Upgrading the Kerry line

[Mark Gleeson]

Lets not draw this down to a crayon game, realism is what is needed. If Farranfore Airport wants a rail link they can pay for it, not happening. Given they can't even provide a mini bus shows they don't give a damn

[rigel kent]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Lets not draw this down to a crayon game, realism is what is needed. If Farranfore Airport wants a rail link they can pay for it, not happening. Given they can't even provide a mini bus shows they don't give a damn

True the taxis are making a fortune as it is sometimes you see people walking to the station .Tis Coillte that wants the wood trains not me.Now a shuttle bus sounds like a good gig .When somebody starts a New York flight things should get busier.

[Traincustomer]

Bus Éireann routes 14, 40 and 271 offer the possibility of bussing it between Farranfore and Kerry Airport and vice versa - timetable of current services here.

The disadvantages are that the buses come from further afield so could sometimes be delayed and the stop is not at Farranfore rail station but around 200 metres down the road.

On the plus side the adult single fare is €1.90 and the bus stops right outside the Airport terminal.

No substitute of course for a dedicated shuttle bus using the station yard but felt the Bus Éireann services were worth mentioning.

[rigel kent]

My point was to get a train station in the new terminal when they build the new one .It has not even been planned yet so before building starts it should be added.
My point was that anything that adds passengers to the Killarney to Tralee line would be a good thing as it is passenger numbers are pretty low.

[Inniskeen]

In an ideal world of integrated transport (a concept not much practiced in the ROI) there might be a case for trying to integrate the airport and railway. The business case would be difficult given the relatively low traffic and frequency of both flights and trains.

[Jamie2k9]

This is all pie in the sky about airport link, out of the 8 services a day do any actually meet flights currently. Kerry will never have a new terminal for many years ahead if not decades and if the PSO is lost lather this year the airport may not even exist in a few years, the lost of the PSO would boost passenger numbers on the Tralee route more than an airport link.

Minus the Dublin flights at most there is 1 flight to London daily with another London and Hahn a few days a week for majority of the year and people think a rail line is justified. The costs involved would never ever be covered unless passengers were going to pay very very high fares to justify a return. The Political Railway Corridor would carry more passengers at Gort than a Kerry Airport stop.

You don't have passenger stats of which % live along the railway either to calculate weather it would be a good investment.

As for extra traffic on Tralee route I'm sure its doing reasonably well when it has more services than Sligo or Waterford.

[Destructix]

http://www.irishexaminer.com/busines...er-14&at_pos=0

Speaking yesterday on the back of the airline’s latest quarterly results, Ryanair’s outgoing deputy chief Michael Cawley said the airline was no longer in talks with either airport, but remains open to suggestions on how it can grow at each.

He said that charges remained too high at the two locations, even though there was still potential for Ryanair to grow services significantly from both.

Ryanair reacted to the Government’s budget measure that axed the consumer travel tax by announcing an expansion of its services — including new routes out of Dublin, Shannon and Knock — most of which are set to begin in April.

The airline is promising to add 300,000 and 80,000 extra passengers at Shannon and Knock alone, and around one million per year at all Irish airports combined. However, it originally said that growth from Cork and Kerry would take longer to materialise and wouldn’t happen before next autumn, following the delivery of its first tranche of new aircraft.

Ryanair yesterday reported an after-tax loss of €35.2m for the three months to the end of December, the third quarter of its financial year.

Though down year-on-year from a profit of €18.1m, the loss was in line with market and company expectations, with Ryanair’s full-year profit guidance of €510m unchanged.

The airline’s chief executive Michael O’Leary said that the quarterly loss was down to a 9% fall in average fares and weaker sterling.

The three months also saw a marginal dip in revenue — from €969m to €964m, and a loss per share of 2.50c.

Ancillary revenues grew by 13% — driven by strong priority boarding and reserved seating sales — and passenger numbers rose by 6% year-on-year to 18.3m people.

The airline now expects slightly better full-year (for the 12 months to the end of March) passenger numbers, at around 81.5m.

The reiterated full-year profit guidance, a reduction in operating costs, a likely strengthening of consumer demand and the expectation that full-year yield declines won’t be as pronounced as first feared boosted the airline’s share price by nearly 7% yesterday.

[rigel kent]

Originally Posted by Jamie2k9

This is all pie in the sky about airport link, out of the 8 services a day do any actually meet flights currently. Kerry will never have a new terminal for many years ahead if not decades and if the PSO is lost lather this year the airport may not even exist in a few years, the lost of the PSO would boost passenger numbers on the Tralee route more than an airport link.

Minus the Dublin flights at most there is 1 flight to London daily with another London and Hahn a few days a week for majority of the year and people think a rail line is justified. The costs involved would never ever be covered unless passengers were going to pay very very high fares to justify a return. The Political Railway Corridor would carry more passengers at Gort than a Kerry Airport stop.

You don't have passenger stats of which % live along the railway either to calculate weather it would be a good investment.

As for extra traffic on Tralee route I'm sure its doing reasonably well when it has more services than Sligo or Waterford.

Population stats for Kerry are useless most of the people who use either the Kerry rail road or airport are part of the high transient population .
If there was a decent commuter system for the Kerry railroad the air port would have stayed as a recreational airstrip. Seeing as a train can get to Dublin city center faster than a plane .

[jacko]

Having not been on the Kerry line for years I have used it three times in recent months and was impressed with the numbers of passengers getting on and off, especially at Rathmore, Killarney and Farranfore.

Perhaps a result of the distance to Dublin and the poor quality of roads?

A high proportion of students

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by jacko

Perhaps a result of the distance to Dublin and the poor quality of roads?

There are no direct buses from Dublin to Kerry. So it means one or two changes in either Cork or Limerick. Journey time is 5.5-6.5 hours. Spending that many hours on buses isn't fun.

At least the change in Mallow is scheduled and cross-platform.

[shweeney]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

There are in fact some plans to do something around Greystones also (was in the DART plan of 1996 but the passing loop and station at Redford was never built)

I assume this would be a passing loop south of the tunnel (there isn't space to double the track all the way into the station)? Would only really help slightly when trains are running late, as I can't see them increasing the frequency to Greystones.

[rigel kent]

Originally Posted by jacko

Having not been on the Kerry line for years I have used it three times in recent months and was impressed with the numbers of passengers getting on and off, especially at Rathmore, Killarney and Farranfore.

Perhaps a result of the distance to Dublin and the poor quality of roads?

A high proportion of students

My point was that there is a very high number or tourists and students arriving every weekend .
Seeing as the airport terminal is so small and needs replacement it makes sense to build it properly .

[dowlingm]

If Kerry Airport charged an Airport Development Fee as Knock does perhaps ancillary improvements such as relocating the train station closer to the terminal could be looked at as part of an combined transport facility with a sheltered or shuttle access to the terminal - which should be something the NTA should take the lead on with co-operation from the airport rather than IE.

In terms of what IE should do with its own resources, a 2nd platform at Millstreet seems higher up the priority list given the additional flexibility it would bring to timetabling.

I think it's worth throwing resources at lines like Kerry and Westport to ensure capacity is available to meet demand precisely because rail is absolutely competitive with bus on those routes, as opposed to the WRC or the Nenagh branch where the bus service and the roads they run on provide a service difficult to compete against. But I don't think Kerry Airport is in itself a sufficient traffic generator (especially given the "flighty" nature of some of its operators, one in particular) to require major capital investment with no guarantee of return.