Iron Road Aaron

Honest! Seriously though, the latter part of that statement is the sort of BS answer that Julie O’Neill, soon to retire (thank God) Secretary General of the Department of Roads - Sorry, Transport - might give.

The first part, however, does have some potential seriousness to it. Whilst IR are reopening the Ennis to Athenry line, there is now, once again, a serious threat to the existence of the railway between Limerick and Rosslare via Waterford.

With global warming and higher oil prices well identified and on the way, the notion that any Western European state would contemplate railway closures is scary - head in the sand stuff. I fear that the beancounters have taken over IR again (potential conflict of interest - I am a qualified accountant - albeit one who can see the wood for the trees).

It also shows Dick Fearns up to be the know nothing that I have long suspected him to be. You would have to wonder, if he was so brilliant at running a railway, why did he leave Britain and come over to Ireland?

Recently (today!) I read on IRN (the only informative website on what is happening on railways in Ireland apart from this one) that the crossovers at Merrion on the DART line have been removed - thereby reducing operational flexibility in the event of a train failure. Perhaps they were costed out of existence - ’sure they were never used so why pay for them’. Sort of like saying I’ve never had a fire in my house so why put batteries in the smoke alarm. I’m sure that IR’s beancounters would declare insurance to be out of the question because the return on paying it could not be deemed economical (Oh wait - this is what they do).

I have set up a new category on this site “Decline on Irish Railways” which will cover both IR and NIR as it is quite clear that the gombeens who unfortunately run this island have no vision and foresight to see that the days of car dependent societies are over.