RTE on the ball (not)

[ACustomer]

Headline on RTE's website to-day: "Work begins on Western Rail Corridor". I gather that IE have been hard at work on this for months and have miles of track laid. Now if RTE only had the nous to ask why this project is so far ahead of the Midleton project, which was properly evaluated but not started....

Shows you they accept any old guff put out by someone's PR machine.

I know the reason given for the Midleton delay is a foul-up with the contract, but I suspect political interference has diverted resources from Midleton to Athenry and that the contract thing is a smokescreen. Go on ,Charlie Bird, get into rotweiler mode and ask some hard questions!

[dowlingm]

Eventually you start having to blame the locals - the Midleton line catchment probably has a population equal to the WRC excluding Limerick and Galway cities but there's no outrage and the area TDs are not heavyweight enough to do the business.

Let's face it, if you ran the Arup numbers now you'd probably getting close to reopening Youghal - instead the houses are being built in Midleton and Carrigtwohill anyway and the service will be underprovided on day 1.

[Mark Gleeson]

Major and signifficant works began many months ago

There has been new track down for several weeks and the first signal posts when in several months back

[Dkettle]

Something is happening on the Cork - Little Island stretch of the railway, I have seen diggers operating around the track at Tivoli on numerous occasions. Sorry I can't be more specific but it appears to be possibly reinforcement, or they might be laying ducting for a new signalling system.

Beyond Glounthaune however the lush flora has returned to the line, it's almost lost again in parts.

And still not a whisper about the park and ride in Dunkettle, or did I just dream that one up, I'm beginning to wonder...

[dowlingm]

dkettle

(hope as a non-member I'm not straying out of my lane here but) if you have a digital camera maybe you could put a few pics of the overgrowth on flickr or somewhere to give the RUI committee some ammo for when they meet politicians/IE folk/tame journos next.

[Mark Gleeson]

Its no secret the delay is well known IE have put there hands up

[Dkettle]

I don't often pass this section during the daylight but as I was passing between Carrigtowhill and Glounthaune today I went by the old road and took a couple of snaps of the track. Glad to see that winter has set in and killed a lot of weeds that looked monstrous about 6-8 weeks ago. This should make the REclearing of the route a bit cheaper if they act before April!

I took some lovely pictures of the alignment being grown over again, but they can't be uploaded due to some issue beyond my IT abilities. Anyway everybody knows the project hasn't started yet, at least the growing season is over.