View Single Post
Unread 08-12-2016, 15:45   #2
Duncan
New to the board
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Cloughjordan - building in the new ecovillage here.
Posts: 6
Default Meeting details

Calling all users of the four rail lines threatened with closure!

The Nenagh Community Rail Partnership (see Note #1 below) has arranged a meeting this Saturday, 10th Dec, in Limerick for anyone interested in helping to set up and help co-ordinate a campaign against the proposed cuts (#2).

If you weren't included in the circulation list for the preliminary notice of this meeting, please accept our apologies for short notice.

The meeting will be in the Shannon Room at the Limerick City Hotel (#3) and will start at 1430h. This timing will allow rail travel from all the affected areas - even Rosslare (#4).

Agenda to be finalized at start of meeting but may include consideration of:
- Agreeing campaign themes and priorities
- Setting up a nationwide on-line petition
- On-line survey of current usage patterns & market needs
- Specific issues affecting each line
- Drawing up a list of low-cost ways of increasing usage
- Getting the interest of national media (as well as local)
- Getting the attention of TDs and councilors
- Use of social media
- Engaging with younger travelers
- Establishing a local action group for each line, where none exists, and/ or a national umbrella body (Irish Rural Rail Alliance?)

There will obviously not be time in the meeting to discuss many of these items in any detail. The focus of the meeting will therefore be on establishing teams to progress as many of them as we decide to run with,

Younger rail users and Irish Rail staff will be especially welcome. (Names can be excluded from the list of attendees!)

We hope to see a couple of representatives (at least!) from every station at risk of losing its train service:
- from Rosslare Europort to Enniscorthy
- from Tipperary to Carrick-on-Suir
- from Gort to Craughwell
- from Roscrea to Castleconnell

Remember: united we stand; divided we fall !

Enquiries about the meeting to the following mobile number.

Duncan Martin
PRO, Nenagh Community Rail Partnership
086 8377 906

Notes

#1: NCRP was formed ten years ago to represent users of all five stations on the Nenagh line. We organize rail excursions, publicize the train service locally and meet regularly with IR management at local and head office level.

#2: Don't be fooled by recent 'official' statements that no lines will close. Such statements are designed to lull the public into a false sense of security. It's perfectly possible to withdraw all passenger services while keeping the line theoretically 'open' for a few years - and only then dismantling it. That's how closures are normally effected. NB: nobody has yet said: "No passenger services will be withdrawn".

#3: Limerick City Hotel is at the city end of Shannon Bridge, the most westerly of the three bridges in the city centre. It's 10 minutes walk from the railway station. Head diagonally left from the station towards Peoples Park. Then bear right, keeping the park on your left, and follow Upper Mallow St, Mallow St and Lower Mallow St to the hotel.

#4: Visitors from the Rosslare line can arrive at Limerick for 1414h. Unfortunately, the last train back to Rosslare leaves at 1445, which doesn't leave much time for a meeting! We'll welcome offers of a free bed in or near Limerick for anyone coming such a distance, so that they can travel back the next day.

Last edited by Duncan : 08-12-2016 at 15:47. Reason: Typo
Duncan is offline   Reply With Quote