‘This is not about anoraks or steam engines. If you have train services, people will use them’

Such was the enthusiasm for rail in Ireland at one stage that the world’s first commercial monorail was built here, 14 kilometres of it running between Listowel and Ballybunion in Kerry from 1888 for more than 30 years.

It came in pretty cheap at £33,000 (about €3.5 million in today’s money) but the list of drawbacks would probably have seen the entire scheme bite the dust at the first stage now. For a start, everything on board needed to be roughly balanced on each side of the rail.

The upshot was that a farmer who wanted to send a cow to market apparently had to send two calves too, as they would make the return journey one on each side - so the whole thing started to resemble that old puzzle about crossing a river with a fox, a goose and a bag of grain.

Still, there’s people in Donegal who’d probably settle for it now.

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In 1906, the county had almost 70 working train stations, and though the business case for some of the lines might seem hard to fathom now, so too is the fact that it no longer has any at all. Along with the likes of Fermanagh and Tyrone in Northern Ireland, advocates for rail call the county “the gap on the map”, and there is some excitement that, after more than 50 years, it may finally be about to be filled in.

Much hinges on the contents of the soon-to-be-published All Island Strategic Rail Review, a North-South initiative that, unless Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan has been setting himself up for a very public fall in recent weeks, will favour not just the restoration of the old line between Portadown, Co Armagh and Derry with a spur to Letterkenny, Co Donegal, but also the extension of the Western Rail Corridor to Claremorris, Co Mayo and a reopening of the Wexford to Waterford line. Translink is responsible for train services in the North, while Iarnród Éireann/Irish Rail has responsibility in the South.

Ryan spoke positively in the Dáil recently about meetings he attended with engineering consultants Arup Group and others at which, he said, he was impressed by the case for restoring a line that would go through Strabane and Omagh, in Co Tyrone, and allow for the spur.

Though keen to avoid getting dragged into a debate about the best route to take, Steve Bradley, of rail campaign group Into the West, says there is a strong case for restoring one of the countless lines closed when governments on both sides of the Border sought to cut spending more than half a century ago.

The group was founded in 2004 by activist and journalist Eamonn McCann, with others, to protect the Belfast to Derry line at a time when it was perceived to be under threat.

A new station opened in Derry in recent years, on the site of the city’s former Victorian station, contributing to a dramatic growth in passenger numbers in recent years.

Now, the Into the West group is one of the driving forces behind the proposal to bring trains back to a part of the island that hasn’t seen any in a very long time. Five public meetings before Christmas attracted large crowds but, Bradley admits, witnessed some unrealistic expectations.

“We had people who wanted trains back in small villages and that’s not realistic. People don’t realise how expensive railways are to build, you have to be either in a significant population centre or between two. We say the principle should be that if you have a population of 10,000 or more then you should be at the table for the conversation on whether you get rail back.”

The line, he estimates, would cost something in the region of €1.5 billion but makes sense given the number of sizeable towns north of the Border it would link and the expectation, expressed in the Government’s Project Ireland 2040 plan, that Letterkenny will grow substantially in size.

“Big infrastructure costs big money,” says Bradley. “Of course it does, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen. Motorways cost a lot of money but the Republic built a lot of them, even a couple that are relatively underused.”

Though the report will only make recommendations, he cautions, he would be surprised, he says, if the route is not ultimately restored and trains aren’t running to at least one part of Donegal by the end of the 2030s.

Though it was sold off quickly after being closed, most of the old route, at least in rural areas, is still essentially unbroken, and so it is not like starting from scratch. “You need to get it accepted first, though, that rail needs to return to Letterkenny, it needs to return to Strabane, it must return to Omagh; you need to get that agreed before going down the rabbit hole of where you run it.”

There’s nothing different about the DNA of people in the west compared to Dublin. If you have services, people will use them

—  Colmán Ó Raghallaigh

Not all the recommendations expected to be made by the review are quite so long-term. Advocates for the Western Rail Corridor point to the success of the reopened section between Limerick and Galway as strengthening the case for the next phase to proceed.

Fianna Fáil TD Éamon Ó Cuív, his party’s spokesman on rural affairs, was hailing increased passenger numbers between the State’s third and fourth cities only last week, and Colmán Ó Raghallaigh of campaign group West on Track believes trains, initially freight ones, could be running as far as Claremorris by 2025, with passenger trains to follow.

“We think the case is strong and we are confident,” says Ó Raghallaigh, who would ultimately like to see the line extended to Sligo again.

“This is not about makey-up stuff or anoraks or steam engines or any of that nonsense,” he says. “This is about people being able to change the way they do things. There’s nothing different about the DNA of people in the west compared to Dublin. If you have services, people will use them.”

There is, he says, clearly no logic in “having a train station with weeds growing all over it in a town like Tuam [Co Galway] with 10,000 people and a constant traffic jam just up the road.”

Ó Raghallaigh points to the existing potential for workers and students to embrace a line that allows them to avoid Galway’s traffic, notorious even by Irish standards, with related environmental benefits as well as the opportunity to develop towns such as Tuam that better infrastructure would facilitate.

Then there is the benefit of allowing the region’s many tourists to get around more easily. “There were 1.6 million tourists in Galway in 2018 and 330,000 in Mayo,” he says. “Imagine if we could get more of the ones in Galway to travel up to Mayo - even 10 per cent is one hell of a lot of people on trains.”

In a report written by the economist John Bradley, written for the Into the West group in reply to a less-favourable one by EY, the cost of restoration to passenger standard is estimated at just over €150 million. Ó Raghallaigh is not the only one to question how much road that gets you, with the Mallow bypass, estimated to be on course to cost €300 million, cited by others.

“Now, there’s no appetite in the department for any of this, of course, but then events have a funny way of overtaking even the mandarins,” he says.

That work is already under way on restoring the Limerick to Foynes line is an example of how the tide may have already started to turn for rail.

The initial justification for the reopening of the 43km line is to provide a freight line between the city and a key deepwater port. As elsewhere, however, the work is to be carried out to passenger rail standards and that, advocates clearly anticipate, will make the argument for the additional spend required to get people moving too somewhat harder to contest.

I’d reject the suggestion that the populations don’t justify the investment - that’s absolutely not how you do infrastructure

—  Brian Leddin

On the Foynes line, some of the likely stops are in towns with populations well below that 10,000 mark, but Limerick Green Party TD Brian Leddin argues that with the city projected to be about 50 per cent larger by 2040, some forward planning is urgently required.

“I’d reject the suggestion that the populations don’t justify the investment - that’s absolutely not how you do infrastructure,” he says. “We need to think what we want our cities to be and invest accordingly.”

Taking the example of Adare, Co Limerick, he believes the restoration of a rail line that last carried passengers in 1963 offers huge possibilities.

“When the development plan for the city and county was done, it might not have envisaged particular significant growth there, it’s a tourist place, but at the same time, it’s 20km from the city and it does have a disused railway line.

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“Now the line is going to be restored, it does necessitate another look at the development plan. We know the train will be going through, so what do we think Adare should be? Still a lovely little village west of Limerick city or a place where lots of people live and commute in and out on a train that runs every few minutes?

“The point is if we’re going to have a million more people in this country by 2040 we have to think about where they’re going to live and how they’re going to get around. If we build rail infrastructure and build houses near it, then they might own cars, but they certainly won’t use them as much as they would otherwise.”

Leddin, like Ryan, is keen to see other improvements to the network but concedes “they won’t all be as simple as Foynes”.

Even the benefits of buying carriages can take several years to be felt, and proposals for improvements such as electrification, double tracking or the installation of passing loops intended to facilitate faster and more regular services often turn into prolonged sagas - not on the scale of the proposed new lines in Dublin, of course, but challenging nonetheless.

If you look at Waterford as the hub and main towns like Kilkenny, Carrick-on-Suir and Wexford, there is enough of a population there to sustain a rail service

—  Diarmaid McGrath

The restoration of the Waterford to Wexford line is, its advocates say, particularly straightforward because as it was closed relatively recently, in 2010, it is still in fairly decent shape. The issue is somewhat complicated by the bridge over the river Barrow that was hit by a ship last year and is currently the subject of an insurance claim.

The line is basically in good condition and “if you look at Waterford as the hub and main towns like Kilkenny, Carrick-on-Suir and Wexford, there is enough of a population there to sustain a rail service but you have make that attractive and link it to bus services or segregated cycle routes that allow people to use sustainable travel for their entire journey,” says Diarmaid McGrath of campaign group South East on Track.

That organisation’s Peter Branigan says the view among local politicians regarding the line has shifted considerably in recent years, and he and McGrath now describe themselves as “cautiously optimistic” that, with Rosslare port busier since Brexit and expected to host a renewable energy hub, the estimated €70 million required for restoration of services will be found.

Combined, bringing the lines back into use would start to restore the sense of national interconnectivity to a system that largely links Dublin to other places at present and, as Irish Rail’s Barry Kenny acknowledges, restoring particular lines tends to “strengthen the case that can be made for bringing back others”.

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He says that, as “railway people”, the company is pleased to see the case for restoring lines being closely examined, but makes clear it accepts the decisions will ultimately be driven by political policy.

In the meantime, Branigan points to work already under way in several areas, including Cork, where improvements on the lines to Mallow, Midleton and Cobh will allow services to run every 10 minutes rather than every 30 as at present.

Aside from regularity, just about everybody spoken to for this article mentions cost. Having successfully campaigned for Leap card fares to be introduced on the route from Mallow, Labour TD Seán Sherlock says “it has created a phenomenal demand”.

“It was evidence,” he says, “that where the service is cost-effective and regular they will use it, there’s no question about that. What we want to see now in the longer term is that service extended to Charleville with an increase to frequency, and the trains starting earlier in the morning and running until later in the evening.”

Ryan’s repeated comments about his interconnected vision for the system in the future suggests a will to improve things; Kenny, too, points out that the consultants behind the review will only make recommendations.

When it will actually be published is another issue, with the intention having been that it would go to a minister for infrastructure in the North at the same time as the Republic’s minister for transport gets it. A spokesman for the North’s Department of Infrastructure said: ”Work is continuing and it is anticipated that the review will be completed in Q1 of this year. Once the report is complete, if there is an absence of Ministers in the NI Executive at that time, publication will be considered taking into account the decision-making framework set out in the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2022.”

It will not please everyone, of course.

Sherlock and Ó Raghallaigh disagree, for instance, on whether the construction of a greenway on the former rail line from Midleton to Youghal should proceed - with the former in favour and the latter describing the move as “idiocy”.

After decades of disappointment, however, those who have fought local battles for lines seem set for some good news from the first all-island assessment of what is required in several generations.

“What it will hopefully provide is a long-term investment strategy for the rail network over the next 20 to 30 years, something that is not at the whim of whoever is in power or whatever the needs of a local deputy or minister are going to be,” says Hassard Stacpoole, an industry commentator and rail journalist who is from Limerick but based in the UK.