The Rail Way Ahead Network has been experienced by
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ABOUT THIS WEBPAGE:
CONTENTS: Note: NO NEED TO CLICK on these headings; Just use the SCROLL BUTTON to scroll further down the screen. MUCH SIMPLER!!!!
1.) Welcome Message.
2.) Introduction:
3.) LATEST NEWS: MARY O'ROURKE BOOTED OUT (And replaced by Seamus Brennan)!!! And news on the YOUGHAL Rail Route!!
4.) OLD News: Some of this is updated, such as Glounthaune Station car-park.
5.) RAIL WAY AHEAD Customers' Charter!!!!
6.) STOP PRESS: (NO messages at present!)
7.) Statement on the reality of deaths on the roads as being akin to terrorist murders.
END
WELCOME! SEPTEMBER. 2002: SO MUCH is STILL happening at my work and on the Railways in Ireland, that I have been totally bowled over with the resulting workload. Once again, I apologise that this page has not been updated lately. Hopefully, it will be within the next few weeks!!....
INTRODUCTION: WATCH THIS SPACE OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS FOR UPDATES OVER THE POSSIBLE REOPENING OF RAILWAYS AROUND IRELAND, SUCH AS THE PLANNED DUBLIN METRO (Now more in doubt, as LUAS is more likely to be extended as an alternative) , AND OTHER IRISH RAIL DEVELOPMENTS!!
This page is now under extensive renewal, and in future, it will contain only news updates from THE DUBLIN REGION ONLY!
News from the CORK REGION will in future be posted on the RWA Page Proper, reached by the First Link at the top of this Page (Simply scroll to the Top)
All other regions (E.g. GALWAY, LIMERICK, DONEGAL, etc.) will for the time being be covered in THIS section, but in the next few months, they will also get their own seperate pages
PLEASE NOTE: I only have limited access to the Internet, so bear with me while it is sorted out.
LATEST NEWS: MARY O'ROURKE BOOTED OUT (And replaced by Seamus Brennan as Transport Minister) IN SHOCK ELECTION DEFEAT!!!!
Although this is not so hot news (The Election was back in May), champagne corks are still popping over the only-to-be-expected shock defeat of Mary O'Rourke in her Athlone constituency, after a rightward swing caused her election hopes to be scuttled. Not surprising, considering her feeble attitude to Public Transport and its clear Environmental and Economic merits. Can we hope for her predecessor to be far more in favour of radical reorganisation of Public Transport in Ireland, and especially RAIL; Roll on the day of privatisation, the Free Market, and Virgin Trains Ireland, First Group Cork Transit, Connex Cork Metro, Arriva Athlone-Mullingar supershuttle, etc. etc. Mary O'Rourke has been replaced as Transport Minister by SEAMUS BRENNAN, who is a very different kettle of fish: he seems already to be promising to deliver much more than his predecessor ever did, even allowing for the tighter finances of the Irish Finance Ministry, such as cuts in policing, cancellation of tax cuts, and scaling back of some of the anyway far too ambitious plans for expansion of Education. Best of luck to Seamus Brennan, a REAL Middle of the Road (And Railway) politician compared to the extremists who so often dominate Fianna Fail, in getting major Rail improvements finally up and running. May Mary O'Rourke quickly disappear into the mists of obscurity as if she never darkened the door of An Dail!!!!
YOUGHAL RAIL ROUTE: WORK STARTS AT LAST FOR REOPENING!!!!...Or does it??? (No change in this since Spring 2002)
LATEST NEWS UPDATE: APRIL 2002: DESPITE all the previous innuendos, rumour upon rumour, and half-broken (and repaired) promises, there has still been NO definite date put in place for the commencement of work on reopening the Youghal Rail Route, not even the first phase (Glounthaune Junction-Midleton). On visiting my parents in the area this Easter, I asked around a number of the locals while I was canvassing against the new bypass schemes for Castlemartyr, Killeagh, etc. and I picked up the rumour that the whole project has been held up because of TRADE UNION interference; i.e. the bus drivers between Cork and Youghal do not want to lose their jobs to a cheaper, more efficient, and ultimately, Privately-Operated Rail Servioce. ...Plus ca change.... The Marxist Fianna failure government, meanwhile, has no intention- EVER- (At least during its remaining three weeks in power), of sanctioning or permitting any private operation of Rail Services, buses, or any other State sector. Even in Dublin, all avenues to the Private Operator on Public Transport seem to be blocked, with compounded delays to LUAS (Which might be part-operated by a private contractor).
One further development relevant to the Youghal Rail Route: This spring, CORK COUNTY COUNCIL have unveiled the CORK COUNTY DEVELOPMENT PLAN for Public Consultation. A free CD ROM is available from COUNTY HALL, Carrigrohane Road, Cork, on the County Plan; printed copies are available for a charge. Anyone who wishes to make suggestions or submissions for this plan, re. Railways, Transport, etc. has until 30TH APRIL to do so. Rest assured, I have already made a preliminary submission Re. the Youghal Rail Route and the need to reopen other Rail Routes in the County, to places such as Bandon, Kinsale, etc., as part of the ALVIN Scheme for Cork City and Suburbs. I will be sending further information to the County Council before the deadline. Watch this space later this Autumn, 2002, for more details...
I had been delighted, back in Autumn 2000, to break the news that the first stage of work which will culminate in the Reopening of the Youghal Rail Route -the clearance of 18 years of undergrowth between Glounthaune Junction and Carrigtohill- has commenced. This was done by a telecommunications company, in order to lay cables, ISDN Lines, etc. along the track to Midleton and Youghal, but it is being done also to facilitate the surveying, renewal of track, and eventual Reopening of the Route, which we expect will follow within a couple of years.
Watch out for any further forthcoming news updates on this.
OLD News: If it's on time it's news, if it's a day Late it's history...
New Rail Dispute Threat: It emerged around 20th Oct. 2000 that DART staff were threatening to Go-Slow or even strike, due to difficulties over working practices, etc. in connection with the much-needed new Malahide Extension to the DART Service. We'll keep you updated on this as the situation develops. Already, there have been renewed calls from Rail Customers to hasten Privatisation.
DART EXTENSIONS are a Roaring success:(No further time to update this since the original report). AS you will probably be aware, both the Greystones and Malahide DART extensions of DART in Dublin are now open for business. The frequency of services had very rapidly improved as more rolling stock is introduced, and at least Malahide has a few late evening trains, which will be of use to locals returning late from a night on the town. I'll post the train times HERE sometime soon, once I get a chance.
GLOUNTHAUNE GETS PARK-AND-RIDE CAR PARK:
GLOUNTHAUNE Station on the Cork-Cobh Route is getting a 60-space car-park (This is now completed: Aug. 2001) to match the slightly larger one already built at Little Island. However, it remains to be seen if the car-park is big enough, as there is enough Park And Ride demand at Glounthaune (Before the Midleton and Youghal Rail Route is reopened) to easily fill a car-park twice the size. Nevertheless it is a very positive start, and work on the scheme is expected to start any day now. Planning Permission was granted recently by Cork County Council. *UPDATE* This car-park is NOW OPEN, and it is often popular and busy, helping to attract more Park And Ride Passengers. The fact remains, that this car-park could be up to six times bigger (Until the Youghal Rail Route opens), to attract the maximum number of Park And Ride Passengers from Midleton and E. Cork!!!!
CUSTOMER CHARTER:
1.) Introduction: Although RWA is not a company as such, but a free information exchange and Networking service, a proper Customer Charter is being implemented which will, in time, be displayed HERE. To date, the elements of the Customer Charter which are available include the following:
2.)Rail Way Ahead has been established with the intention of acting as a voluntary, constructive forum and Information Exchange to promote the benefits of investing in, and improving Railways, both for Passengers and Freight, as an alternative to increasingly grandiose and destructive road-schemes, within the Irish Context.
3.)While the express intention of Rail Way Ahead is to support improvement of Rail Services in Ireland, the matter of northern Ireland is a moot point. Officially, it might be dealt with by Great Britain based Pro-Rail Organisations (For example, Transport 2000), but the viewpoint supported by Rail Way Ahead is one of encouraging Cross-Border co-operation in Railways, as in any other areas under the 'Peace Process'. Therefore, Rail Way Ahead is intended to be in favour of, and will be expected to lend support to, any plans for reopening disused Cross Border Rail Links.
4.)The RWA Webpage: While every effort is made to avoid misrepresentation or innacuracy, the Editor or editors should not be held responsible for unintentional innacuracies, however caused. Intentional innacuracies, such as April Fool jokes, will be dated as such, and every effort will be made not to offend or misrepresent anyone.
As the Webpage is being continually improved, every effort will be made to make it more user friendly. This will include:
a.)Quick Download; there is nothing worse than waiting ages for something with fancy graphics or irrelevant information/instructions to download, especially if you are spending your hard-earned wad at a Cyber-Cafe. Therefore, the number of downloads, or 'Skins' which you have to make, in order to get to the 'Meat' of the RWA Page will be kept to a MINIMUM! At present, all the imformation on RWA, you will find on THIS page, and the one with the picture, accessed through the link at the top of this page.
b.)Again, to ensure quick download, the design of this page is kept as STRAIGHTFORWARD AS POSSIBLE, with no fancy animations, or 'White-on-Black' text, or other troublesome material. As and when future animated sequences (Such as a planned animated Trip down the Cork-Youghal Rail Route), are included, these will appear on SEPERATE pages of their own, with the contents CLEARLY INDICATED with the link, so that 'You Know What You Get, Before You See What You Get' (YKWYGBYSWYG).
c.)Unlike many webpages, which frequently have those annoying 'pseudo-links' which simply scroll down the SAME page(Often a VERY LONG page, which you have just spent the last half hour unloading), the RWA Page will have NO LINKS EXCEPT those to OTHER PAGES. What do some of those other webpage-builders imagine that the 'Scroll-Buttons' are for? It's far faster and easier simply to grab the button and scroll down to where you want to be! Sometimes I have even printed out 20 pages of text twice because I didn't realise that a link on one page simply led to a different part of the same page! d.)Hopefully, the RWA Page will be available on WAP, (For all you mobile users who might wish to check items while you are stuck on that train between Sligo and Mullingar), as soon as I can get hold of some WAP-Compatible software.
ROAD ALERTS! Below is a summary of the argument against the construction of many new road schemes around Ireland, and in favour of the alternatives of:
A.)Reviving the ALREADY EXISTING Rail Network of both disused and currently used routes, and:
B.) Maintaining the EXISTING ROAD NETWORK in a far better state of repair, a move which will make immense economic and social sense to ALL road-users!
It is often claimed by many, from uninformed members of the public, and local councillors, to the Government itself, and the construction trade unions, that new roads will prevent traffic congestion, but it will do nothing of the sort!!!! Instead, such major road-building projects are merely a shallow excuse to spend more money on a few low-paid jobs, producing yet more traffic congestion further down the road, and increasing the danger of high speed fatal accidents on the roads, and even reckless driving, most spectacularly demonstrated by THE RECENT CRASH OF A GETAWAY CAR ON CORK'S 15-YEAR OLD SOUTH LINK ROAD. Had this road not been built, the criminals responsible would have never even contemplated such activities, and would have been collared safely and quickly before they had barely got out of their front door!
In order to make it clear to pro- road building local Councils and government, that there is a SANER and CHEAPER(!) alternative to this, such as reopening the disgracefully disused Cork-Glounthaune-Youghal Rail Route, a lot of convincing needs to be done: both inside the corridors of power, by lobbying your local TD's and Councillors, and out on the streets, in the towns, cities, businesses, colleges, schools and housing estates, to convince the General Public and businesses (Who represent the two main sources of potential customers for an expanded Rail Network), that RAIL IS the way forward for an increasingly densely populated and travel-hungry Ireland.
STOP PRESS: COMING SOON:
FOOTNOTE: Why are deaths on the roads an equally serious, if not WORSE problem than terrorism in Ireland?
The number of people killed on Irish roads so far by September, 2000, (End of April) stands at: (Figure will have to be inserted here later, but I think, stood at well over 100), representing the continuation of a disgraceful lack of improvement in the level of road-safety, on the equally appalling figures for the previous year! The average annual death toll on Irish roads, for the last few years since the National Road Authority was established, is about 400, more than TWELVE TIMES the number of people killed in the Omagh bombing outrage, but who remembers the victims of road tragedies as a whole, as people like you and I, who could be still alive today? Should not the national road authority be forced to 'decommission' all unacceptably dangerous roads, such as the N25 in Co. Waterford and Co. Cork, just as the IRA are being persuaded (unsuccessfully at present) to give up that Semtex? Are not lives lost in 'road accidents' to be valued equally to those taken away by Terrorists?
Further news about any pro Environment legal challenges or actions against unjustified bypass/other road schemes, will be posted here a.s.a.p.
LAST UPDATED SEPTEMBER 29th 2002.
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