West=On=Track -
News
Section of West rail link
to get green light
Western People - 16th
February 2005
THE report of the working group into the reopening of the
Western Rail Corridor, due to be given to government in the
next few weeks, will recommend the reopening of the section
of the line between Charlestown and Athenry, the Western
People has learned.
The reopening of the section will be the first step in a
process to connect Sligo to Ennis. Already the
Ennis-Limerick section has been reopened and has been an
outstanding success with over 125,000 passengers in its
first year.
The campaign for the opening of the corridor received two
major boosts with the decision by the West Regional
Authority to include the reopening of the link between
Charlestown and Athenry as part of their strategic planning
guidelines for the region. And, in a separate development, a
team of independent rail experts, have produced a set of
figures for re-opening the line from Sligo to Ennis at a
cost of about 300m. This compares favourably with the
estimate produced by the West on Track campaign and in
considerably less than the 572 million in the Booz, Allen,
Hamilton report.
Mr Colmán O'Raghallaigh, of the West of Track
campaign said yesterday he was not in a position to confirm
that any recommendation was to be made to reopen a section
of the line. However he accepted that "the report of the
working group will be positive."
He welcomed the recent moves to build a rail link between
Dunboyne and Dublin. "That is positive as far as we are
concerned as it underpins our argument that rail travel is
the way of the future.
"I agree that the people of Dunboyne may be fortunate to
get a train service without having to undertake the campaign
that people in the west had to take but we don‚t
begrudge them their good fortune."
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