[Article] Report urges major overhaul of Galway-Limerick rail route

[comcor]

Not sure if I can post the whole article because of copyright

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland...te-235746.html

[ACustomer]

I see that one of the steps the report urges is to speed things up by omitting stops at Ardrahan and Craughwell for some services. Fine. In that case why is there this idiocy of adding in an extra stop at Crusheen?

Crusheen: gateway to the West??

[comcor]

The points are mostly good, but I'm not sure it would be enough to save the line.

The only thing I'd add would be improved connections from Galway to Waterford and Cork, especially the first as there's not much bus competition. Unfortunately, this is difficult without a redesign of Limerick Junction. Most people changing there are Ennis passengers to Dublin and it's impossible to facilitate connections in multiple directions at the same time.

[Thomas J Stamp]

There is a basic dishonesty about the entire WRC set up.

From the linked article:

Although about 200,000 people live within 10km of stations on the Limerick-Galway railway line, passenger traffic is relatively low, particularly in the mid-section between Ennis and Athenry, which only re-opened in 2010.

and

However, the majority just travel on Limerick-Ennis and Athenry-Galway services, with only around 34,500 travelling on the Ennis-Athenry section.

What is the WRC anyway? It is the bit that was re-opened in 2010. The other bits existed already. That is what was campaigned for, that is what the money was spent on, that is what was re-built and opened. No matter what you do with the other, older and more developed parts, this bit will leak the money you make on them.

There is a campaign for opening a line to Donegal. It will get the same backing as the WRC. This at a time when the Enterprise is keeling over and they cannot afford to fix it. This at a time when there is overcrowding on main routes and almost empty sets go up and down the WRC all day.

The NTA. God love them.

[dowlingm]

I'm guessing that unlike the favoured children at WoT, RUI was not invited to put some reality checks on this?

http://nationaltransport.ie.cdn.ie/w...dor-Review.pdf

I wonder how much this report cost. While services are being cut money still bleeding out to consulting firms for no useful purpose.