We’re on the one road

Not in my years has there been so much anticipation. The decision of the proposed route of the new Oilgate to Rosslare N11 was finally announced today to councillors. Originally there were 8 different routes listed as possible. Now it is down to one preferred option. I know that most people will scratch their heads and wonder where will the money and traffic come for this project given the mantra that we are where we are!
The proposed route bypasses Oilgate to the east and rejoins the N11 until Newcastle where it will branch off west of Ferrycarrig Bridge before rejoining the alignment a the Barntown Roundabout. There is a new bridge proposed over the Slaney near the Irish National Heritage Park. Next it continues to Drinagh along the present bypass and curves away before the Drinagh roundabout to follow the course of the already agreed routé of the Wexford Rosslare road provided for about 10 years ago. In comparison to what could have been its minimal in its delineation,

Lets deal with that one about money. The criticism of the M50 roundabouts at Red Cow intersection was that it was designed and built when usege was low and that the time to do the spade work on any infrastructural expansion in a better economic environment in the future is now. The second point that makes it sound more realistic is that the project can be built bit by bit as there are several intersections with the existing national primary roads where the routes can re-join.
My initial fear was that the preferred route would take the road away from Wexford town in the direction of the N25 with the consequent bypassing of the town and the likely bypassing of New Ross, I reckoned Dungarvan would be the first town that the tourist would meet on the way to Kerry. That fear has come to nought. I’d hate to think of Wexford as being one more sign post on the way to somewhere else. Now I’m reassured.
A word of the actual preferred route. The maps provide for a 300M strip wide within which just 100M width of land will be ultimately used. If you look at the map and see your house in the line of the road it doesn’t necessarily meant that the road will go through your house. Indeed it will probably give the planers the leeway to avoid knocking any house and incurring extra cost. I know that when people look at the Whitford House and Clonard Village will see the land in the 300M zone however there is no certainty that there will be an intersection here, My view is that there will be just 2 intersections, one at Drinagh and another at Barntown with a linking distributor road collecting local traffic to these junctions.

It will take many years before the design and planning permission stages are over. There will be an oral hearing and the matter will go to An Bord Pleanála direct as it is critical infrastructure. It could be 20 years before it is built and given that its 10 years since the preferred route of the Enniscorthy bypass was agreed and still land hasn’t been purchased then it’s not a case of holding ones breath. Not so much a giant step today but a baby step but a step it was!
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The train now departing from platform 9 ¾.

It brought a wry smile to my face. I almost broke into a chorus of “We’ll meet again” last Wednesday at the station. Fianna Fail and Greens united on the ground in the south east to oppose rail closures while their colleagues in power did everything to see the line shut. And be cetain that we will meet again. Its gut wrenching to watch the Greens and FF turn up to be filmed by RTE when baring FF’s Tony Dempsey they did nothing about stopping Dempsey and Cuffe. Irish Rail brought forward their opening of the Dunboyne link to coincide with the announced withdrawal of service between Rosslare and Waterford in another spoiler move of theirs. Dan Boyle’s fleeting appearance on the rail protest brought a sense of celebrity to the campaign but nothing else.theirs!

I’ve always been cynical about the Greens but not even I could have thought that they’d stoop this low. On the night of the first protest meeting in Wellington Bridge a Waterford Green assured me that Minister Cuffe would contact me to discuss the matter. I sent him the 2003 report on the line, the rebuttal of costings sent to him by Irish Rail. Did he contact me?
When the Irish Times came looking for him to comment he took his cue from the old Dr Hook song, “Sylvia’s Mother”, he was too busy to come to the phone! One local green councillor was busy spoofing “With Ciaran Cuffe in place as Minister for Sustainable Transport, we have an open ear. We need however to make our own strong case. We need to make sure that we, together with Irish Rail, market this line properly, in order to give it a chance. There is a bit of momentum gathering here and that's good. But don't stop here, so please tell your friends” All of this was done but to no avail.


The Greens aren’t interested in Co Wexford while Fianna Fail are only interseted in bailing out developers. So long as Fianna Fail will tolerate minority middle class issues they’ll indulge Gormley and his party. So long as the Greens can ignore the rest of the country, FF get on with bailing out their supporters and they’ll throw the kitchen at it!
So right now the spin is that the line will close, not so! In fact Irish Rail must provide and maintain the line so that if another operator wishes to utilise the line they will have access and that the NTA will support the Rail Partnership model and the Southern & Eastern Regional Authority in their work to develop links. So in effect the ball is in our court, Irish Rail, the Greens and FF are off the pitch. Let us who live in the area now plan how best to deliver what is in the interest of thise who live here.

Dan’s Deise day out!

Today was a very succesfull day’s protest at Waterford’s Plunkett Station. With just 2 days to the NTA decision on the future of the Rosslare Waterford railway, the campaign once more seized the initiative by staging a protest at Plunkett Station. Interestingly there was 3 TD’s including Brian O’Shea, FG by-election hopeful Paudie Coffey, Jack Walsh Labour’s Deputy Mayor in Waterford as well as the chairperson of the SERA.
I’d seen Senator Dan Boyle’s tweet earlier in the day so along with Paul Kehoe, I was expecting him. Could it be that the Greens seem to be getting off the fence on this issue for once and hopefully for all. Could it be a straw in the wind that the NTA is coming down on our side that the greens don’t want to be seen off side on decision day and that they have a strong indication that Iarnród Éireann is going to be refused permission to withdraw rail passenger services?

Perhaps Dan’s visit was a subtle way of sending a message to FF given the current disharmony in government about Anglo that the greens are there own men (as Miley used to say “First and Last”). Given the fact that the line runs through Carlow Kilkenny which is represented by Green Minister Mary White, the Borris woman was nowhere to be seen today. If it is that the Minister Cuffe is going to hang tough on the issue and eyeball his senior Noel Dempsey then I welcome it but if it was that Dan’s flying visit was purely about optics, I think that I’ve been used. Friday will tell a lot!
For some strange reason the SRG Chairperson Tanya Fenelon was asked to leave the station!
It was home for us all after 30 minutes and Irish Rail got their station back. However in light of their offer to share the line with a heritage operator, perhaps it won’t be too long before it’s once more a shared station?

I told you so!

I’m not hugely surprised by the publication of the SERA report into the Limerick Rosslare rail line. There’s nothing in it that I never suspected or said. The report is an indictment of the centralised ethos that pervades Iarnród Éireann. It might have been acceptable in Todd Andrews day to tell a demoralised people that the local line was shutting just as nowadays its acceptable to spoof that while there is no money to re-open a line it’ll be alright in 2015. But its not acceptable any longer to threat communities as though they’ve no right to consultation and after enduring years of being ignored on how their service was provided to say as Irish Rail did last April, it’s the local authorities fault, the area has too few people and we’ve tried our best.
This report bins that spin.

What the Save the Rail group always said is backed up to the hilt! Link Waterford and Wexford, run more trains, draw in community support for the line, integrate the timetable to boats, buses and other rail services. They estimate that more than 600 passengers could use this train each day if that is done. That’s more than the Western Rail Corridor was projected to carry. And all of that can be done for very little as the line is still up and running.


They report says that the Irish Rail case to close contains a number of “critical aspects which are flawed”. It singles out the Strategic Rail Review recommendation that no investment should be undertaken at the expense of priority investment and that economic evaluation does not support investment in the Rosslare Limerick line. As I’ve pointed out there is EU funding available to upgrade the line as it leads to a TEN. Clearly there is no interest in IE or in the Government in accessing this cash.

The report agrees with my view that the real origin of the line is Wexford and if you count the population within in 10 Km of the line there is 125,000 within reach of this lightly used line. But what is astonishing is that IE have been running the train in the wrong direction! For years the number of people commuting into Wexford is 3 times that of the number commuting from the same parishes into Waterford! Is it any owned it was lightly used? Doh!


The report focuses on the actual definition of what economic actually means. It points out that increasing frequency can increase patronage. The opposite is true as well, can you believe that the letters C,I & E are found in the word “economic”? Irish Rail’s neglect of Sail Rail is now effectively an international embarrassment as the UK Department of Transport and Stena both unprompted commented to the reporters on their failure to provide rail connections out of Rosslare Europort. Irish Rails business case for closure is based on data that ignores any other market than those going to work in Waterford.
Irish Rail has been exposed in this report for poor analysis of the regions needs. I’ve arrived at the conclusion that they don’t deserve the line any more. Its time that they were told that the line will be open to competition and that if another operator wants to provide a service in addition or instead of them then they don’t need to hang around any longer if they don’t want to. As they say in Rosslare Harbour its time for them to shape up or ship out!

For whom the road tolls!

If you want clear evidence that the government has lost touch it’s today’s suggestion that its time to toll National Primary Routes. The argument in favour is one of equity! If Dublin and surrounding counties are paying tolls then its time the rest of us coughed up!
That ignores the financial reality, one I’ve always had difficulty with. The alternative to state investment in delivering public services is supposed to be that the private sector could provide roads and schools better than the state in a more efficient way. That’s why I paid a toll the other day when I drove across the Suir Bridge on the N25. The logic of the FF/PD government was that the builder took the risk by financing and delivering and operating a project on time. East Link, West Link, Motorway, it was all GAMA’s way! Indeed some who’re now in government opposed GAMA’s roads on the cheap and on double quick time.
But now tolling roads is on the agenda simply as a tax raising measure. Like all good ideas thought up in a rush, the real costs were ignored. Firstly all National Primary Roads have side roads that all link up. What would be the cost of building and maintaining the toll stations and how much revenue would be lost as motorists negotiate their way around the back roads to void paying the toll.
Let me give you a perfect example the N11 is the main road from Wexford to Dublin. If I take the R741 direct to Gorey I can join the N11 a mile south of Gorey and avoid 7 extra miles of driving and a possible tail back at Enniscorthy. So R741 is my usual route. So if the new N11 is tolled and the carrot to the County Council is the revenue, why would I take this road to Dublin? Faster yes but more expensive! NRA spin often emphasises how much is cut off journey time but what counts now is the point to point time not from between notional points. As it is Wexford is on average 2 hours from the southside of Dublin. What’s the additional economic benefit of being 1 hr 50 mins?
I make this point because at present there is a local controversy about the new Rosslare Harbour motorway. Having looked at the potential routes I’m annoyed that some routes take the traffic well away from Wexford Town. We’ve had a bypass for 20 years or more and now the potential routes will take long distance traffic further away from the town. Down the road, (No pun intended!) how likely is it that this road will be tolled? How much will be raised and if the original N11 is re-used by big volumes of traffic and new upgraded national primary roads don’t carry the expected volumes who carries the can for the lost revenue? The government? The County Council? The NRA? At the end of the day whoever takes the hit it’s ultimately the taxpayer who’s caught out on this one.
Wexford is hugely reliant on the N11 and the N25. You can’t get into the county without using a national primary route. A toll in my mind is a bridge too far. Listening to Minister Gormley tonight on the TV, I’m not convinced that he understand how peripheral counties could be hit by tolling national primary routes. Wexford relies on roads to access Rosslare Harbour, given the reality that tolls now can be done by cameras rather than physically paid at a booth and arrears build quickly are we in danger of pricing ourselves out of the market when it comes to holiday makers using ferries for foreign holidays? Will tolls turn people off using Rosslare? I hope not.

Double speaking Greens go dumb on rail closure.

When the Irish Times contacted Minister Ciaran Cuffe about the possibility of closing the Rosslare Waterford rail line the Minister was unavailable to speak to the journalist other than to say that the matter was one for Iarnród Éireann alone. 2 days before he was appointed a minister, Ciaran Cuffe said that if a socio economic case for retention existed he’d listen to it. Now that doesn’t mean that he’d commit to retaining it he only said he’d listen to it. When Ciaran was nominated I sent him a copy of a report on the line asking that he’d respond, 3 months later I’m still waiting despite assurances from local greens that he’d contact me.


Lets face it Fianna Fail have the greens round their little finger. The core green issues such as Stag Hunting and puppy farming don’t wash with the electorate, Fianna Fail will happily let their junior partner “progress” these issues to keep them onside while Fianna Fail get on with running the country for their developer, banker and business buddies.
The Greens of course understand this and are happy to keep their heads down until issues like the Rosslare Waterford rail line turn up and show them up now for what they once said. Here’s Dan Boyle in 2007; “Sinister decisions relating to rail freight have been made in recent years. For example, in my constituency, the freight hub in Cork depends on the Norsk facility, which has been put up for sale. In recent years, the rail turntable, which allowed freight trains to change direction, because Cork is a terminus, was dismantled. This was an attempt to disentangle the rail freight infrastructure.” How right he was so what is he doing about returning freight to rail?

Ciaran Cuffe when he was in opposition knew exactly what had to be done; Green Party 2007 Rail Transport Policy “We must allow the regions to develop their economic and social potential. We believe that the Island's rail network should be used as a basis for informing the location of significant new development over the next twenty years." “urban generated rural settlement and low-density suburban development appears to be increasing, and this pattern needs to be reversed. It is unsustainable to provide large numbers of on-off houses and ribbon development in the country-side. We must revive our rural areas, but we do not wish to see people commuting long distances by car to our towns and cities.”


Minister Mary White could tell us last year that “The Government has a commitment to investment in public transport, another form of environmentally friendly infrastructure. Almost €1 billion is being spent this year on public transport projects and the safeguarding of future public transport projects will ensure jobs are sustained and that our travelling and commuting trends will be sustainable.” So where is that money for the South Wexford line now? The line qualifies for EU funding towards upgrading as I and Nessa Childers discovered at our meeting with the EU in June. Look even if you buy the Iarnród Éireann line that there is no market for passengers what about freight?

I’m aware of a real plan to put freight on the line. Not a word in support from the greens, surprising as in 2007 Dan Boyle knew what to do; “the next Government should at the very least seek to achieve the same balance between road and rail freight as other European countries, which is 77% by road and 23% by rail. A timeframe of ten years should be set down to achieve that. It will mean investment and a reversal of policy “ Have you seen a change in policy in the last 3 years? But wait there’s more from Dan “Ports such as Rosslare, Waterford, Foynes and Cork should be used more because they have rail links, which could be connected to the national system, thereby providing for more freight to be carried. The State should move away from a radial rail system, which comprises only lines in and out of Dublin, and restore the remnants of the rail system.”

That was then and this is now. The silence of any green TD to speak out on this issue in the last 3 months speaks volumes n how suppliant the party has become. Call it Stockholm Syndrome or urban Gombeenism the greens are wrapping themselves up in knots. They’re entitled to do it but the reality is that the Rosslare Waterford rail line is gong off the tracks because of their attitude. So if you’re wondering where the money should come from to support lines like the Rosslare Waterford line I’ll leave the final word to Dan Boyle from one of his newsletters in 2007; In Government we will redress the chronic under investment in bus, rail, cycling and pedestrian facilities and we will redirect the roads budget to improve road safety and traffic management.

Irish Rail shows rail services the door.

Well so much for consultation! It seems that the suits in Connolly have had their fill. Poor old Jim must spin in his grave at the thought of his name being associated with an arrogant and high handed management. To put it in one sentence the boys ain’t going to share their train set with anyone; not the Oireachtas members but most of all the people in the south east.
Today’s papers carry notice of intention to close the rail line between Rosslare Strand and Waterford. In a way it’s clearly an attempt to deflect from their current denous with the Oireachtas committee who want to ask them a few embarrassing questions. Lets recap how we got here. In March Irish Rail applied for permission to close the line in secret to the NTA. In April the company told the Oireachtas Transport Committee and residents in Wexford. As the opposition to the closure built up and submissions were made and points rebutted the Southern and Eastern Regional Authority stepped in.

SERA sought tenders for a socio economic report on the future of the line from Limerick Junction to Rosslare Harbour. The NTA agreed to withhold a decision on the matter until the report was submitted. So as to expedite the process in the interests of Irish Rail the timescale of mid July was agreed by both bodies for an initial report and additional information within the following week. Arising from that the NTA would issue a decision.
Once more Irish Rail have move to undermine the process, just as they did by releasing the news of closure to turn people away from the first public meeting. They’ve issued notice of closure in accordance with the 1958 Transport Act. That means that in 2 months time regardless of what anyone else says the line will close. Minister Dempsey says that he wants to move the rolling stock elsewhere and it was about resources. The company on the other hand say it’s about money that they haven’t got. Just as the company marginalised campaigners against closure, they’ve undermined SERA and the NTA. There’s only so many that you can do that to and get away with it every time. The hypocrisy of the companies claim about concern at increased emissions is exposed by the reality that they will now deploy 4 buses to bring 25 passengers and none of them will go via Bridgetown, Wellington Bridge or Ballycullane to get students into WIT for lectures.
In reality it’s about having no interest in anything other than large urban areas, no imagination for developing services and no time for freight and Co Wexford. There is still a long way to go on this one. Irish Rail will have to give notice of intention to close to other EU carriers who will have the right to apply to commence services in Ireland. EU rules are interpreted in Ireland for the benefit of Iarnród Éireann and not the benefit of a developing rail industry. While we’re moving less by rail in terms of passengers and especially freight other countries are seeing freight returning to rail.

And what about the politics of all of this? For the Greens who aspire to a public transport policy? Minister Ciaran Cuffe said he’d support retention where a socio economic argument was made? Minister Dempsey by all accounts of the Wexford TD’s meeting was badly informed about the line but cared little. Will pressure grow on the 2 ministers or will they just attempt to spin a line that small populations of about 100,000 between Wexford and Waterford are not viable for a line. I bet they wouldn’t tell Jackie Healy Rae that!
If the Minster was half the idealist his spinsters like to tell us he is he’d haul in the chairman, sack him dismiss the board and tell the executives to either find ways to build up the line or find another job.

Irish Rail's scenic journey to closure; not there yet!

It’s days like today that give you a boost in a long campaign. First I got a call to say that Conor Cullen ahd doen a fine piece about the facebook page and asked a few hard questions of Irish Rail. Then I got the shock of my life at lunch time when I took a call from Eleanor McEvoy’s partner Mick to ask me had I seen the Wexford Echo. I’d spent all day in class so other than a 10 minute tea break I’d seen plenty of homework but no newspaper. When I did my jaw dropped! Eleanor is supportive of our campaign as she and Mick live near the line in the south of the county. I remember her album Yola which drew it inspiration from the locality from a few years back. What I didn’t recall was that the front cover picture was taken on the platform at Bridgetown station. I won’t forget it now as the picture is spread across a half page in all the Echo newspapers with the title “Isn't it a little? ” The ad is a novel way of promoting both the facebook campaign and Eleanor. It will I’m sure bring welcome attention to both in the media. The campaign is now at a crucial stage. Irish Rail thought by now that the line would be closed. The end of April was the date that union sources had advised workers they’d be finished. It seems now that when it comes to closing the line, the company is not quite there to quote their ad campaign but claim to be getting there! In fact they're not going at 90 MPH but at speeds more sedate that most of their passengers are now used to! But of course that doesn't stop Irish Rail from playing head games with their workers as one was recently told that they wouldn’t be back after leave was taken. I’ve never met an organisation that has such a high handed attitude to their workers. It’s like something out of the middle ages where feudal barons treated their serfs like slaves. Before the Wellington Bridge meeting one Irish Rail official whose name I know approached company employees and warned them not to speak out against the company. One who did subsequently received a warning letter! The HSE wouldn’t try this with their employees if there was a meeting over Wexford Hospital.

What Irish Rail should ponder is why there aren’t too many feudal barons left nowadays and if they were smart they’d wake up to the 21st century and face a few facts like they never really understood their market here, they never promoted the service and they cannibalised the timetable here just like they did elsewhere. The last line they closed 20 years ago ran between Athlone and Mullingar. To close that first they closed a perfect station in Athlone and built a new station where the Mullingar line was awkward to access. Next they ran trains when nobody wanted them, reducing the service to one a day each way (Arrive Moate at 11.30 PM), who would in their right mind want to go to Moate at midnight? I kid you not! Eventually the line had service suspended even though it linked 2 key towns in the region. Now where does that remind you of? 25 years on their modus operandi is the same.

I don’t have much n common with Michael O’Leary but one thing he always maintained was that the Department of Transport was the downtown office of Aer Lingus. He may have a point as I think the rail section in transport is definitely the downtown office of Irish Rail! If it was left to Minister Dempsey, I think the track would already be rusting and tumbleweed blowing across Rosslare Europort. From here on every extra day that the train runs is a bonus in my book. Management have undermined it with an unviable service, the minister and shareholder backs them up in this act of vandalism and the county bleeds. The sooner Minister Dempsey is sent packing the better. At least Labour in power would make the trains run! Perhaps Eleanors “Isn’t it a little?” could be the campaign song for the Labour General Election campaign!

Senator Dan and the Battle of Wellington Bridge!

You know in Irish politics when you’re making headway, it’s when Green Party Senator Dan Boyle tweets. And so it was last night as the good people of Co Wexford gathered in Wellington Bridge to discuss what has been a dramatic 24 hours that our plight was tweeted by the Deputy Leader of the Seanad.
In reality we need more than a tweet to get us out of this mess and to be fair the people of Wexford came up with plenty of questions for Irish Rail management last night and got precious few answers from a poorly prepared Iarnrod Eireann team. Many of the questions that were raised from the floor were not answered and that’s just the ones from the deputies. Of the seven I put just one was partly answered. Closure is imminent, the company will apply to the NTA for permission to end service. The head picture was taken as the Irish Rail representative was speaking and you can gauge the response of the 3 politicians to his attempted answers.

The contract between the NTA and the company was only signed 4 months ago. It makes no mention that the contract allows for termination of service merely change of service. I pointed out to the company that the NTA will receive objections from local authorities in the run in to their decision. I’ve already a motion down on the matter for Monday nights meeting of Wexford Borough Council and if its passed as would be likely, they will have one objection by Tuesday.
The NTA approach is an attempt to by-pass a government decision on the matter as it would mean rowing back on policy initiated by Seamus Brennan in 2001 that there would be no more line closures. So effectively there would be a de facto policy of closure through the back door while the official policy of no contraction of the passenger network still is in place. An Irish Rail solution to an Irish Rail problem!


Last night saw a wonderful turn out despite the Irish Rail dirty tricks. Let me explain what the company did. At 3.15 yesterday the Irish Times website carried a report that the company had decided to axe the route. That decision was made at a board meeting yesterday morning. The management then despatched 3 senior managers to Wellington Bridge to attend a public meeting where they were going to announce the closure. Before tea-time the CIE chairman announced the closure to the Oireachtas Transport Committee, about an hour after South East Radio relayed the news to workers and a shocked public. Last night I listened to one person tell that they had lost their jobs on the radio. By 7 the union had texted to say they would be finishing up in 3 weeks.
It was a deliberate and calculated attempt to undermine the meeting and present us with a fait accompli. It will backfire. It will galvanise the community especially in the light of the inability of management to answer questions at last nights meeting. The questions I want to know are
What will happen to services south of Wexford Town?
What is the status of the Fishguard & Rosslare Harbour Railway Company?
Why was the timetable altered in 2009 to remove connections to the boat at Rosslare?
Why was the commuter service between Wexford and Waterford not developed?
Why is the timetable being dismantled to prevent through journeys?
What is the source of funding to the WRC in the light of the 2009 requirement to run that service profitably?
In the meantime my intray is clogging up as people sign on the facebook petition. Irish Rail last night were long on obfuscation last night but short on specifics.

End of the line for Rosslare Waterford Rail service

Cynics say that you know when a rail line is set for closure because the station gets a new lick of paint. Naturally my concerns grew when I went to Rosslare Strand to see the Waterford platform was painted and resurfaced that there was something a foot. The line serves Wellington Bridge and connects a rural hinterland to Waterford. Many of these small villages have lost their bus service last year and now will see their rail service go. As recently as 1995 there were 3 return trains to Waterford.
Fair play to Brendan Howlin, he flushed Irish Rail out. I’ve seen the correspondence from Irish Rail. They are seeking to put an alternative in placed for their passengers and are offering workers either a severance package or a transfer. The letter to Deputy Howlin is signed by a senior manager in Irish Rail. The fate of the line that links Wexford to Waterford, Cork, Limerick & Galway is sealed. After over 100 years the line will close.
I’ve blogged this matter before, I’ve explained how management blew €30K on taxi fares because they timetabled a Waterford crew to take the train to Rosslare after the last bus returned to Waterford. A Wexford crew was a possibility. I’ve also said how they never promoted the line despite fares being less than Bus Eireann. The timetable was altered making it awkward for passengers to sprint to Plunket Station for the train home.

I’ve written to the Transport Minister as well as the 2 greens who passed the book to Irish Rail. The greens are ostensibly a party of public transport and it is to their shame that they never lifted a finger to stop Irish Rail management. Not so much as a tweet out of Senator Dan Boyle. FF have no policy other than nationally saying one thing while Sean Connick TD touted by some as a possible Minister saying something else. If he’s appointed a Minister will he reverse this decision?

McCarthy called for the lines closure and now we’re starting to see McCarthy by stealth. Despite the fact that the train in to Waterford has a loyal passenger base each morning and is always at least half full and was reliable rail passengers from Wexford will now be faced with gridlock on the Ferrybank dual carriageway in order to get to work. I’ve travelled on that line twice in the 18 months. I’ve seen its potential. So too has RTE’s “Nationwide” which reported positively 4 weeks on the route. Run trains from Wexford to Limerick Junction. Allow connections to the Western Rail Corridor. Where’s the vision with Irish Rail?
Instead over time the line will deteriorate, sleepers will rot and ultimately it will be impossible to re-open a service along the line. Brendan Howlin will raise the matter on the adjournment on Tuesday night in Dail Eireann. Lets see what the Minister says in response.