Decades of neglect take a heavy toll - The future of our railways

THERE is a modern enough legend with more than a ring of truth to it that serves to highlight our ambiguous attitude towards public transport.

A group of Concerned Citizens arranged a meeting with, as it was then, a CIÉ railway manager to try to keep their threatened local station open. Before the meeting opened the worthies were, reasonably enough, asked by the manager to show their return rail tickets to their hometown. As they had travelled by taxi they could not so the meeting was cut very short.

Even if that story is not entirely true it is very true, unfortunately, that our rail network will be greatly reduced unless Government can, in the medium term, provide significant extra funding to sustain it. In a report last month, the National Transport Authority (NTA) suggested the network requires more than €600m over five years. In the context of calls on the public purse this seems an all but impossible sum. Once again, as with water, we are confronted with the consequences of decades of under-investment because we choose to spend our money differently. This is one of the unwise evasions of social responsibility that undermines the idea of a common purpose, of cohesive society in this Republic.

Be that as it may, the public is, according to Transport Minister Shane Ross, to be consulted about the railways after cabinet considers the NTA review. In this the NTA hints at closures on a scale that might be familiar to Beeching, who in a review of British railways half a century ago, proposed the closure of 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles of line. That scorched-earth proposal earned Beeching a notoriety that persists to this day. The NTA suggests that only the Dart, Dublin and Cork commuter routes, and inter-city services from Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Belfast can be guaranteed but that, without extra funding, routes from Limerick-Ballybrophy and Limerick Junction-Waterford could close. The Limerick-Galway route from Ennis to Athenry, which was returned to service six years ago at a cost of €100m, and the Wexford line south of Gorey could be shut, leaving Wexford town and Rosslare outside the rail loop.

Even though a letter on this page questions how those decisions might be made the allocation of more than €50m to Iarnród Éireann in last month’s budget falls a very long way short of the NTA figure. That this allocation must help increase investment in maintenance, the renewal of the network and rolling stock, as well as fund safety projects points to the scale of the challenge.

Not only have we not supported our railways with adequate investment, we have not built commuter lines to service new commuter belts thereby incurring huge personal and environmental costs. Why is this? Why when developing a dormitory town can we not occasionally build the kind of rail link that seems desireable under so many headings? Why, 153 years after London opened its Metropolitan Railway are we still digging up our capital to link both sides of that city? The answer may not be cheering but a positive response is not at all beyond us. Answers in a manifesto please.