Cross-border review of rail network officially launched

I was recently in Donegal. It is not even ribbon development there - it is a mega blitz of thousands - yes THOUSANDS - of one-off houses covering an enormous part of the county. How these people consistently demand a railway system every chance they get when the corrupt and insane planning there would not even make bus services possible is beyond me. Not only that the scenery is forever destroyed and country lanes packed with cars.

Its bad alright, but per the CSO the highest % of rural dwelling compared to urban is Mayo, co. Galway (excludes city), and Leitrim.

Donegal is bad for one offs but so is Galway-drive out the coast from the city and it’s wall to wall linear one offs

Firstly, I'll address the argument that buses are greener.

I knew already that buses emit less greenhouse gases than trains do. There are advantages that trains sometimes have over buses though, even when they're carrying an amount of people that would theoretically fit on a bus. Some train services are faster and/or more scenic than the bus alternative, to give two examples. So I'd argue that it's sometimes worth paying the additional cost of operating a railway because of these advantages. With that said, I do not think that railways should be built parallel to every bus route everywhere. However, I think that operational railways should remain in operation if the amount of people using it (or the potential amount) is high enough that it would be less 'green' for all the people using it to be travelling by car instead.

There's also the possibility that some people would be encouraged out of their cars by a train but not by a bus. A study on upgrading the Limerick Junction to Waterford railway concluded that the upgrade, if implemented, would mean more passengers on the train, some of whom would have been previously travelling by car.

People might accuse me of being a hypocrite for calling the climate crisis an emergency and then saying that railways should be kept open as long as they're greener than cars, even if a bus replacement would be even greener, but I do not accept claims that this makes me inconsistent. I think that society should be greener, but I don't think it has to be as green as possible (that would require completely banning things like toys and movies that people technically don't need to survive).

So some railways might not be as green as bus services that could replace them, but they are still greener than all their passengers travelling by car, and they still have advantages over bus services.

Next, I'll address the argument that money would be better spent on something else (most of this is actually what I've already said in my last post on this thread).

I accept that the investments that would do the most to help stop the climate crisis should be prioritised over investments that wouldn't do as much.

If a list was made of the most effective investments that the Irish government can make to help stop the climate crisis with current levels of funding, I wouldn't be surprised at all if, for example, upgrading the two branch lines in county Tipperary (the railways through Nenagh and Clonmel) didn't make the list of investments that could be made. However, I think that there should be a lot more funding to help stop the climate crisis, and with that increase in funding, a lot more investments could be made, increasing the chances of the branch lines in Tipperary getting upgraded.

I have no problem if rural lines aren't upgraded to the standard that, for instance, Dublin to Cork has, but I really don't think that any more lines should be closed. Instead, I think the lines for which demand is relatively low should get modest speed improvements so that they are significantly faster than their bus alternatives.

For example, if the train journey time from Ennis to Galway was modestly reduced by 15 minutes, from 1 hrs 15 mins to 1 hour, the train would be faster than the bus from Ennis to Galway by 20 minutes. To give another example, modestly reducing the journey time from Dublin to Wexford from 2 hrs 35 mins to 2 hours would also beat the bus alternative by 20 minutes. Those are the journey time reductions I think rural railways should get, rather than bringing them up to the standard of the Dublin to Cork railway. All the rural railways in Ireland have bus alternatives, but I think they should be made faster than their bus alternatives so that they have a time advantage, which along with the advantage of being more scenic, would be enough (in my opinion) to make them worth keeping open.

There are also improvements that could be made to the intercity mainline railways in Ireland that would arguably also improve rural railways, too.

For example, upgrading Dublin to Cork to 200km/h would not just reduce journey times from Dublin to Cork and Limerick, but also from Dublin to towns like Tralee, Nenagh and Clonmel which are all on rural railways which connect to the Dublin to Cork railway (so to get from Dublin to these places by train you usually have to make use of part of the Dublin to Cork railway). Also, if Dublin to Galway was double tracked, it wouldn't just allow an increase in frequency and reliability of Dublin to Galway trains, but also an increase in frequency and reliability of Limerick to Galway trains and Dublin to Westport trains, both of which use parts of the Dublin to Galway line.

"There is no such thing as modest speed improvements" is not a factual statement. Reducing the journey time from Ennis to Galway by 20 minutes is definitely more modest though than reducing it by 40 or 50 minutes, as it would almost certainly cost less to reduce it by 20 minutes.

Thinking that Ennis a town of around 25k, is big enough that noone need to commute to the cities is incredibly naive.

All over Europe and indeed the world people commute from ennis sized and much larger towns to the cities for work. Why would you think ireland be any different?

Drive on the M18 from Limerick to Galway and you'll see the traffic drop off dramatically after Junction 12. And that's not just me thinking that - the traffic counts are 27.5K just before J12 and 14K after J15.

Anyone in Ennis who would benefit from the train to Galway (i.e. those working only in the city), can, if they have car, drive to Oranmore station, park there and be in the city centre in 6 minutes. If you don't have a car, the bus takes an hour and twenty minutes. The same time as the train. Plus the bus stops at ATU.

And for people who work in Ballybrit/Parkmore/Mervue (biggest concentration of employment in Galway), neither bus nor train will take you there directly.

People commute for all kinds of reasons- inertia, salary and career expectations, relationships, family etc.

Most people I know that commute to Dublin from Kilkenny and surrounds do so because they simply have a better job or quality of one they can’t get closer to home. It’s not as bad now as most professional jobs offer some degree of flexibility and home working.