Does heavy freight like cement not destroy the tracks? It certainly destroys roads.

We had another thread before on the logistics of rail versus road freight. Rail freight makes good economic sence when there is a massive load and a guaranteed market at the destination, the problem with Ireland is that the population is too sparsely spread about. Most of the large cities have ports of their own and most of the large towns are close to those ports and cities anyway. the Guinness situation is a case in point, there was a guinness liner to sligo but the moment the road network from Dublin to Sligo became competitive the contract collapsed.

Remember that once a train arrives in a station with its load local hauliers will be needed anyway to get it to wherever it is going. IE used to have a road train service, ie its own lorries and also the freight business was subsidised in a manner in which it cannot be anymore. Even though in theory the freight businees is due to open up to the possiblity of private operators it will not happen because the margins just dont exist.

just read the above quote from IRN pretty much sums up the attitude of the enthusiast to freight and can proably be projected through to passenger services too, which is appalling.

They dont want to see good services or growth just old trains

:confused:

The nameless international company which expressed an interest in Ireland was and remains the only company to operate freight using DMU style equipment (well they borrowed it from Railtrack) to prove it could be done

Cost of entry to the market is too high and all the big customers are contracted to IE, all the spare equipment is life expired and is being scrapped. The scrapping contract was advertised so a third party operator could have bought the kit as they used to do in the UK but they didn't