Commuter railway ‘could carry four million per year’

AN inquiry into the €139 million commuter railway planned for Cork heard yesterday that it could carry up to four million passengers a year.

The inquiry, which is being chaired by Pat Butler SC, heard that Iarnród Éireann hopes to have the Cork-Midleton line open by the end of July 2008, and in its first year of operation it is likely to carry 1.74 million passengers.

However, Tom Finn, the company’s Transport 21 manager, told the inquiry at Midleton Park Hotel, that passenger numbers would rise to two million per annum by 2010 and four million by 2015.