SBP - Midland Rail and Meath on Track

[Mark]

Did anyone read the article in the Sunday Business Post on a push to reopen the Moate station and line?

Also lots of MoT quotes and references to the sewer we found in Dunsany!

[dowlingm]

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/st...290-qqqx=1.asp

[Mark Gleeson]

There is no sewer main

"I'm sick of hearing about some supposed sewer pipe on the Navan rail alignment"

, Mr Tom Dowling, Meath County Manager, at a public meeting in Navan 2nd February 2006

Strange that ?

Have a letter saying it does exist, not to mention photos

Spot on about the Dail seats game though

[comcor]

Closed in the 1970s, the Ennis line, which was reopened in 1983, now carries 150,000 passengers a year.

Interesting this when they say the 750 a day estimate is wrong...

On another note, the government would do well not to regard Meath East as safe for two seats. This seat is going to be a lot closer than a lot of people think.

Then again Navan isn't in Meath East.

[Oisin88]

While local campaigners have focused on the line’s potential as a commuter route, some believe it could cut half an hour from rail journeys between Galway and Dublin.

I honestly don't get the logic of opening the Athlone-Mullingar stretch. There must be more to it. Connolly-Mullingar is the slow winding follow the canal, so even if they did TGV speed from Mullingar to Athlone, would they knock more than 10 minutes of the existing time? Irish rail might take 10-15 minutes of that back on "padding." Putting another inter-city service over the level crossings on the royal canal line might not be an advantage. Also, I think it's better for "integration" if the inter-cities all run to the same station and Connolly can be dedicated to commuters!

The only advantage to it would be to add more commuting options around the midlands. But then I see the half empty townlink bus in Tullamore every day....

I should add that since I use the Athlone-Portarlington line daily I suppose I have a vested interest in that one getting better before they open other lines.

[sean]

Firstly, Connolly presently serves the Enterprise and Sligo services and they can't be rerouted to Heuston anyway.

Second, in the 2005 schedule, IE mangaged to do Dublin Connolly-Mullingar non-stop in 1 hr 1 minute and this was dead reliable. And yes, I'm talking 071+Mk2D here. Assume there's 10 min of padding, it could be done in 50. the Mullingar-Athlone line looks pretty decent on a map enginneringwise, so I imagine that this stretch could also be done in reasonable time.

All that would be needed IMO would be some dynamic passing loops from Maynooth to Dublin to facilitate lots more long distance trains and locals on the same tracks - it's not like the Kildare route. Also doubling all the lines within 20 miles of Mullingar would help because most of the tracks around Mullingar are fairly straight so a speed improvement could be put to good use.

[Navan Junction]

Originally Posted by Mark

references to the sewer we found in Dunsany!

It was good to see it mentioned alright..