On the right side of the tracks

ON a day of watery sun and blustering wind, I took the train to visit Castlelake, Carrigtwohill, five years after its phenomenal launch.

The first phase of houses had a 24-hour sell-out and the big draw was the proposed commuter link to the city.

Today, the rail connection is up and running and Castlelake is a 400-house scheme on the periphery of the east Cork village.

Taking the train eastwards felt all too familiar – it evoked childhood trips to Youghal and the big ride northwards to Dublin.

Trains aren’t just for getting from A to B, but are for time-travelling – for calling up the ghosts of starch-collared clerks on the Cobh line or bustling matrons from lavender polished houses and shawl-draped dailies on their way to a 10-hour day.

Travelling slowly eastwards, the rail line passes the last remnants of Empire – the ambitious Victorian engineering and the elegant three-storey houses that line the route from the city.

And then it’s into Tivoli and you’re brought back to that period before the turn of the last century when Cork was a prosperous, middle-class place with fine houses, well-fed inhabitants and a rail link running from the naval yard in the outer harbour to the garrison towns of west Cork.

The rail link is so good, it begs a new line to Bandon, at least, or to Clonakilty at a push. This would not only take the pressure from Cork’s green belt and give commuters an easy ride to work, it would also provide an enviable quality of life choice for all of us.

And on the Midleton line there are new stations patched on to the old – purpose-built, gleaming steel with lots of parking for a new generation, the generation who are about to pay for the excesses of the last.

And so, the short journey to Carrigtwohill tells its own story of the country’s growth.

There’s the vacant, whistling station with an acre of empty asphalt and a small town nucleus that hadn’t changed in decades. Until the noughties.

Turn off the main street and you hit the commercial element of Castlelake, a planned new community of 900 houses, in a location to the north-west of the town.

The centre of the scheme is a lake, with other community facilities around, including retail elements (with an Aldi in place) and commercial/ office buildings, now used as a community centre.

This lake marks the present boundary of Castlelake (there’s another half at least to go up) and is flanked on one side by half-finished apartments which will remain until NAMA, the economy or whoever steps in to complete the development.

And, on the other side, and across a green are the avenues, cul de sacs and curves of the development – from the small two-beds to the large-detached houses in rust brick and mellow peach masonry.

It’s hard to judge a place on a cold, winter’s weekday morning. There’s no one about, children in school or crèche and parents at work, but there is a finished quality to the gardens and rows.

The temperature in the market is different too – no longer the overnight queuing of five years ago, instead developers Bam Gable, are concentrating on supporting community activities and offering the remaining units on a rent-to-buy basis.

And the community association has a base in the commercial element of Castlelake and Bam Gable are organising another family day out this year, with a visit from Santa Claus on his train.

Christmas parties, mother and toddler groups, a walking club and even the Carrigtwohill Medieval Festival are all supported by them and you could say it’s in the firm’s interest to develop community spirit.

We want quality of life now, a community, not a mad scramble for bricks and mortar of any kind, anywhere.

The last units are being marketed by Suzanne Tyrrell of Cohalan Downing in a rent-to-buy scheme.

Offered on a rental basis initially, but with the total amount paid over a period deducted from the selling price, the properties will be tagged to an independent valuation, she says.

The proviso is that those embarking on the scheme have mortgage approval in principal.

The units on offer range from two-bed apartments, to three-bed townhouses to detached four-beds with prices starting at €195,000 for the rent to buy.

The showhouse is open tomorrow from 2pm to 4pm.