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Tipperary County Council official questions viability of Premier County rail links

COUNCILLORS DEFEND NEED TO UPGRADE SERVICES

A senior official with Tipperary County Council has raised the question over whether or not Tipperary’s rail lines should remain open.

The Ballybrophy to Limerick line, which serves Roscrea, Nenagh, Cloughjordan and Birdhill, and the Tipperary Junction to Waterford line have been threatened with closure over the past number of years by Irish Rail.

Now, senior council official Pat Slattery has questioned why they should remain in use.

He stated that there were 4,000 people commuting from North Tipperary to Limerick daily, but less than 50 used the train.

Maintaining that each passenger cost the taxpayer €750 in subvention, he said: “Buses can go from door to door. Could we not get a better service to serve our needs.”

However, he was criticised by a number of councillors, with the main criticism coming from Cllr Joe Hannigan.

“Rather than shutting down the line, we should be asking how we can make it commercially viable,” he said.

Cllr Hannigan said that the timetable was “not user-friendly” and needed to change.

“We should hold what we have and look at upgrading it. Closing it won’t solve our rural transport problems,” he said.

He was backed by Cllr Hughie McGrath who said that the line should be looked at as not just going to Dublin, but could be a feeder line to help develop Shannon Airport.

“It’s a link to Limerick and to the airport,” he said.

“The trains do not travel in the right direction at the right time,” said Cllr Ger Darcy. “The service does not suit the people who would use it.”

He said that it “shouldn't be rocket science” to put a link to UL so students from North Tipperary could commute to college.

That story looks so familiar. We too had one train each way (Swindon to Westbury via Melksham) at each end of the line until 2013 - less passenger journeys even than the Limerick to Ballybrophy via Roscrea line. Put in a sensible service and use will rocket - passenger journeys up from 3,000 per annum to 75,000 per annum at Melksham - and then stopped growing because there was no more space on the new trains!!

Limerick's official is correct - it's pretty useless as it is. I've been / seen / looked as a comparison / benchmark to Melksham. The solution is probably not to pull the service - it's to make the service appropriate, and with goodwill and other ducks (such as fares and reliability and information systems) in line, it *will* work.

Rail group welcomes investment in local line

The North Tipperary Community Rail Partnership (NTCRP) has welcomed recent improvement works on the Ballybrophy-Limerick line that have commenced at Roscrea Train Station, while also stating that commuters must start seeing returns on investment soon.

Irish Rail has invested in the regional line that stops in Roscrea, Cloughjordan, Nenagh, Birdhill and Castleconnell in recent months, and this has resulted in the laying of continuous welded rail along almost two-thirds of the track.

This means that these new tracks can facilitate trains travelling at faster speeds than currently allowed, thus cutting journey times.

The NTCRP firmly believes that commuters must now see return on this investment with faster speeds and reduced journey times in the new Irish Rail 2021 timetable.

The NTCRP has continued its campaign for a better service along the line and has already met with Irish Rail management this month to push for an additional midday service and for an engineer?s report to be completed that would permit increased train speeds along the line.

The campaign is due to step up a gear later this month when representatives from the group meet with the Minister for Transport, Eamon Ryan to discuss investment to date in the line and how this can transformed into better services for the people of north Tipperary.

The group will also request that Minister Ryan directs the NTA and Irish Rail to commence a midday service on the line.

The NTCRP is very grateful and encouraged by the recent wave of community support from the people of Nenagh and Cloughjordan that it has received since members appeared on RTE News discussing their campaign last week.

It is clear that local people want a train service that is reliable, efficient and regular, and the group will be making these points clear to Minister Ryan when they meet with him in the coming weeks.