South Wexford line

[doherty jack]

** inspection Car travelling between Waterford - rosslare wednesday **

"I have been advised by Irish Rail that the inspection car will travel along the line on Wedenesday morning next. It will depart Waterford at 9.45 and arrive at Wellington Bridge about 11. Set to arrive in Rosslare Strand about 12.30. Second stretch is slower as they have so many gates to open and shut alng the way! Inspectors cab will then go on to Connolly along the east coast line" Joe ryan , Save the waterford / rosslare line

[dowlingm]

Looks like Save the Rail just hit a political pothole:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/367387502018/

[ACustomer]

dowlingm: could you enlighten those of us who are not part of the facebook fraternity?

[ThomasJ]

Took the quote off boards.ie

yesterday I received an email from Frank O Donoghue informing me that a meeting had taken place with Joe Ryan and himself and that that there currently is insufficient support to proceed with the highly challenging project of reopening the line" and they made the decision not to go ahead and sent a letter to Dick Fearn informing him of this decision. I was unaware of any meeting or decision previous to the email I received yesterday (15-10-12 15:40pm).

For reference Joe Ryan posted here for a short while.

[dowlingm]

Originally Posted by ThomasJ

For reference Joe Ryan posted here for a short while.

http://www.railusers.ie/forum/search...earchid=400973

[Thomas J Stamp]

interesting stuff, reading joe ryans reposte posted on that page.

With due respect Tanya, I think there seems to be crossed wires on this one. In late June I attended a meeting in Wellington Bridge which had been deferred since April. The attendance was not what would have been expected. I raised at that meeting the possibility of (1) establishing a committee to drive the re-opening and (2) the possibility of a 3rd level institute assessing the line. Both proposals were not enthusiastically received at the meeting. As I was going away on holidays and Frank had specifically requested that the survey would proceed immediately it was yourself who committed to organising the survey.
Much of the meeting was taken up with discussing the Safety issues and the need to develop a relationship with the RSC. On my return from holiday no work of any sort had been done since the June meeting, however in late July I made contact with IE to establish the mechanism by which a service could re-open to Campile arising from my observation of a recent partial movement along the line by stock. In August I secured a commitment by IE that they would address the need for attending to signalling & safety in the context of the proposed re-opening to Campile.
I also confirm that I have discussed the matter with a 3rd level college subsequent to this in September. You have been advised of this. Recently I was contacted by Frank who asked me to meet. He is concerned at the failure of the Wellington Bridge meeting to provide the necessary impetus towards re-opening. Central to that has been the failure of the campaign so far to establish any support in Campile where the restoration of service was proposed.
It is in that context that he proposed to write to IE on his own behalf. His letter is selectively quoted by you. You omitted the full sentence which reads “Having met with some of those keen to see a train service on the Rosslare Waterford line, we have come to the conclusion that there is insufficient support at this stage to progress with your kind offer of a two diesel units at a peppercorn rent”.
That statement is clearly factual. There exists no business plan whatsoever. There has never been any discussion of any sort since June about (a) marketing the line, (b) developing a finance stream (c) seeking legal advice on the project or (b) even formally establishing the group as an entity. The RSC has not been contacted either. Running any service requires all this and more.
Frank has made it clear to me that he is disappointed at the failure of the key individuals to make contact with him and interprets this as a sign of disengagement from the project on their part.
I haven’t had any discussion with you on the subject of the railway since late June except recently when we met by chance and after a long conversation about another project you have been involved in I eventually brought you up to speed on what I had done off my own initiative since June. As the only one who’s been progressing the matter since then I take exception to you posting this. The posters above have the right to a full and not selective version. Rather than dissing on someone who has at least done something over the last 4 months about the project you might be better off addressing some of the points raised above and talking to Frank.
The letter he wrote was on his own behalf for his own reasons.

so it appears that the local group have not being doign their homework.

nothing new in that, every group, not just in terms of railways, forms a committee and of that committee only one or two people actually do anything, and if they get pissed off and walk nothing happens.

[Thomas Ralph]

I strongly suspect that given a 2750, the membership of this forum could run a service from Waterford to Campile.

[Mark Gleeson]

There exists a letter (which I haven't seen) which offers basically a 2700 unit and free track access Waterford - Campile 90% of this section is still walked by IE staff and as such is trivial to restart service on

This offer of course is made in the context that Irish Rail know its impossible to put together the legal requirements to accept unless there is a third party holding a EU rail license willing to underwrite. Add to the fact its never been done before means the RSC/NTA/DOT/IE really don't know what to do.

The 2700 units were withdrawn due impending overhaul requirements so not much use if after 6 months they will no longer be considered safe.

Campile was rather neat in the sense you only needed a guard and a driver, no level crossings as far as I remember. Problem was since the station in Waterford was on the live IE network everything had to be done to the full network requirements not the more relaxed heritage rules

Of course regardless you never decline the offer, you play for time.

[Thomas J Stamp]

more to the point, on what authority had these two lads got to reject the offer on behalf of the group??

I am a bit taken aback by the impression I am getting that there is no committee for the group, that it is really just one person and a facebook page?

They need to sit down and do this right from the off.

[Mark Gleeson]

Politicians are always a problem

[doherty jack]

@mark ,

There is on level crossings except - Abbey junction . barrow bridge would have to be brought up to passenger standard! how would you sort out signalling ? considering the line is now worked by pilotman , would it done as a siding ? they would nearly have to build a building at Campile ? due to the fact there is notihng there ...

[Mark Gleeson]

All you need is a manual train staff, and when you get back to Belview phone in for clearance into Waterford, very simple

[haddockman]

Is Belview still in use by trains?

[Jamie2k9]

Originally Posted by haddockman

Is Belview still in use by trains?

Services resume on Monday, two services each way per week. Before this it was July last year when services operated.