45 thoughts on “Off Track

  1. munkifisht

    Not a situation unique to Ireland and FF or FG. Steal was in short supply at the time and the popularisation of the car and the motorway was heralding a new age in transport. Further, lets not forget that many of the lines that are in existence today are exceptionally quiet.

    1. Robert

      lets not forget that many of the lines that are in existence today are exceptionally quiet

      Not a habitual train user so.

      1. Anomanomanom

        parts of this country are basically impossible to get to unless you drive. A decent rail network would be nice. Trying to get to donegal at the moment,bus takes 3:40 or fly and then bus it fir 53mins.

      2. classter

        Go from Ennis to Galway on the train.

        Our problem with these things is are settlement patterns are too scattered which it makes it difficult to provide many services – inlcuding trains

  2. Hybridchld

    FWIW the modern one is out of date not showing the Middleton, Dunboyne or Cobh lines or part of the Western Rail Corridor.

    Funny thing though I didn’t know FF and FG had so much control of the railways in the north :P It couldn’t just be that too many railways where built all over the UK and Ireland in the previous hundred years and most never made money for anyone other than the companies that built them

    1. Cian

      It shows the WRC that’s open.

      It also shows the Foynes line (unnavigable), Kingscourt (unnavigble), New Ross (unnavigable) and South Wexford (merely closed) though which far cancels out the few bits missing.

  3. Murtle

    Hardly surprising. I imagine they were dismantled because car ownership rose and people started to travel more and more by road, leaving the trains mostly empty.

      1. Neilo

        @TONY: Quite – look at that mainly GNR route from Fundalk to Donegal. I could go on my hols without driving!

      2. Optimus Grime

        G’man Tony totally agree! As a man from a town that tore up its railway tracks the Brits were reeling! Talk about the two fingers to the Empire…….

  4. The Real Jane

    Yes but why didn’t they know that rail would look like an attractive proposition more than fifty years later? I mean, fancy looking at the way things are going and making decisions based on that rather than wisely imagining what might happen a few decades hence and making decisions based on that instead?

    1. classter

      What were the odds that they were going to predict oil shocks & widespread acceptance of climate change etc.?

  5. JollyRoger

    Am I wrong or wasn’t portions of our rail network built by Guinness to deliver their product?

    1. Cian

      None of it was. They used commercial freight capacity on it until maybe the early 00s; definitely late 1990s; but that’s it.

  6. Joe Small

    Should have maintained loss-making train lines that few people used? Or is this just pointless nostalgia? I think the Western Rail Corridor fiasco is evidence enough that this isn’t a good policy option.

  7. Formerly Known As @ireland.com

    They dismantled the Trans in Dublin, too. How much has it cost to bring them back?

    If they had kept the bridges and land, there would be great bicycle networks . Imagine the tourism boost.

  8. J

    There you go Jane. A lesson learned. Be flexible when it comes to planning transport infrastructure. #Planning is not our forte.mmmmm as an aside ….I never realised that FF and FG had such a say in the cull up North. Suppose it makes it sound like some modern day “revolution ” to punctuate a tweet with a #FF and #FG hashtag .#fight

    1. classter

      How flexible do you want them to be?

      In many cases, the land of the railway line was kept.

      Would maintaining unused railway lines been a ‘flexible’ choice?

      And if we are particuarly poor at planning, why is it that most other places did the same?

      1. J

        @ Classter. My saracasm is clearly too subtle for BS. Nobody gets it !! No. I don’t agree with maintaining unused railway lines. Limerick to Galway line though was reopened back in 2010 .Should have been foreseen, but hindsight is always a useful weapon. Regarding my swipe at planning, that is pretty obvious and I am sure you don’t need any further clarification.

  9. Waddy Dilson

    Imagine being able to hop on a train to Donegal! That’s such a nightmare of a drive especially if you’re heading to somewhere like Gweedore

    1. Ultach

      Depends where you’re starting from, to be fair. Not such a bad drive to Gaoth Dobhair if you’re starting in Cloich Cheann Fhaola.

    2. Liam

      I believe it was a serious trek by train as well. Most of the line closed were slow and unreliable, built on the cheap during the rail boom in the late C19. Rail only really works to link large towns and cities together – we don’t have that many large towns and cities, and they mostly kept their rail lines. Letterkenny’s probably the biggest town with a station.

  10. Shallowthroat

    Ronan’s Right2Water comrade Brendan Ogle also played a major role in the further deterioration of the rail network. He caused 9 months of stoppages and chaos on the rail network in 2000. By the end of the strike most of Irish Rail freight customers had switched their deliveries to road and never went back to rail because they were badly burned by Ogle.

  11. Jake38

    Now we have cars.

    They don’t go on strike and are generally not full of drunken culchies going to GAA matches..

    1. Ultach

      Cars in Tyrone (Cavan/Roscommon/Mayo (or your rural county of choice, you get the idea) are very often full of drunken culchies going to GAA matches, in my experience as a culchie with an penchant for porter.

    2. Illuminati16

      But cars allow the howiyas to escape from their ghettos and pollute the rest of Ireland…. ban the car and keep the howiyas in the pale….

  12. Neilo

    Yer Dublin GAA enthusiasts, on the other hand, travel on shanks’ mare to HQ fueled only by a superiority complex and lashings of lovely heroin. :)

    1. petey

      beat me to it!
      i have a record with that song, grew up listening to it before i discovered rock.

    1. louislefronde

      And don’t forget Sinn Fein, who blew up the occasional railway line… and robbed more than a few trains in the bargain

  13. Guy Bague

    Ronan – PFO you Village Magazine hypocrite. Any update on Blackrock or the Centre for Progressive Change? YMMV.

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie