Sir – Gerry Ryan’s letter ("The Irish rail network’s absurd lack of connectivity“, Letters, March 21st) certainly showed the way forward for much improved connectivity across the island of Ireland. He cited two glaring examples where people have to travel for hours by rail whereas a car journey takes an hour or less: Ballina to Sligo and Wexford to Waterford.
The full reopening of the Western Rail Corridor all the way from Claremorris to Sligo, the regional growth centre for the northwest of the country in the National Development Plan, will assist connectivity to Knock International Airport and the towns along the way – namely, Kiltimagh, Swinford, Charlestown, Tubbercurry, Curry, Coollaney and Coolloney.
This much improved accessibility will provide greater support to college students, patients attending hospital appointments and people travelling to their place of work, and will be a big boost to tourism. It will also do much to attract inward investment to our underdeveloped region.
In our greatly dispersed population in this neck of the woods a joined-up rail system is very much the way forward to greater prosperity for our country and the coming generations. – Yours, etc,
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Tom Towey,
Cloonacool,
Co Sligo.
Sir, – While people debate the pros and cons of a high-speed rail system connecting Belfast to Cork through Dublin, at least they have a rail connection in place already while we in the west have been waiting 40 years for the proposed reopening of the Limerick to Sligo line.
At the moment, anyone wanting to travel by train to Sligo from anywhere else in the west must go in the opposite direction first to Dublin, a waste of time and energy. We need rail lines for balanced regional development, the high-speed ones are not the priority here. – Yours, etc,
Enda Scanlon,
Ennis,
Co Clare.
Sir, – Saturday’s letter regarding Irish Rail connectivity misses an important point: hard geography. Ballina and Sligo town may be only 50km apart as the crow flies, but in reality west county Sligo has much rugged, mountainous and boggy terrain.
Yes, we need better connectivity, but simply drawing lines on a map is superficial analysis. – Yours, etc,
James Doyle,
Bettystown,
Co Meath.
