Will Ennis to Athenry inevitably be closed?
 

The new motorway in the same area as the Ennis to Athenry line is highly likely to cause the amount of journeys made on it to drop, but I am wondering if this drop in patronage will be significant or not.

This is because the new M18, combined with the M6, is longer than the old N18, so although you can drive much faster on the motorway than you can on the old road, the journey time from Gort to Galway by road isn't shortened by much.

Another reason why I'm wondering about this is that express buses which begin operating when motorways are built often make patronage on the parallel railway go down, but Bus Eireann and Citylink had been operating express buses for some time before this new motorway was opened.
This is one thing likely to cause a drop in railway patronage that has already happened here.

On the other hand, the fact that there is now a motorway going all the way from Limerick to Galway might make journeys by road seem better, and cause some people to stop travelling by train.

I am not an expert in this field, so does anyone know what to expect?

It won't be the first but if we do see closures it will be number 3 or 4 on the list

Is the new motorway likely to make the patronage drop by more than, say, three people per train?

Is there a point to this line at all at this stage since it seems to stay closed for several months every winter. Granted it's not the section between Ennis and Athenry but it's hardly conducive towards building a solid customer base. Irish Rail don't even seem to be bothered about keeping the Bus transfers notice on their home page any more

every general and local election.

The fact that Galway is such an unpleasant and congested city from a motorist's point of view should help keep the line open.

Would it increase patronage on this line by a significant amount if a reasonably frequent bus service was ran on the galway bypass(The one that isn't built, if it gets a bus lane), serving oranmore train station, making it easier for people to get from all over galway to the train?