all island rail review

All Island Rail Review final report analysis – how are those buffers looking?

Andy Boal on August 15, 2024, 7:00 am

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Brian took a brief look at the final report a couple of weeks ago, but real life has stopped me taking much more than an even briefer look up to now. Last year, I did a fairly in-depth review of the draft report, which Mick generously described as “proper scepticism.” I’m not going to repeat the analysis today, rather I’m going to look at what has changed between the two, but will it be enough for me to change what …

Connecting the North West

Paul Gosling on August 14, 2023, 9:02 am

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Derry and Donegal are not only marginalised by their geographic position on the periphery of the island of Ireland, but they are also very badly served by the transport infrastructure. They are not alone in this: there are similar complaints from Sligo, Fermanagh and elsewhere in the West. After a long campaign, parts of the A6 road between Derry and Belfast have been upgraded – though it is still not a dual carriageway between Dungiven and Castledawson. It was back …

All Island Rail Review has been published – but will it hit the buffers?

Andy Boal on July 27, 2023, 9:22 am

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Regional and rural interventions rail map from All Island Rail Review

Yes, I’m cynical. You can’t entirely blame me. There is some great stuff in the All-Island Rail Review, published on Tuesday, including some blue sky thinking. The summary, with my annotations, is below. Short term and decarbonisation Electrify remainder of Belfast-Dublin line, Belfast-Bangor, Dublin-Cork/Galway/Limerick/Waterford (both companies were already working on plans to abolish diesel traction, but NIR I think also intends to electrify the Larne, Portrush and Derry/Londonderry (hereafter referred to as Derry) lines) Increase line speeed to 100mph (currently …