Western rail corridor (WRC) - Capital Plan

[Goods]

Huge increase in rail traffic according to Irish Examiner article in the past year indicating that ppl will drop the car if an alternative is available. Time to begin to reopen the like of WRC to Limerick and further south like Rosslare and Cork to take pressure off mainline and improve connectivity. Use the infrastructure that the ppl have paid for over years.

[Goods]

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/poli...ider-1.3598691
Government acting sensibly and strategically by looking at the advantages a rail corridor along the western route can provide to the entire country and not just the west. Such an artery to southern ports via Limerick will open up options for travel and freight and relieve the overused mainline from Dublin to Cork. This is about connectivity and access. Greenways are great but should not be provided at the expense of a rail corridor that could never be put in place today with all its infrastructure and right of way.

[Mark Gleeson]

This is a passenger ONLY forum

Further discussion of freight will result in a ban

[Goods]

Maybe I have not seen that restriction during my time so far.I based my point on the title of the website which is “rail users” which I assumed meant those that use rail because in most countries rail has many purposes. If your point is to remove discussion on the relevance of Western Rail Corridor then I see it as an effective way of closing down discussion and I wonder why is that the case?

[James Shields]

I think threatening bans is a little harsh. Railfreight has been discussed before in other threads without any such threats.

[Goods]

Thx James for your supportive words I also thought is was strange on a medium that discusses rail matters it’s about the retention of National infrastructure put in place over a century ago and now invaluable in terms of what it can offer the country. In future decades there will be high speed monorail systems and its only the permanent way that will be important to give the route.

[Inniskeen]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

This is a passenger ONLY forum

Further discussion of freight will result in a ban

Pretty much the same approach as Irish Rail !

[Goods]

A very solid point that baffles many in fairness the lobby against using rail to its full potential has been quite successful and has been led by Irish rail themselves and vested interests

[ACustomer]

I normally disagree with Goods on specific issues. However railway infrastructure cannot be neatly partitioned into Passenger or Freight. The viability of a rail line is surely related to the total amount of traffic (and hence revenue) generated. A line could be hopelessly unviable if confined to either Freight of Passengers but viable if it carried both. For example the South Wexford line became a basket case once the Freight went a few years ago, so the passenger service became unsustainable.

Unfortunately Freight is now so marginal in Ireland that this point tends to be lost, but looking to the longer term future and the increased need for really energy efficient transport, then the overall importance of railways for long-distance traffic of all kinds could be much greater than it is now.

[Goods]

I read today that Knock Airport is now serving 800k passengers and I remember at the time it was being built clever economists and other cynics belittling the notion of an airport on a foggy boggy hill in Mayo. Yet the grounded Canon Horan knew better and persevered and built the airport providing accessibility and competing with the Dublin metropolis. Western Rail Corridor has many of the same critics who do not envisage a future when public transport will be more in demand and what such key infrastructure could do to reconnect the west.