Limerick - Nenagh - Ballybrophy railway

Anecdotally it has improved recently. But with the current and the new timetable from December 11th there is only so far it can go. Huge support from people along the line who want a better service.

CIE painted every station on the West Cork the summer before shutting it down (allegedly)

Just took trip on the Nenagh line. The recent improvements in running times are very underwhelming to say the least. There are loads and loads of ' 30mph restrictions , presumably near user-worked crossings. I can# unterstand why such crossings are passed at much higher speeds on other lines.

Recruiting more dirvers will not necessarily enable extra services. You will need a second shift of signallers, crossing keepers and other staff, or at least a lot of money spent on automated crossings and signalling.

My rough impression is that there are about a dozen unattended accommodation corssings (i.e leading to one or more houses). These appear to be the main hzard, especially as I saw at least two with gates left open. Then there are farm crossings, probably well over 100. Farmers will keep gates closed if they have livestock, for obviious reasons. For others, the restricted speeds apply at lots of farm (field only) crossings. Eliminating these would seem to be impossible.

The price we pay for extreme risk aversion driven by the legal liability laws.

Iarnród Éireann have been quite definitive about a lot of things over the years, but that doesn’t mean that things won’t happen.

They also have a habit of gold plating the investments required.

At the end of the day, what happens will be down to political pressure.

Yes, difficult to know how to proceed the campaign for improvements to the line. I dont see why it all has to be bundled into one massive project of automation and resignalling. Automating individual gate keeper crossings over a period of 5 to 10 years and then looking at resignalling once the 12 crossings have been automated would be a more realistic approach in relation to securing funding.

There is no government going to pump €58 million into the line in one go. That's completely unrealistic.

Automating the gate keeper crossings is not just about speed of trains. It makes it easier to introduce additional services to the timetable. Particularly on Sundays and public holidays.

But as far as I can see the real cause for such slow speeds is not so much the public manned crossings, but the unmanned accommodation and farm crossings. They could start by prosecuting people who leave gates open, except that some judge will fall for some cock-and-bull type excuse.

For the record, I wasn’t remotely suggesting that the investment should happen all at once, but if we are to make public transport a viable alternative across the country, develop regional commuter services and make an effort to meet our climate emission targets, it will have to happen eventually.

For my own information, how many lines in Ireland still have staff-operated level crossings?

Is this common in FE, DE, UK, etc?

Sorry,, but this is quite wrong. THere are loads of 30 and 40 mph restrictions on the line whihc have nothing to do with the signalling: they are not anywhere near block posts but are near unsignalled crossings. The line limit on Limerick Junction-Waterford is 50, not 40. However it is punctuated by loads of lower limits for much the same reasons as the Nenagh Lline.

Autometed crossings should be capable of being monitored and controlled by existing signalling centres. This operation is independent of normal CTC signalling and the same should apply to lines with ETS-related signalling.

Exactly, youv'e nailed it.

Right so its public roads. Firstly we know IE don't like to prosecute miss use so not a surprise. Before anyone says I know its not as simple.

The new warning light system been rolled out would probably work here and not massively expensive.

A bridge would certainly be the preferred option but the terrain and density of some of the crossings makes it unfeasible. Would probably also make it financially unviable.

As you can see in the attached screenshot the vast majority of these (9/12) manned level crossings are densely located between Castlesconell Station and Killonan junction.

The other 3 are East of Cloughjordan, 1 just after Cloughjordan, 1 just after Roscrea and one maybe halfway between Roscrea and Ballybrophy.

I think it's a reasonable and sensible argument that the next phase of rehabilitating this line is to deman these crossings and automation of the 12 level crossings.

This would reduce running costs, simplify management of the line, allow for a more flexible approach from NTA and Irish Rail when discussing additional services. On weekends and public holidays in particular.

It's going to have to happen sooner or later if the line is to have any hope of being useful to people.

Can I play devils advocate for a minute ..

Why go to all the trouble ? I know theyve just replaced the track ,

but they could have more cheaply put 4 or so coaches on the route - it'd been quicker whizzing up the motorway , cheaper to run , no crossing to worry about ..

And could have had stops in more convenient places in nenagh and limerick

because nothing would be achieved apart from creating more road transport, more cars as the rail users are unlikely to transfer to the 4 coaches and higher carbon fines.

So why does anyone bother with the jj kavanaghs coach ?

during bustitutions for rail work it has been the case for years that buses have to wait at stations to match the rail timetable. The Roscrea northbound timetable, having only a short part of the Branch to traverse, is hardly representative of the service competitiveness as a whole.

Frankly that is irrelevant, given the previous low speeds on the railway.

Since the recent changes, the railway is now faster than all of the local bus services along the railway line, namely the Bus Éireann 72, 323 and JJ Kavanagh 735 for any trip.

the fact is the anual subvention and track upgrades are over all cheaper across the long term, due to the need to cut the use of road transport and increase the usage of rail, and avoid crippling carbon fines which are coming our way and will be felt by us all and they will be crippling, no doubt about it.

if there is demand for more bus services along the corridor the existing operators will provide them and there is no reason they and the rail line can't co-exist, they will ultimately as usage across both methods increase.

your constant want to replace rail with more coaches that would already be provided if people want them, and the use of coaches to get out of providing rail where it is needed, just is not workable in the modern era where ireland is facing crippling carbon fines.

we are going to have to invest more in the existing network and engage in some reopenings where possible whether people want it or not, as just chucking more road transport at the problem and simply burying heads in the sand is no longer tennable.

both road and rail services on corridors is the only option available, crippling carbon fines is not an option.

The line has been completely been relaid with CWR now following a lot of pressure from local people, press and politicians, so that argument is moot, and there is now demand from local people for more services. The railway won’t be closing.

LMATS envisages the rail service developing over time to a more realistic level.

And with due respect, you are far more likely to attract people out of their cars onto a rail service than a coach service, so the challenge now is to develop the service on the railway line.

You're right about it's not going to just disappear , because money has been spent on relaying the track ..

Rail that isn't mass transit isnt better for the environment than road .. it's probably much worse ..

More than future speed increases and manned crossing closures, I think they should be focusing on increasing journey generators , extra stations in limerick , and linking those stations with public transport / bike lanes to get to places in city once you' re there , it'd be a pisser to pass near plassy on the train have to get off in Colbert and have to trek back through the city to get to through the eastern side of town again ...

Although to work well coaches too need infrastructure .. decent stops in the right areas , bus lanes where appropriate..