Tension over future of Rosslare-Waterford rail route

I think I read somewhere that because the line is technically only dormant, and not out of commission yet, it is still regularly maintained and kept to an operable standard. So I don't think it would cost that much money to open it back up. Not for freight anyway because you wouldn't need to invest in the stations which have been let slip unfortunately.

Greenways are a great way to preserve and make use of lines that were abandoned but I'd never support lifting an existing line to accommodate one.

Much harder to build a railway line than a greenway. They should keep the railway.

Would be great if they reopened it. The cynic in me thinks these greenways are an easy option so they don't have to bother reinstating the train service

Kinda missing the point; reconnecting Rosslare to Waterford reconnects Rosslare to the rest of the country bar the pre-existing Dublin connection.

Anyway, I thought they were looking into incorporating a Greenway beside an operational railway line? I thought the debate had moved on to arguing about which side of the track should the Greenway be laid? Did I miss something?

Waterford Area Rapid Transport, aka the WART!

definitely copyright!

I remember reading when they were considering stopping the service that it would be cheaper to send each passenger to Rosslare by taxi and pay for lunch on route than to continue the service. No idea of the figures but that stat really resonated with me at the time.

CIE has a history of this kind of thing. Messing with schedules to make the line look unused. The Tramore railway closure was notorious at the time and even to some people today. The "assessor" came down on a weekday in January when it was quite. And reported the the line was not being used. God forbid he would have come down in the summer and have gotten an answer they did not want.

That first line could apply to a whole host of issues, not just this particular one.

It should be turned into a greenway, give the people of South Wexford the economic boost they vitally need.

I doubt there's a solid business case for either freight or passenger trains on this line, the opening of the New Ross bypass has made the case even worse.

Imagine the cost of building the railway line today. In the UK it currently costs £12m-£20m per mile excluding land. So 76 miles, even at the low end of the spectrum would cost €1bn to build today. Okay, that is a back-of-an-envelope calculation- but whatever way you cut it no one is offering to build a railway in our region again, so the strategic question is really— do we wish to permanently destroy this incredibly expensive, but currently underused resource?

Yesterday, the EU announced its intention to ban the sale of ICE cars and non-biofuel petrol/diesel by 2035. The prudent move is to keep the resource as a rail line.

The development of a greenway adjacent to the line would avoid putting a €1bn resource beyond use.

This was suppose to be the plan over the last few years.the Greenway was to link waterford-new ross on through clonroche enniscorthy eventually onto wexford-rosslare

That route would also link the barrow blue way to carlow.

Leave the waterford-rosslare as an important strategic train line

The cost of building a greenway beside the track was AFAIR somewhere in the region of €50 million.

If a viable rail service was proposed that's what it could cost to move the greenway.

I don't see what a ban on ICE cars has to do with this.

...yea thats it!

The plan to reduce the number of cars will have to be scrapped then. Can't have both.

Sure if you are going to base the provision of public transport on viability the number of cars on the roads will never reduce. This mind-set of profitability and viability will have to go when it comes to public transport. It will have to happen on the basis of the state subsidising public transport to provide an alternative to cars to reduce the problems caused by large numbers of cars. If they won’t develop the existing railway line from Wexford via Waterford – Limerick – Galway and up to Ballina for passenger and freight. Then there is no car reduction plan, simple as that. There are other ways to develop a Greenway in Wexford, once the Waterford - Rosslare railway line is gone, realistically it is gone forever.

The timetable was set up for it to fail! Irish rail never wanted success here. Wexford Town to Waterford would bring in more passengers but that’s talking sense.