Really - have Irish Rail had a conversion on the road to Damascus then ? Mind you freight (and perhaps Rosslare port) are the Irish Rail's only profitable sectors.

As the line provides no strategic link (faster if slightly longer distance via Limerick Junction) it will close in the near future it just cannot complete

With the exception of the the former Shale traffic there is no likely freight traffic on the route, Silvermines is already gone and the locals are already in a fight concerning the toxic waste left behind

Despite all the hype few if any are willing to actually travel on the route, the Alan Kelly Express as it is now known carries fewer people in an entire week than the Waterford Rosslare line carried on a single train on a Saturday.

It just proves this country is still led by politics not sense

You've been right on a few things dj but if they have an interest they should bloody well get on with it before the whole damn network gets it up the Troika.

Inniskeen re sunk costs - I agree, it's a horrible dilemma and like I said nobody's head will roll because it will all be an "operational matter for IE" and in the unlikely event of the Transport committee taking an interest in what the hell senior management in Per Way Dept are doing it will be easy to distract them with a lowly employee acting Del Boy with sleepers or whatever.

As for the 28s - eh, yeah, good point there - no LJ service no 28s :o

Lets just get out the shotgun and put it down quickly.

Freight what freight? Since they closed the Foynes line in 2002 little if any freight goes to Limerick.

No miracles are going to happen to increase numbers the plans have all failed nobody wants to use the service it can never be competitive to Bus/Car the times are just awful and we the taxpayers have to very heavily subsidise it. Iarnród Éireann would earn about 50 years ticket revenue in just one week if it sold all the iron from this line as scrap. In 12 months this line will be back in the media again with even more shocking figures. Alan Kelly needs to get real about the job he was elected to do and try save himself now from looking like a right eejit in 12 months. Wasting money daily to please his constituents with a service they won't use has this man no shame.

foynes has excisting plans to reopen because of the bio fuels .....

this week the nenagh rail partnership have been carrying out a survey of the passengers using the branch line, it seems a quite detailed one, the findings of which will be presented to the minster when compiled. Lets see what comes out of it.

this week saw the instroduction on the line of 28k's with the 27's moved off ( i saw two sets in Heuston), much better train for the line.

still the usual gang of 4-6 people on the 515 ex-limerick by the way.

Indeed 5 on yesterday morning and one was a tourist from UK who just wanted to see what the service was like and they boarded in Limerick.

Limerick - 1
Castleconnell - 1
Birdhill - 2
Nenagh - 0
Cloughjordan - 0
Roscrea - 1

Our man was the Roscrea boarder, quite telling no one getting on in Nenagh....

one of the 5 was the lad from the NRG doing his survey although he did go all the way to heuston.

Last Monday (30th July) the 1605 to Ballybrobhy left Limerick with 4 or 5 passengers, and I travelled on the 1705, with about 5 on board. I was the only passenger from Nenagh to Ballybrophy, and on arrival I saw just one person leave the connecting service (1800 ex Heuston) to get on the retrun Ballybrophy-Limerick train. The train which we crossed at Roscrea had about 12 on board (there were probably some more who had left by the time our train passsed it).

The journey on the branch takes almost 2 hours for less than 60 miles: no wonder it's so badly patronised. The Killonan-Nenagh stretch, which is almost all CWR is slower than the Nenagh-Roscrea stretch which is jointed track, the reason being that the 50 mph line limit has long "temporary" restrictions of 25 mph, as well as vey slow speeds past the large number of manned level crossings. The Limerick Junction to Waterford line is super-fast by comparison. I just wonder what sort of incompetent management has managed to pour so much money into such a black hole, with no return.

The Alan Kelly timetable certainly seems to have killed off Limerick-Nenagh commuting. It's sad to see such a run-down line: closure would be a merciful release.

local opinion, which i share, is that this has been done deliberatly to allow it to be sacrificed. As for Alan Kelly teimetable, is it one that he wanted for parish pump politics or one that was forced on him by Irish Rail to teach him a lesson and to have the line closed? Either way, once again, politics is being used to influence transport strategy.

the section between Limerick - Nenagh is very quite but the from Nenagh - Ballybrophy section is very busy mainly 6:25am service from Limerick and the 6:20pm and 7:25pm from Ballybrophy sevices are very busy during this Summer with a daily count of 40 - 50 , which is good considering conditions , the online booking in Nenagh , is proving very popular :) and on the 19th of august there is a Special train going to Dublin from Birdhill ,Nenagh & Roscrea to take people to the Semi final !

Travelled to Nenagh on the 1340 to Limerick on Thursday. Three passengers left at Roscrea, two at Cloughjordan and three at Nenagh. As on the previous occasion I used this train it stopped in Portlaoise for almost fourteen minutes - what a waste of time (literally). A further eight minutes was wasted sitting on the branch at Ballybrohy awaiting the scheduled departure time.

On the return trip, six passengers boarded at Nenagh, one got off at Cloughjordan, two boarded. No business at Roscrea.

Twenty one passengers got off the 1705 to Tralee at Ballybrophy compared to 13 at Templemore, 40 at Thurles, 16 at Charleville and 6 at Mallow. Not sure how many boarded the branch connection at Ballybrophy, looked like about twelve heading in that direction.

To add to the previous message, today (July 4), the 1705 Limerick to Ballybrophy service which is the only evening service on the branch on a Saturday departed with four passengers - one for Castleconnell, two for Roscrea and one for Ballybrophy (me). The only custom from the branch stations was one passenger who boarded at Cloughjordan and connected to the Dublin train at Ballybrophy. Approximately ten passengers were waiting at Ballybrophy for the return service.

The 1705 ex Limerick was delayed for twenty-five minutes on account of gates being closed against the train south of Castleconnell; in the end, the keeper from the next set of gates north had to be summoned to operate the unattended gates.

i have never seen more than 12 on the 18.20. the few times i have been on the 19.25 its been a ghost town. I expect the figures of 40-50 to keep up till I start getting it again in September :rolleyes:

There is only one thing worse than IE trying to close this line, and that is grossly over inflating the figures on it. All that does is give them the ammunition to try and discredit all the good work being done by the Nenagh Rail Group.

I am not exaggerating anything - I am quiet capable of counting.

One thing that is apparent to me (and my opinion is based on observations pre-dating the timetable changes earlier this year) is that the primary passenger potential on this line, as on most other routes, is towards Dublin, not towards the coutry terminus (in this case Limerick).

Current patronage on the line is largely the function of decades of neglect resulting in slow, infrequent and not particularly convenient services. Irish Rail's ambitions to close this line stretch back at least to the early 1980s, if not earlier.

never said you were.

and you are right in that the current, low, patronage is heading towards dublin, but thats because the chance of the branch actually getting the most out of itself has been lost with the M7 opening all the way to Limerick. I have long said that what needs to be done in the morning is to have a train from Ballybrophy to Limerick which will arrive there at around 8.30. The only reason this was not done was down to staffing organisation. With portlaoise depot this is gone. It doesnt mean that the potential is in the dublin direction. It plainly isnt, there is a train getting into dublin for 8.30-ish (in fact it has been in that early and held up for being so) and the numbers using it are in the region of, lets be charitable, 6.

thomas , i am a regular user of the the section between roscrea and ballybrophy , every week usually lately more , I have NEVER been on the 6:20pm sevice from ballybrophy with less than 15 , i count everytime , i dont know if your only counting the front carrige ? or what way your counting but their was less than 15:rolleyes: . . . 7:25pm was never a ghost train , im in Roscrea regularlly as i live nearby and i have never seen any service run empty , except 8 weeks ago 17:05 ran empty!

numbers fall in september and october , but thats nationwide !

:confused:

Numbers should pick from September/October from the general reduction over July/August with people back working, students etc.

No they don't numbers go up in October

The reality is no third party has every reported more than 15 on any of the new/changed Nenagh trains. Every time a count is made, by us, by the Indo or some UK trainspotter they match up and generally give 6 for the 05:05 service

If there are 50 on train, prove it photo would be nice