CAMPAIGNERS FOR the reopening of the Western Rail Corridor expressed delight yesterday with the restoration of passenger services between Limerick and Galway, and insisted the Galway to Tuam section of the route could be opened within a year for as little as €30 million.
The campaign, which was congratulated by CIÉ chairman Dr John Lynch on its “terrific achievement”, said, however, that the reopening yesterday should be considered as a “work in progress”.
Colman Ó Raghallaigh of the West-On-Track community-based campaign group, said the “vision” for the service was an intercity-style service running from Galway via Limerick and on to Cork.
He said Iarnród Éireann would take delivery of 52 new intercity carriages next year, of which two trains of three carriages each could operate the service.
Mr Ó Raghallaigh said in the first year of operation the Limerick to Galway trains would be a commuter service.
He said longer journey times than for those travelling by road were not a major difficulty as commuters “don’t mind an extra five minutes; what they want is reliability and certainty of journey time”.
He said after the first year the intercity aspects of the service would come into play, and faster times could be obtained with new trains. Next year the extension to Tuam would also be coming on stream.
He said work on this would start this year, and could be completed in a year for just €30 million.
He said “economic commentators” who had derided the railway project as “idiotic” should now be “ashamed of themselves”.
Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey also had criticism of what he called the “naysayers” and the “overwhelmingly negative image of the project in the newspapers”.
A further boost for the campaigners was provided by Dr John Lynch, who revealed that large numbers of level crossings may not be as big a difficulty in reopening lines as had originally been thought.
Dr Lynch revealed there had been 143 level crossings on the 36-mile Limerick to Galway route, all of which had to comply with stringent modern safety systems.
However, even more hopeful for the service was Sligo vet Peter Bowen-Walsh. He believed a proposal to link Sligo to Derry could attract EU cross-Border funding.
Speaking on the first train yesterday, Mr Bowen-Walsh said this would represent a “real rail network”.
