Freight rail in Ireland

I always thought that if the Navan line was built that the logical implication would be closing/mothballing the Drogheda route, so that pathing higher speed services on Dublin-Belfast route would be easier without 50mph ore freights to work around. Given the drivers wouldn’t be worrying about manual gates it might even have been quicker from load point to port? What I would like to see on the Northern Line is container freight to/from the North on 75mph wagons

THere has been an "official" view that EU rules prevent government subvention of rail freight as opposed to passengers. Is this true? It begs questions about access charges, incentivising emissions reduction etc. It also begs questions about the fiscal treatment of the rival to rail freight: juggernaut trucks. Do these pay access charges (road taxes) commensurate with the costs they impose? Remember that road wear ans tear is related not to the axle load but to axle-load squared or cubed (I forget the exact formula).

Not publicly, but there's plenty of enthusiasts who would know the timings, or at least a good rough guess, for them all.

Pocket wagons like the Irish rail CPWs were much in vogue in the early 2000s when 9ft 6in containers were relatively new and uncommon.. However they limit capacity due to their length.. What we have seen here and elsewhere is that rail operators would rather undertake gauge clearance work where possible to allow 9ft 6in containers on standard wagons..

Irish rails new wagon order will most definitely be for flat wagons rather than well/pocket wagons.. Likely an off the shelf EU type that can be fitted with various ISO platforms for different applications(Ballast/spoil, timber, tank wagons)

Talking about the US or India is fairly irrelevant for an Irish perspective.. Portugal or Scandinavia would be a better comparison

And whare in Rosslare are the loading facilities for this? Under construction? Very soon?

I had it wrong. It’s a new freight service from Waterford, not Rosslare, as I previously posted. Three days a week.

I think the plan is to have it, and the IWT, load and unload in the yard in North Wall.

This is only a guess on my part. I should imagine that the train goes to Waterford-Belview. It could serve the purpose of transferring some containers from Ballina to ships from Belview for destinations not served directly from Dublin. Also it might pick up some containers from the Dublin area which at present go by road to Belview.

There is a direct Ballina-Belview service, which appears to be lightly loaded. Maybe a Dublin-Belview service can take the existing traffic plus some extras originating in Dublin.

that would have made sense pre-1997 when Bell had major operations focused on Waterford.. However in 2024, it makes little sense as Port of Waterford has a very limited service of two vessel calls a week, and both of those call to Dublin before heading to Waterford. It might make sense in reverse, to feed containers into Dublin port from Waterford, but if you have enough volume to support 3 trains a week, you would likely be better off getting a call to waterford added to the vessel you are trying to connect with ex Dublin. It would also likely be cheaper to send your containers to Cork or Rosslare by road, as both have services not available ex Waterford..

Also the use of pocket wagons doesn’t make sense, as XPO have use of a set of flats, and if it was a recast of their service they would just use the flats.

Have they enough flats? Maybe they just want to get the pocket wagons back into use, after refurbing them?

Could be part of a broader plan to increase freight, gradually, maybe.

Tara is coming back by road I think, so that won’t be running again any time soon.

I had always heard that it was a condition of the mine's planning permission that the ore be sent by rail

I haven't heard that before. Perhaps it's a negotiating tactic to get the price down. But I'm not sure if any of the wagons are even certified at the moment.

I'm guessing they're referring to this incident from 2009

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/packed-train-seconds-from-disaster-in-bridge-collapse/26560282.html

Ah

I remember, thought citizen six was referring to something more recent (Perhaps the viaduct at Navan).
There was ore trains running before Tara mines went into "sleep mode" a year or two back.

Its just in the last few months I don't recall seeing one. Would often have seen an empty train on its way back from the Port, on the DART near Connolly.