Does Waterford-Limerick have passenger potential?

[Thomas Morelli]

Hello,

I am wondering if the Waterford to Limerick railway could see a higher patronage if changes were made on it, such as making the service more frequent.

I have read an article about the line on the Irish Times.
It was about Carrick-On-Suir railway station.
This is part of the article that makes me think that this line could carry more passengers:

It appears the train service for a town of more than 6,000 located on the border of Tipperary, Waterford and Kilkenny is not being availed of because the timetable is very limited and unreliable.

For years, pleas to Irish Rail to put on more services and promote the line have “fallen on deaf ears”, said Seamus Campbell of the Carrick-on-Suir Business Association.

“Every town needs a train station. The timetable is just not conducive to allowing people travel by train to Waterford or Clonmel for work. It is just not possible. Because the service is so restricted people car pool to get to work. The train station is of no real use to people as it is,” he said.

In recent years Irish Rail has stripped out one of the two lines that ran through the station and about 10 years ago cut the services in half.

Does anyone know of other changes which could be made in the line?
I am aware the speed is very slow, but would that be feasible to improve?

[Inniskeen]

Tens of millions have been spent on this line on new track, bridges, fencing, level crossing and vegetation control.

Zero effort has been made to leverage any benefit in terms of more frequent or more relevant services. The existing timetable serves primarily those travelling to/from Dublin and somewhat accidentally shoppers heading into Waterford for five hours or so shopping.

Every excuse under the sun is used to avoid catering for special events be it Spraoi, Winterval or Sporting. Irish Rail regard the line as a nuisance and treat it accordingly.

Ironically this is one of the few lines in the country where the railway could easily compete on journey time with other modes.

[Thomas Morelli]

Ironically this is one of the few lines in the country where the railway could easily compete on journey time with other modes.

I agree. I was thinking the same thing when I looked at the journey time by road according to google maps.
What is the most effective thing that could be done to improve journey times so the line would be competitive with other modes of transport?

[Jamie2k9]

Every excuse under the sun is used to avoid catering for special events be it Spraoi, Winterval or Sporting. Irish Rail regard the line as a nuisance and treat it accordingly.

They did run Winterval specials maybe 3 years ago, not sure how loading were but they were well advertised so if they failed to attract enough people then it's hard to justify it.

Surly it's the NTA who need to fund extra services, then again they should be ensuring the current schedules are operated fully but reliability has been poor this year due to crew shortage but it has improved lately.

[Thomas Morelli]

Has this idea ever been suggested?

Tipperary County Council strongly oppose the closure of this line, and they also strongly support upgrading the N24 Waterford to Limerick road to motorway status.

If the motorway is built, plenty of infrastructure such as cuttings and embankments will have to be built for it, and the Waterford to Limerick railway could be rebuilt on this infrastructure as well, and it could return to the original alignment briefly for the four sections where it goes through towns.

Building the motorway infrastructure slightly wider to allow a railway as well would be of minimal additional expense, and the straight level alignment with no level crossings would allow for a very reasonable speed of trains.

The original alignment would then be largely open to use as a cycle track.

[ACustomer]

Sorry but this proposal is to say the least totally unrealistic. For one thing motorways are built with gradients which are much more severe than railways, and they are often quite curved by railway standards.

It Tipperary CO Council want a motorway to replace the N24, then this would kill off the railway for sure. I suppose the CO Council would lobby for both railway and motorway given that taxpayers elsewhere would largely be the payers.

A serious upgrade of the line would cost a lot less than any motorway proposal, and could result in genuinely competitive journey times, but that would be totally counter to NTA and Dept of Transport thinking.