no kit was put in, the media would whine about there being opening costs. No matter what way this was done, the media would whine.

Either not putting anything that life expires in til it was ready to open; or performing ongoing maintenance would have been better but both would have caused similar article to be written about costs.

RoTelly · 09-05-2022 3:32pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037213#Comment_119037213

I don't see the media whining at this at all, they are reporting on this, the report above goes into no real detail.

For example the media should ask (after being told there is no access to the site)

... But there is access to the site via railroad right?...

Answer Yes.... it is true that "trains go through it all the time, but an unscheduled stop can mess up a schedule"

... but you could make a scheduled stop at the train station for maintenance ...

Answer Yes... but "anyone going there via that method would need Personal Track Safety passes" this is a costly and time consuming pass to get for staff and for contractors and while some have the pass they are maintaining other live train stations.

... and are such passes required for the maintenance of the car park, the station building? (I don't know the answer to that over to you L1011)

... I would also like to point out that new standards, branding, new passenger information would have ben required at station so we would be updating those now in any case, just as we have done with live stations...

...do non-live stations need such paraphernalia ?

L1011 · 09-05-2022 3:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037265#Comment_119037265

The point about lack of access is that for many years there was no car park, no access road, or indeed any access whatsoever except via engineering train. Which would need PTS. And hence would have been enough of an expensive faff to put people off doing it. Even cleaners would have needed PTS.

Basically, if any maintenance was to be done at all it would have been exceptionally expensive (until the access road was built a year or so ago). So they chose the "easy" option of doing none.

And I can guarantee you that if Irish Rail was spending six figures a year to maintain an unused railway station, there'd be uproar. And that's what it would have cost to do so without the access road.

RoTelly · 09-05-2022 3:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037278#Comment_119037278

And L1011 as spokesperson do you have figures to hand of the cost of maintaining this site over the past 12 years, to a level of readiness for its opening? Surely you have a cost analysis done, of maintenance and of a refurbishment?

ShamanRing · 09-05-2022 3:40pm

I walked to the station recently and there was planning permission signs up to demolish the station

Gregor Samsa · 09-05-2022 4:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037299#Comment_119037299

No planning application mentioned on the SDCC planning maps. The one to the south (SD08A/0437) was for the park and ride facility (granted in 2008).

https://sdublincoco.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=004b5a1a557a4c1a91b4629923f9d4b7

L1011 · 09-05-2022 4:10pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037291#Comment_119037291

I'm not a spokesperson

I'm just pointing out that people absolutely would have whined about maintenance costs; and absolutely would have whined should there have been a huge fitout cost for opening.

Overheal · 09-05-2022 4:28pm

This is why you go bankrupt in a city sim game when you plan out city scale infrastructure for a village scale start.

RoTelly · 09-05-2022 4:39pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037440#Comment_119037440

My point is if we are whining, why isn't IÉ explaining the issued they face. I seem to have learned more from you than from their spokesperson on this and/or the media and their lack of questions of their process.

Do you not think the questions that I have raised are not legitimate and that we should allow IÉ carry on unhindered by people asking stupid questions?

Ubbquittious · 09-05-2022 5:11pm

What in the feck does the 3.8m gets spent on? Will there be a mini theme park attached to it for that price? A train station in its simplest form only needs a bit of a platform and a road leading up to it. In Africa they sometimes get by without even a platform. Why does everything need to be so posh here?

Overheal · 09-05-2022 5:22pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119037711#Comment_119037711

6 million euro building but the majority of the cost is in the labor (and those are 2009 numbers). They have to go back over every centimeter of the building now again to get it back up to code. Well worth auditing anyway. And no Ireland isn't going to just put some pallets of wood on a mound of dirt next to a flagpole and call it a train stop. The train station in its simplest form ignores all the lessons learned about trains and stations in general (some of which are written in blood)