[Alan French]

I would distinguish between giving a project a lower priority, and saying that it shouldn’t be done. I’m not saying that the WRC should have been high priority. But now that it’s actually operating, we should do everything to make it work. Besides, there will always be different opinions on priority.

If the case against this line is so clear-cut, then let’s remember how many other lines are or have been in similar circumstances. About 15 or 20 years ago, the Dublin-Sligo line hung in the balance. The track was deteriorating, no money was being invested, and people feared a closure by stealth. The average speed was just over 60km/h, the current value for the WRC. This line might well have been closed as many other lines were, and people would have said, “Pity it closed, but of course, it was losing money and there wasn’t the population. Sligo is a small city by European standards.”

What changed it into one of the most successful lines in the country? The track was re-laid, increasing speeds, but not all that much – at 72km/h it is still one of the slower radial routes. New trains were introduced, but most significantly, the number of trains per day was increased from three, first to five, then to eight, running every two hours on a clock-face basis. Were political sleeveens (Dowlingm, #27) in any way responsible for initiating the turnaround, I wonder? This is why I beg to disagree with Corktina: “There’s not much you can do to improve a moribund existing line” (#18). What I’m advocating on the WRC is a two-hourly service, as well as improved connections and through running.

We have the benefit of hindsight, of course, but I think the big difference between the Sligo line and the WRC is that the former never closed. A line can be closed at the stroke of a pen, and quite soon a terrible inertia sets in, turning public opinion around to the idea that the closure was inevitable.

I take Dowlingm’s point about the line being done “on the cheap”, but this raises a more general issue. A few years ago, when we were Platform 11, there was a lot of talk about “Rolls-Royce” schemes – quality projects where there was always a suspicion that someone had over-designed or over-priced them, to make them less likely to happen. So do you design for high quality from the start, or do you build cheap and improve things later? There are pros and cons on both sides; consequently both methods can be criticised. But starting cheap puts places on the railway map.

I’m not implying that other forum users want more motorways built instead. I mean that road projects don’t get the same scrutiny from public opinion (at least, not on the grounds of cost). Look at it this way – in most public spending, people look for the best service for their locality. It falls to the Department of Finance, and those administering the budget in Government bodies, to decide which things the country can’t afford. So for example, education suffers badly, with prefabs and large classes, but that is driven by Government, not by popular fear of extravagance. As for road-building, people assume it’s all needed, regardless of price. But when it comes to spending on rail projects, suddenly popular opinion puts on its Department-of-Finance hat, and decides what the country definitely can’t afford.

In the consultation on sustainable transport (2008), I mentioned this under the subject of attitudes that need to change. I called it the “presumption of extravagance”. This isn’t a Dublin-versus-country issue either. Some of the worst examples are to do with the Dublin rail and tram projects – including the Navan line, which I would regard as a priority. (See also Events, Happenings and Media > New Luas stops will not open due to downturn > #4 for Ronald Binge’s take on this subject. I’ll let him explain who “teenage economists” are!)

Another statistic: If they had good connections, the Galway-Cork journey would take about 3½ hours, making an average of about 70km/h at existing line speeds. If that’s too slow, so are several other lines.