Into the West proposes Major Rail Projects for the Northwest

‘Into the West‘ is a campaign group whose goal is the restoration of the railway network in the west of Northern Ireland. Last week they unveiled their proposal, the creation of ‘Metro North-West’.

Garrett Hargan in the ‘Belfast Telegraph‘ says that the idea…

…takes the existing rail network that runs between Derry, Coleraine and Portrush, and branches out. It would expand in ways that are already progressing following the All-Island Rail Strategy, with routes re-opening to Letterkenny, Strabane, Omagh and Limavady and enhanced further by adding a number of new stations — many of which are already under consideration — such as Strathfoyle, Ballykelly and City of Derry Airport. This would create a new regional rail ‘brand’ operating within and alongside the wider rail network. It would stretch from Letterkenny in the west to Coleraine/Portrush in the east and Omagh in the south, with all services converging in and travelling through Derry city.

Two years ago the All Island Rail Review recommended the restoration of much of the same network as the Metro North-West proposal, but on a lengthy timescale the group clearly feels is unacceptable. The chair of ‘Into the West’, Steve Bradley, is quoted as saying that the proposal…

“…seeks to address the extremely limited presence of rail here, and the very slow progress in changing that.Translink and the Department for Infrastructure now recognise the wisdom of adding new stations in areas like Strathfoyle, Derry Airport and Ballykelly. The problem is that these projects in the North West have been made their lowest priorities — with Derry-Portadown not scheduled to reopen until 2045 at the earliest. And Letterkenny won’t see rail again until even later than that. So the first key challenge is to not only tackle the poor rail provision across the North West, but also the low priority that the authorities have placed on doing so.”

The lack of infrastructure in the west of Northern Ireland has proven a long-running political issue, with the A5 project being intended to address some of the same challenges that the Metro North-West proposal, however as readers will be aware the quest to bring a decent road to the west has been as successful as the quest to restore the west’s railways.

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