Track-laying begins on Cork-Midleton line

IARNRÓD Éireann has started laying rail tracks on the €105 million Cork-Midleton line.

Track-laying teams moved into Glounthaune for the first time yesterday.

They were scheduled to start work on September 23 but an unofficial picket was mounted by line maintenance staff who maintain they should be laying the track.

13 line maintenance staff, who had been blocking the track on a 24-hour basis, disbanded the protest last week amid hopes a resolution could be found through talks between Iarnród Éireann, SIPTU and the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU).

Last August the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) ruled that track laying was a job for the appointed contractor and employees from Iarnród Éireann’s new works department.

The pickets maintained they should be compensated for the loss of work, as had happened on previous occasions on other railway projects.

Continuous welded track will be laid along the 10.5km route between Glounthaune and Midleton by 35 staff employed by Iarnród Éireann’s new works department.

It is expected the track-laying will be completed by early next year.

Concrete railway sleepers for have been imported from Germany while the points and crossing have come in from France.

Meanwhile, Iarnród Éireann has also started work on upgrading six stations and 11 platforms on the line between Cork and Cobh.

That project was also delayed by the unofficial action. It is expected to be completed next month.

In the meantime, passengers will be ferried by bus between Cork and Cobh.