A lot of those abandoned railways have been closed with over 50 years, with large parts of the track gone and moved to accommodate things like housing estates. One near me is now under water for a large section of it. Plus they were cargo rather than passenger to begin with.
None of the counties not served by rail have abandoned railway lines *according to your map. I don’t think the greenways are the issue. Unless they’ve all been converted to greenways already.
*Edit: apparently some of the counties marked as not having abandoned railway lines do in fact have abandoned railway lines,
Enough with the feckin Greenways is right!
Ugh Londonderry
Like everything else Donegal is always forgotten
What the hell is a “Londonderry”?
Illustrates just why the border counties are the poorest on the island.
(And something people who complain about the ‘cost’ of a United Ireland completely miss)
What’s meaths County Town?
There’s a Rail Strategy? If that goes as well as any recent government strategies then I wouldn’t hold your breath on seeing a step change any time soon.
They don’t want us to use cars but then don’t provide useful and reliable public transport links as an alternative to car travel to commute any kind of distance.
Eh Louth has abandoned railways lines. The Dundalk bypass and Tain bridge follows the old Greenore line and the Carlingford greenway is on an old line too.
It’s one of the reasons Donegal has an airport,at the time they wouldn’t put money into good road infrastructure so they said , we’ll keep those Donegal ones quiet with an airport,that in itself could only survive because it’s subsidized ,there’s loads of the railway embankments left in the county.you could still resurrect a lot of it but for tourism only as the customer base is not there for a commercial venture .
Greenways have taken over alot of these embankments but they are on private land and if it benefitted the landowners financially then I could see them letting tourist trains run again and if it were to happen that trains would run again then there’s plenty of space either for walkways and cycling
It’s truly silly how Navan isn’t connected
Visited the rail museum in Donegal town earlier this year. Felt really sad for the lack for planning and forward thinking that just let all this important transport infrastructure just wither away.
It’s really frustrating in Meath, they literally tore up lines recently in Navan. There’s even a photo of the current government at the old train station talking about linking it to the M3 parkway.
Edit for link: Navan commuters waiting on Dublin train for 25 years
Navan and Athboy used to have a passenger line to drogheda, but that’s kinda useless if you need to get to dublin directly, and the tracks are owned by industry.
Enfield has a working dublin route.
There is the M3 parkway, which you need a bus to get to, so may as well just take the bus to dublin.
And trim is next to nothing. They don’t even have an N road and are 30 mins off the M3.
And they fecken call us a part of greater dublin area.
Saying Tipperary is served by rail is pushing it, to say the least…
Ireland still in the dark ages. They hate the English so much they wont use trains 😂😂😂
The reason why there is no rail access now for most of the northwest including Northern Ireland, put very simply was the border initially. Pre 1921 border there were many cross border railways connecting Cavan, Monaghan, Armagh, Enniskillen, Dundalk and Donegal. The natural trade flows would generally for these areas be towards Belfast and Newry. The post 1921 border meant customs checks and operating difficulties that cross border operations entailed. (sound recently familiar). Trade came under pressure mainly from the roads and by the end of WW2 the private rail companies were in trouble.
The largest private rail company, The Great Northern which ran from Dublin to Belfast right across to Derry and Donegal and crossed the border many times was the most affected. Both North & South governments took it over in the early 1950s to save it, but by late 1950’s, the government in the North had lost interest in railways in the Provence and was pushing a pro road lobby as the way forward. Hence most of the railways including the Great Northern closed leaving most of the north west without a passenger and freight service. CIE who ran the southern part of the GNR had no option to close their part of any cross border lines (except Dublin – Belfast) as in many cases these lines now lead to no where after the northern side on the border had been closed and lifted. Other smaller railways like in Donegal and Sligo Leitrim that’s existence was tied to the GNR were also forced to close.
It often argued Stormont’s decision to closed their side of the GNRI was political one due the unwillingness of keeping essential cross border connections, bar one cross border line open, but nevertheless the map tells it’s own sorry. In a ideal world if some of those lines were still here today, rail transport and access in Ireland would be a different story.
Honestly I’d be really happy with the greenways if they actually made the greenways
Is u bri’ish m8?
Badly needed in Monaghan . So hard to get to Galway for college by public transport . And yet they’re spending millions on a canal restoration in clones when a rail linking it to the rest of the county would be so much more beneficial.
This is scandalous, their should be a direct train to Donegal with multiple by routes.
Came on here expecting the top comment to be about Londonderry
I’m assuming none of this makes commercial sense besides Meath? Like its a case of the rail will be subsidised forever.
Apart from Navan, there aren’t many new heavy rail lines which should be built as a matter of emergency. We need to be focusing on intraurban transport.
Made a mistake, Roscommon has none, I mistakenly thought it had one on the Western Rail Corridor. Also when I said “abandoned”, I mean track that hasn’t been lifted, but isn’t in service. So, abandoned.
Westmeath also has an abandoned line – the Athlone to Mullingar which is now a Greenway. It used to connect to the Sligo – Dublin line up until the 90s.
When they axed the Navan to Dublin line back in 58, Navan wasn’t the big town it was today. It no longer made economical sense to run a train between a small town and some rural villages in West Dublin (now large suburbs) in between. Of course, now we know that was a big mistake.
Northwest is severely lacking….people
Hence the lower investment in, well, everything.
Derry!!!!!!
What does it mean county town? Down has rail services in Newry and Bangor. Where else is it talking about? Downpatrick?
What’s the definition of “abandoned railway”? Monaghan had a railway
Am I right in thinking that a rail network would never go obsolete? Once there’s a track are you always able to use that track for some mode of fast transport?
From Tyrone, honestly didn’t know Ireland even had trains until I was like 17.
Rail strategy: turn railway lines into pathways to walk.
Considerint how big of a joke internally Irish Rail is. Idk about this one
Down has loads of abandoned rail lines. The second map is nonsense… There were rail lines to Downpatrick (the county town), and further out to the coast, including Killough (and maybe Ardglass too).
Honestly they should be looking at restoring lines but as part of a larger strategy of populating towns in the country. Have a strategy of building a line and add new housing and core facilities that are missing.
Dublin is overloaded so spreading out the load helps.
39 comments
A lot of those abandoned railways have been closed with over 50 years, with large parts of the track gone and moved to accommodate things like housing estates. One near me is now under water for a large section of it. Plus they were cargo rather than passenger to begin with.
None of the counties not served by rail have abandoned railway lines *according to your map. I don’t think the greenways are the issue. Unless they’ve all been converted to greenways already.
*Edit: apparently some of the counties marked as not having abandoned railway lines do in fact have abandoned railway lines,
Enough with the feckin Greenways is right!
Ugh Londonderry
Like everything else Donegal is always forgotten
What the hell is a “Londonderry”?
Illustrates just why the border counties are the poorest on the island.
(And something people who complain about the ‘cost’ of a United Ireland completely miss)
What’s meaths County Town?
There’s a Rail Strategy? If that goes as well as any recent government strategies then I wouldn’t hold your breath on seeing a step change any time soon.
They don’t want us to use cars but then don’t provide useful and reliable public transport links as an alternative to car travel to commute any kind of distance.
Eh Louth has abandoned railways lines. The Dundalk bypass and Tain bridge follows the old Greenore line and the Carlingford greenway is on an old line too.
It’s one of the reasons Donegal has an airport,at the time they wouldn’t put money into good road infrastructure so they said , we’ll keep those Donegal ones quiet with an airport,that in itself could only survive because it’s subsidized ,there’s loads of the railway embankments left in the county.you could still resurrect a lot of it but for tourism only as the customer base is not there for a commercial venture .
Greenways have taken over alot of these embankments but they are on private land and if it benefitted the landowners financially then I could see them letting tourist trains run again and if it were to happen that trains would run again then there’s plenty of space either for walkways and cycling
It’s truly silly how Navan isn’t connected
Visited the rail museum in Donegal town earlier this year. Felt really sad for the lack for planning and forward thinking that just let all this important transport infrastructure just wither away.
It’s really frustrating in Meath, they literally tore up lines recently in Navan. There’s even a photo of the current government at the old train station talking about linking it to the M3 parkway.
Edit for link: Navan commuters waiting on Dublin train for 25 years
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/navan-commuters-waiting-on-dublin-train-for-25-years-1.4678247
When is that being released though
*stares in sad Meath man*
Navan and Athboy used to have a passenger line to drogheda, but that’s kinda useless if you need to get to dublin directly, and the tracks are owned by industry.
Enfield has a working dublin route.
There is the M3 parkway, which you need a bus to get to, so may as well just take the bus to dublin.
And trim is next to nothing. They don’t even have an N road and are 30 mins off the M3.
And they fecken call us a part of greater dublin area.
Saying Tipperary is served by rail is pushing it, to say the least…
Ireland still in the dark ages. They hate the English so much they wont use trains 😂😂😂
The reason why there is no rail access now for most of the northwest including Northern Ireland, put very simply was the border initially. Pre 1921 border there were many cross border railways connecting Cavan, Monaghan, Armagh, Enniskillen, Dundalk and Donegal. The natural trade flows would generally for these areas be towards Belfast and Newry. The post 1921 border meant customs checks and operating difficulties that cross border operations entailed. (sound recently familiar). Trade came under pressure mainly from the roads and by the end of WW2 the private rail companies were in trouble.
The largest private rail company, The Great Northern which ran from Dublin to Belfast right across to Derry and Donegal and crossed the border many times was the most affected. Both North & South governments took it over in the early 1950s to save it, but by late 1950’s, the government in the North had lost interest in railways in the Provence and was pushing a pro road lobby as the way forward. Hence most of the railways including the Great Northern closed leaving most of the north west without a passenger and freight service. CIE who ran the southern part of the GNR had no option to close their part of any cross border lines (except Dublin – Belfast) as in many cases these lines now lead to no where after the northern side on the border had been closed and lifted. Other smaller railways like in Donegal and Sligo Leitrim that’s existence was tied to the GNR were also forced to close.
It often argued Stormont’s decision to closed their side of the GNRI was political one due the unwillingness of keeping essential cross border connections, bar one cross border line open, but nevertheless the map tells it’s own sorry. In a ideal world if some of those lines were still here today, rail transport and access in Ireland would be a different story.
Honestly I’d be really happy with the greenways if they actually made the greenways
Is u bri’ish m8?
Badly needed in Monaghan . So hard to get to Galway for college by public transport . And yet they’re spending millions on a canal restoration in clones when a rail linking it to the rest of the county would be so much more beneficial.
This is scandalous, their should be a direct train to Donegal with multiple by routes.
Came on here expecting the top comment to be about Londonderry
I’m assuming none of this makes commercial sense besides Meath? Like its a case of the rail will be subsidised forever.
Apart from Navan, there aren’t many new heavy rail lines which should be built as a matter of emergency. We need to be focusing on intraurban transport.
Made a mistake, Roscommon has none, I mistakenly thought it had one on the Western Rail Corridor. Also when I said “abandoned”, I mean track that hasn’t been lifted, but isn’t in service. So, abandoned.
Westmeath also has an abandoned line – the Athlone to Mullingar which is now a Greenway. It used to connect to the Sligo – Dublin line up until the 90s.
When they axed the Navan to Dublin line back in 58, Navan wasn’t the big town it was today. It no longer made economical sense to run a train between a small town and some rural villages in West Dublin (now large suburbs) in between. Of course, now we know that was a big mistake.
Northwest is severely lacking….people
Hence the lower investment in, well, everything.
Derry!!!!!!
What does it mean county town? Down has rail services in Newry and Bangor. Where else is it talking about? Downpatrick?
What’s the definition of “abandoned railway”? Monaghan had a railway
Am I right in thinking that a rail network would never go obsolete? Once there’s a track are you always able to use that track for some mode of fast transport?
From Tyrone, honestly didn’t know Ireland even had trains until I was like 17.
Rail strategy: turn railway lines into pathways to walk.
Considerint how big of a joke internally Irish Rail is. Idk about this one
Down has loads of abandoned rail lines. The second map is nonsense… There were rail lines to Downpatrick (the county town), and further out to the coast, including Killough (and maybe Ardglass too).
Honestly they should be looking at restoring lines but as part of a larger strategy of populating towns in the country. Have a strategy of building a line and add new housing and core facilities that are missing.
Dublin is overloaded so spreading out the load helps.