Minutes of a working group meeting in February 2005 noted that the chairman, Pat McCann, met Minister for Transport Martin Cullen, who emphasised the need for a preliminary report "at least to allow the WRC to be included in the 10-year investment envelope" then being finalised in the department.
Tom Finn, strategic planning manager of Iarnród Éireann, reported on a study by consultants Faber Maunsell which forecast a "very modest demand" of 750 passengers per day, suggesting that the line would require an annual subvention of €5 million to €10 million.
But a separate report on project costings and financial projections, compiled for the working party, concluded that the capital costs of reopening the WRC "compare extremely favourably with other national infrastructural projects currently mooted or in progress. The entire WRC, including stations, signalling, level crossings, track and rolling stock will cost the equivalent of 2.5 miles of the Metro, five miles of the Luas, half of the proposed Red Cow roundabout works [ on the M50] or the equivalent of the Drogheda bypass."
It also pointed out that traffic on the N17 between Tuam and Galway grew by 38 per cent between 1998 and 2003; each weekday morning, more than 3,000 vehicles travel into Galway and the resulting gridlock costs the city's economy €93.6 million per year.
In his final report, Mr McCann said it was "vital" that the region's local authorities "bring forward plans for developing the catchment area of the rail corridor and for creating critical mass to sustain a railway . . . if they wish to support the restoration of the WRC".
But the following additional sentence, which had been included in his draft report, was omitted from the final version submitted to Mr Cullen: "Without this positive intervention by local authorities, it will not be possible to justify the restoration of the line".
At present, as the working party noted, only the Mayo county plan includes reinstating the WRC as an explicit objective. In Co Sligo, several houses have been built with driveways that cross the railway line.