Do you think the high speed rail tunnel between Dublin and Holyhead will ever get built? - combined with a LUAS extension to the Stena and Irish Ferries terminals at North Wall via Dublin Docklands once they extend the M3 Parkway line to Navan, it would make my getting home on visits from Manchester Victoria so much easier
Having lived 23 years in Manchester U.K., when coming home to Ireland on visits, I honestly think that Irish railways are way better and are far more civilised than the U.K., precisely because Irish Rail is not privatised like the U.K. rail network is, with so many U.K. TOC’s and other state bodies that are holding the railways back from progress, as we saw with HS2 - Irish Rail staff are also so friendly, customer focused, approachable, polite and helpful too ❤❤❤❤❤
@@SouthernYard Actually the building in the left of the bridge is Kilsaran Concrete which is still there. I got dropped off at that bridge from a special on the way back from Westport at about 6am one Sunday morning in 1990 I'm guessing 22nd April. I had worked the dining car to Westport the previous Saturday then we hung around Heuston for a special put on for the musical Cats in the Point Depot. Think we left around midnight on the Saturday with a double train that split in Athlone. The Mayo auldwans were gasping for tae and were unforgiving that this trolley boy had already fed & watered the Galway crowd before I could feed and water them. I was actually a military apprentice in the Air Corps and worked my Easter holidays in Irish Rail while living in Baldonnel airbase. For that double Mayo in a day trip I got £25 for 25 hours work. I asked the guard to ask the driver to drop me off at the bridge to walk up to Baldonnel and he obliged. There were old stone steps up from the demolished Lucan South station.
all 18 071s are still around the mk 3 stock was all scrapped in 2010 and 2014. there are about 11 cravens saved and some mk 2d stock was saved by the rpsi. the 141s are still around but most were scrapped and few saved. there is only 2 121s in preservation
No protests, people just accepted this unfortunately. The government some years earlier had made the service useless for the travelling public by having one service a day. To make matters worse, you couldn’t do a round trip from say Limerick to Galway as the train timetable didn’t facilitate it. In one station the southbound train stopped there, but the northbound didn’t…….hard to believe! Because of this very few people used it. This was closure by stealth and was policy in these times across a number of routes. Imagine operating a service today with one train each way. The bus service was better, and CIE put on competing bus services on this route also, further highlighting to the public how useless the train service was. Thankfully these type of policies are generally gone, but even today the Limerick-Waterford and Ballybrophy line services being below what’s needed.
@SouthernYard I'd love to see old stations opened. Take for example the Limerick Junction to Limerick line. I drive the Tipp Limerick Road most days and it's bumper to bumper. The middle of the day now is like what rush hour was like a few years back. Traffic backed up to Boher in the morning. Many cars with just the driver. Meanwhile the rail line runs beside it all the way. I'd love to see a commuter train stop at 2, 3 or 4 junctions say Oola, Dromkeen, Boher every half hour from say 06.30 to 09.00 and again 16.30 to 19.00. Only thing is you wouldn't have many needing these stops exiting Limerick in the am needing those stops nor needing them entering Limerick in the PM.
We had an even better service in those days compared to DPD Amazon and Ebay even joom your waiting at least a month for delivery if we had contracts with China in those days it would be a 24 hour delivery service no BS
Interesting 🤔 sound of the Crossley engine should give a fair idea of what the sole surviving class 28 Metrovick Co-bo locomotive D5705 should sound like when eventually it manages to run again 😊
Absolutely stunning video and incredible moving, as this journey starts in mullingar my mind Is drawn to how many people stepped off that platform on to a train and emigrated back in the day, love to know what part of the world they now live in 🙏
Happened unfortunately on most stations in Ireland in the 50s to the 80s. Thankfully times have changed, but Mullingar to Athlone may not see a train again.
Thanks for this wonderful piece of film. I well remember travelling from Crewe to Loughrea to see my parents in 1975. Picking up the Euston-Holyhead mail train late evening on a Friday and transferring to the ferry for an overnight cabin to Dun Loghaire. Train to Dublin Connolly for the first service to Galway, with a full Irish in the dining car and then meeting the folks at Attymon for the local service to Loughrea. Then the same journey back on a Sunday arriving bleary eyed for work on Monday morning. Great memories.
I went on a mixed cycling/train tour with my brother and my best friend in Sept. 1976. On arriving in Limerick from Rosslare Harbour, before heading to west Clare on the bikes, I enquired about the train to Galway via Ennis for when we got back to Limerick. The staffer said the last train just left. I said 'not for this evening, in three days time'. He said, 'No, the last train ever, just left.The line closed today.' We camped out that night near Kildimo, and lunched the next day in Foynes, where we had a good poke around the now closed station. Little did I know I'd be commuting to work in Dublin in those same Craven carriages when they reopened the Maynooth line in 1981. I look forward to seeing the trains run to Foynes again, and maybe someday be able to repeat the trip from Rosslare all the way to Limerick, and who knows, down to Foynes.
A nice memory to have, and different times. While we can no longer travel to Rosslare from Waterford, you can now travel between Galway and Limerick. Further expansion of the network is happening.
yeah sadly Irish rail couldn't give a flying fuck about passengers so there's no passengers on the line its sad askeaton adare and patrickswell and more could have connection to the city center and if they opened the cement spur line so could dooradoyle
The reason so many lines have closed in Eire is because freight was not taken into account; how many truck journeys could be removed from the roads if it was attractive ( lower Tax ) for freight to run on the railway ? I accept that some lines are “ no hopers” and should be removed and replaced with a Road or Cycle lane however, just because a line is a loss maker does not mean it should close; often extending can make it profitable and allowing all the people to have a national “ Bus & Rail pass” for €1200 per year would perhaps make public transport more attractive . In the UK in the 1960’s Dr. Beecham closed down many lines that we in the UK wish we could reopen again and, to be fair some have been reinstated and are well used. Just because Eire has a small population does not mean the lines from Waterford to Rosslaire should have been closed as that line could have been upgraded for freight as well as passengers with the aforementioned public passes i mentioned. If we truly want less car journeys then these lines must be returned for people and freight as evermore roads will not solve the Climate claims that Charlatans in Dublin Leinster House are always screaming about.
