To be fair, train and tram networks were larger pretty much everywhere back then. Personal cars and buses took over a lot of the market in sparser areas and in the cities, so such a vast network was simply not needed anymore.
If you really compared the “many other areas of Europe”, you would have seen a very similar development. Germany, while having a lot of railway lines compared to the car hell that is the US, has reduced its railway lines considerably, so much so, that we are now trying to reactivate some of them
I wish there were more trains from some 30k City to likes of Warsaw so I csn actualy buy cheaper home and get to work instead of buying smaller flat for bigger money in a big City
It’s the same story in many countries due to e.g. the development and proliferation of busses, lorries and cars. The lines that are closed are also often quite outdated in terms of geometry, electrification, etc.
Has there been any push for electrification in Ireland? From what I can tell, everything is diesel except for the Dublin suburbs.
Same in The Netherlands. Public transport had to be “profitable”, which basically meant privatization and the budget cuts that came with it. Cheaper, cheaper, cheaper was the mantra, until we were stuck with the bare minimum. Fast forward to today and PT in NL only works in the big cities, on the country side it is simply broken.
Some of those lines aren’t working, the Rosslare to Waterford line on the southeast corner for example. It’s such shame, a regular train service would be such a bonus to Ireland
I’m going to offer a dissenting opinion.
Those many small branch lines were not profitable for years. They were only profitable back when they were built because of the lack of road transport and because of low wages. That was how it was in other countries too.
In the world today small railway lines are very costly to maintain and have few positive benefits. We live in the era of the electric car. Pretty soon we will be living in the era of the electric bus, electric coach and electric HGV. Maintaining a parallel infrastructure of railway lines and railway stations no longer makes sense because of the overhead costs. The exception to that is in very densely populated areas.
The Irish government are doing the right thing in making the old lines into greenways.
Wondering whether ANYONE would get my reference of “add a new stationmaster in Buggleskelly and it’ll fix everything”
Except that 100 years ago, people actually lived in the countryside. You really don’t need “next stop, dogshed and a fir tree” kind of stops.
Wait to see in Romania. In the last 20 years we closed a lot of lines. Sorry for my bad English
This happened all over Europe, cars replaced the train in most areas and only the most used lines were kept, in some countries like Italy the government dismantled the railway infrastructure on purpose to give an advantage to FIAT
Oh wow, big difference.. something quite similar happened in Argentina as well. Sad stuff, trains are great and cheap way of transport.
The only problem with the current map, and it’s the same for the motorway map, is how everything is Dublin centric. Coincidentally, Irelands least attractive city by a long way.
Italy joins the chat.
Jokes aside, similar situation here.
A lot more people can afford and travel by car.
I thought that Argentina was the only country that massacred it’s railways
23 comments
To be fair, train and tram networks were larger pretty much everywhere back then. Personal cars and buses took over a lot of the market in sparser areas and in the cities, so such a vast network was simply not needed anymore.
>Looking at many other areas of Europe
Clearly you’re not referring to Cyprus
I’m trying to figure some of the old ones out.
Was there one from Claremorris to……Clonbur???
Yeah….nobody needs that.
The Midleton and Cobh line aren’t shown
See what has happened in Poland since colapse of comunism system in 1989: red are lines without passenger traffic, green lines with occasional traffic: [link](https://twitter.com/BiuroSET/status/1571428335837650950?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1571428335837650950%7Ctwgr%5Eaae74c99da36fe7320dd9970e0ee85953ee407c1%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rynek-kolejowy.pl%2Fmobile%2Ftych-linii-juz-nie-ma-czyli-kolejowa-mapa-wstydu-109926.html)
How?
If you really compared the “many other areas of Europe”, you would have seen a very similar development. Germany, while having a lot of railway lines compared to the car hell that is the US, has reduced its railway lines considerably, so much so, that we are now trying to reactivate some of them
Is Ireland eligible for TEN-T funding?
https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-themes/infrastructure-and-investment/trans-european-transport-network-ten-t_en
I wish there were more trains from some 30k City to likes of Warsaw so I csn actualy buy cheaper home and get to work instead of buying smaller flat for bigger money in a big City
It’s the same story in many countries due to e.g. the development and proliferation of busses, lorries and cars. The lines that are closed are also often quite outdated in terms of geometry, electrification, etc.
Has there been any push for electrification in Ireland? From what I can tell, everything is diesel except for the Dublin suburbs.
Same in The Netherlands. Public transport had to be “profitable”, which basically meant privatization and the budget cuts that came with it. Cheaper, cheaper, cheaper was the mantra, until we were stuck with the bare minimum. Fast forward to today and PT in NL only works in the big cities, on the country side it is simply broken.
Some of those lines aren’t working, the Rosslare to Waterford line on the southeast corner for example. It’s such shame, a regular train service would be such a bonus to Ireland
I’m going to offer a dissenting opinion.
Those many small branch lines were not profitable for years. They were only profitable back when they were built because of the lack of road transport and because of low wages. That was how it was in other countries too.
In the world today small railway lines are very costly to maintain and have few positive benefits. We live in the era of the electric car. Pretty soon we will be living in the era of the electric bus, electric coach and electric HGV. Maintaining a parallel infrastructure of railway lines and railway stations no longer makes sense because of the overhead costs. The exception to that is in very densely populated areas.
The Irish government are doing the right thing in making the old lines into greenways.
Wondering whether ANYONE would get my reference of “add a new stationmaster in Buggleskelly and it’ll fix everything”
Except that 100 years ago, people actually lived in the countryside. You really don’t need “next stop, dogshed and a fir tree” kind of stops.
Wait to see in Romania. In the last 20 years we closed a lot of lines. Sorry for my bad English
This happened all over Europe, cars replaced the train in most areas and only the most used lines were kept, in some countries like Italy the government dismantled the railway infrastructure on purpose to give an advantage to FIAT
Oh wow, big difference.. something quite similar happened in Argentina as well. Sad stuff, trains are great and cheap way of transport.
The only problem with the current map, and it’s the same for the motorway map, is how everything is Dublin centric. Coincidentally, Irelands least attractive city by a long way.
Italy joins the chat.
Jokes aside, similar situation here.
A lot more people can afford and travel by car.
I thought that Argentina was the only country that massacred it’s railways
[an example](https://www.google.com/search?q=mapa+ferroviario+argentino+1966+vs+ahora&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwj__7zIkpP9AhV4tJUCHTNKBVQQ2-cCegQIABAC&oq=mapa+ferroviario+argentino+1966+vs+ahora&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzIFCAAQogQyBQgAEKIEMgUIABCiBDIFCAAQogQ6BAgjECdQ9QZYiC1gpi5oAHAAeACAAWKIAZMJkgECMTSYAQCgAQHAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=w4PqY7-SJPjo1sQPs5SVoAU&bih=858&biw=432&client=ms-android-motorola-rvo3&prmd=imnv#imgrc=qnp_7AWHHejM-M)