All that will happen here is neither the greenways nor the train lines will get developed.
Good. This is definitely welcomed. If we’re serious about climate goals, cleaning up the environment, etc. , this is a positive step forward. Also, a welcome departure from flinging a load of buses at every public transport problem . Now … we wait for the objections, judicial reviews, and other nimby bullshit that will plague those reviews until the next economic crisis. So we can review the review in order to create a new review. Reviewception
Can you imagine it: Hopping on a train in Cork, with stops in Limerick, Galway, Sligo then getting off the train in Letterkenny. All without having to go through Dublin and transferring between stations.
Middleton, no such place exists in East Cork
Typical green party TD where was he when the decision was made to build the greenway?
_So you’re telling me there’s a chance_
So there’s three “lines” mentioned:
* “disused rail line in Co Wexford … connecting Dublin, Rosslare and Waterford.”
* “a line linking the towns of Athenry in Galway and Claremorris in Mayo… initially [this will] be for freight”
* “A line between Letterkenny and Derry is understood to also figure”
One thing to watch here will be timelines. Big infrastructure often comes with large lead in times.
I’m generally a little sceptical of the idea of rural/regional rail expansion for public transport purposes. The idea of more freight could make things interesting, potentially making a lot more lines viable. Irish Rail does have a freight strategy. One thing the article doesn’t really go into (given its passenger focus) is upgrades to port/industrial connections which the freight strategy mentions.
The other big thing to watch for will be the high speed corridor (Belfast-Dublin-Cork) thing. I don’t think we’ll get high speed, but higher speed (160kmph+) service should be within reach for parts of the major routes. It’s been a long term goal to get Cork-Dublin times down under two hours. Getting trains through Dublin is a challenge, it will be interesting to see if there’s any proposed solutions to that, or proposed routes to solutions. That’s where you might start seeing Dart Underground, or new lines in and around Dublin being mentioned. That would all be long term though.
It would do wonders for the west of Ireland.
Great news, greenways can be created easier than railway tracks. The west has very little rail infrastructure without going through Dublin.
Good, the Waterford to Wexford/Rosslare line should never have closed. There’s no reason why we can’t have both rail and greenways.
Switzerland is not a big as Ireland. But has village town spral similar to Ireland. So it’s possible to connect all our towns, cities and certain villages in the right locations. The same idea won’t work but something similar thou. The attached video explains how it works
Replace them with new, functional rail lines FFS
The letterkenny to derry line would be the first step in extending the western rail corridor along the complete west coast. Next step would be a line from letterkenny to Sligo. Transformational if it happens.
Should just turn the lines into bus only lanes, boot around towns avoid peak traffic
Good. People complain that trains are inherently more expensive. Bollicks. Trains don’t have to be more expensive. Roadways require more signals and signage, more maintenance, are more dangerous – thus costing the exchequer for all the security and safety measures etc. Trains cost more because driving expenses are externalised. Germany has trains going through every little mountain hamlet with a few Heidi’s. We should have trains everywhere, they take up less space than roads, have vastly fewer emissions per passenger and are savagely more efficient at transporting people to and from cities.
It’d be lovely if they reopened the line from Galway to Clifden
I hate that we have to pick between greenways and railroads. Why can’t we just have both? Just do both
The first train into cork from Dublin is 9:30 am – the trains we have are a joke forget about secondary lines
This makes no economic sense. I occasionally get the train down to Cork and there can be one person in a carriage with me, let alone a train going to somewhere less populated. Rail doesn’t work in Ireland except between big urban conurbations, and even then we don’t have the density in those areas to justify it (which is a planning fault).
Funny how the pendulum of public opinion swings with greenways now being the problem.
I guess the thing is, greenways are cheap and easy to do. Which is why we have actually managed to build some in recent years, which is more than can be said for significant extensions to our rail network. I would love to see many of these old rail lines come back to life but any progress would probably take years if not decades and there is a significant risk a future committee would just conclude it’s not economical and scrap the whole thing.
That’s not to say I don’t agree with the proposal, just that I’m pessimistic that this will lead to anything other than the old lines sitting undeveloped forever.
Mad stuff… Let’s put the trains back where they were in the first fucking place
We’ll end up with no trains and no greenways
Not to thrash talk Ireland’s railways completely, but thanks to the Prussians building the line here in the 1800s as a quasi military railway, my backwater village here in Germany has a population density of 24 people / km2 and I can make it to Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris with just one change!
As someone that lives very near the proposed South Eastern greenway route/rail line and that works in an office in Waterford, this is my view.
If the railway came in, i wouldn’t use to get to the office (45m drive).
I would need to drive 10m to the nearest station. Then get the train to Waterford, and then face no realistic option to reach my office which is 6km outside Waterford city/train station.
We invested in business parks, office buildings, and supermarkets on city/town outskirts, and have made very low efforts to connect them to our spread out residential/rural areas. I don’t see this changing to the point where it becomes more feasible than my car. Perhaps i am ignorant, but I don’t see it.
If there was a greenway, myself and my young family would probably use it at least three times a week for exercise/well-being.
Yessss!! I’m all for cycling but if the lines are there they should have trains on them!
I hope I’m wrong, but this might be the ultimate example of something which sounds like a much better than it actually is. Certainly where this has been tried in the West the paying demand for the service turned out to be almost zero. The West of Ireland is sparsely populated, so you easily live 20 or 30 miles from the nearest train station. So you’d need a lift to get to your local station first of all. If you’re a commuter headed for Galway, say, public transport in the city is so poor that you might have to get a taxi to your destination. Plus there’d probably only be one morning and evening train running per day, so the odds of it fitting your schedule are pretty slim. So its basically a million times more conenient to drive.
Add to that, the fact that so many people work from home these days. The fact is there where the Western corridor has been extended, the trains that run are mostly empty. And the passengers it does carry are overwhelmingly OAPs who have free travel. So what you’re left with is an expensive service that nobody uses. Whereas greenways everywhere they’ve been introduced are (a) popular (b) draw tourists and (c) preserve the route of the rail line so its not built over in case it ever needs to be used again in future.
This makes way too much sense to ever happen
How about creating some light rail networks to connect communities?
A lot of those old railways were on land that is now in private hands, a lot of them were lifted so the steel and iron could be repurposed, I don’t see a lot of them being rebuilt
34 comments
All that will happen here is neither the greenways nor the train lines will get developed.
Good. This is definitely welcomed. If we’re serious about climate goals, cleaning up the environment, etc. , this is a positive step forward. Also, a welcome departure from flinging a load of buses at every public transport problem . Now … we wait for the objections, judicial reviews, and other nimby bullshit that will plague those reviews until the next economic crisis. So we can review the review in order to create a new review. Reviewception
Can you imagine it: Hopping on a train in Cork, with stops in Limerick, Galway, Sligo then getting off the train in Letterkenny. All without having to go through Dublin and transferring between stations.
Middleton, no such place exists in East Cork
Typical green party TD where was he when the decision was made to build the greenway?
_So you’re telling me there’s a chance_
So there’s three “lines” mentioned:
* “disused rail line in Co Wexford … connecting Dublin, Rosslare and Waterford.”
* “a line linking the towns of Athenry in Galway and Claremorris in Mayo… initially [this will] be for freight”
* “A line between Letterkenny and Derry is understood to also figure”
One thing to watch here will be timelines. Big infrastructure often comes with large lead in times.
I’m generally a little sceptical of the idea of rural/regional rail expansion for public transport purposes. The idea of more freight could make things interesting, potentially making a lot more lines viable. Irish Rail does have a freight strategy. One thing the article doesn’t really go into (given its passenger focus) is upgrades to port/industrial connections which the freight strategy mentions.
The other big thing to watch for will be the high speed corridor (Belfast-Dublin-Cork) thing. I don’t think we’ll get high speed, but higher speed (160kmph+) service should be within reach for parts of the major routes. It’s been a long term goal to get Cork-Dublin times down under two hours. Getting trains through Dublin is a challenge, it will be interesting to see if there’s any proposed solutions to that, or proposed routes to solutions. That’s where you might start seeing Dart Underground, or new lines in and around Dublin being mentioned. That would all be long term though.
It would do wonders for the west of Ireland.
Great news, greenways can be created easier than railway tracks. The west has very little rail infrastructure without going through Dublin.
Good, the Waterford to Wexford/Rosslare line should never have closed. There’s no reason why we can’t have both rail and greenways.
https://youtu.be/muPcHs-E4qc
Switzerland is not a big as Ireland. But has village town spral similar to Ireland. So it’s possible to connect all our towns, cities and certain villages in the right locations. The same idea won’t work but something similar thou. The attached video explains how it works
Replace them with new, functional rail lines FFS
The letterkenny to derry line would be the first step in extending the western rail corridor along the complete west coast. Next step would be a line from letterkenny to Sligo. Transformational if it happens.
Should just turn the lines into bus only lanes, boot around towns avoid peak traffic
Good. People complain that trains are inherently more expensive. Bollicks. Trains don’t have to be more expensive. Roadways require more signals and signage, more maintenance, are more dangerous – thus costing the exchequer for all the security and safety measures etc. Trains cost more because driving expenses are externalised. Germany has trains going through every little mountain hamlet with a few Heidi’s. We should have trains everywhere, they take up less space than roads, have vastly fewer emissions per passenger and are savagely more efficient at transporting people to and from cities.
It’d be lovely if they reopened the line from Galway to Clifden
Bring back the Sligo Galway train!
Why not both ? Give people a cheap option.
Dreams of a return to glory.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FohpCZXaYAAkyaJ?format=jpg&name=small
I want to believe
Is there a demand for these lines?
I hate that we have to pick between greenways and railroads. Why can’t we just have both? Just do both
The first train into cork from Dublin is 9:30 am – the trains we have are a joke forget about secondary lines
This makes no economic sense. I occasionally get the train down to Cork and there can be one person in a carriage with me, let alone a train going to somewhere less populated. Rail doesn’t work in Ireland except between big urban conurbations, and even then we don’t have the density in those areas to justify it (which is a planning fault).
Funny how the pendulum of public opinion swings with greenways now being the problem.
I guess the thing is, greenways are cheap and easy to do. Which is why we have actually managed to build some in recent years, which is more than can be said for significant extensions to our rail network. I would love to see many of these old rail lines come back to life but any progress would probably take years if not decades and there is a significant risk a future committee would just conclude it’s not economical and scrap the whole thing.
That’s not to say I don’t agree with the proposal, just that I’m pessimistic that this will lead to anything other than the old lines sitting undeveloped forever.
Mad stuff… Let’s put the trains back where they were in the first fucking place
We’ll end up with no trains and no greenways
Not to thrash talk Ireland’s railways completely, but thanks to the Prussians building the line here in the 1800s as a quasi military railway, my backwater village here in Germany has a population density of 24 people / km2 and I can make it to Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris with just one change!
As someone that lives very near the proposed South Eastern greenway route/rail line and that works in an office in Waterford, this is my view.
If the railway came in, i wouldn’t use to get to the office (45m drive).
I would need to drive 10m to the nearest station. Then get the train to Waterford, and then face no realistic option to reach my office which is 6km outside Waterford city/train station.
We invested in business parks, office buildings, and supermarkets on city/town outskirts, and have made very low efforts to connect them to our spread out residential/rural areas. I don’t see this changing to the point where it becomes more feasible than my car. Perhaps i am ignorant, but I don’t see it.
If there was a greenway, myself and my young family would probably use it at least three times a week for exercise/well-being.
Yessss!! I’m all for cycling but if the lines are there they should have trains on them!
I hope I’m wrong, but this might be the ultimate example of something which sounds like a much better than it actually is. Certainly where this has been tried in the West the paying demand for the service turned out to be almost zero. The West of Ireland is sparsely populated, so you easily live 20 or 30 miles from the nearest train station. So you’d need a lift to get to your local station first of all. If you’re a commuter headed for Galway, say, public transport in the city is so poor that you might have to get a taxi to your destination. Plus there’d probably only be one morning and evening train running per day, so the odds of it fitting your schedule are pretty slim. So its basically a million times more conenient to drive.
Add to that, the fact that so many people work from home these days. The fact is there where the Western corridor has been extended, the trains that run are mostly empty. And the passengers it does carry are overwhelmingly OAPs who have free travel. So what you’re left with is an expensive service that nobody uses. Whereas greenways everywhere they’ve been introduced are (a) popular (b) draw tourists and (c) preserve the route of the rail line so its not built over in case it ever needs to be used again in future.
This makes way too much sense to ever happen
How about creating some light rail networks to connect communities?
A lot of those old railways were on land that is now in private hands, a lot of them were lifted so the steel and iron could be repurposed, I don’t see a lot of them being rebuilt
Why not run a Greenway beside train tracks