M3 Parkway to Navan reopening confirmed

[Blaine]

https://www.meathchronicle.ie/2023/01/18/is-the-navan-rail-line-dream-back-on-track-cabinet-expected-to-sign-off-on-2031-start-date-for-e750m-project/

It is happening, but only signed off for now, it probably wont entirely follow the original trackbed closed in the 60's and lifted in 1964 either, as it needs to go closer to/into Dunshaughlin and bypass Kilmessan Junction, so the famous Station House Hotel can stay. A lot of the original trackbed from the MGWR route remains and most of the buildings too - Batterstown, Bective, Drumree and Kilmessan Junction

Plenty of bridges will need to be build also, at least 1 if not 2 crossings of the M3 along with some major civil engineering work elsewhere on the route

[Kevin Sweeney]

What a country we are. If this article is correct it will take 8 years to plan and 5 years to build a 20 mile long railway. The Chinese would probably build it in a month and the navvies of the 1840s in a few months. I first heard of this plan in 1996. Assuming the schedule is kept that will be 39 years from initial conception until completion.

[Branchline121]

I’m just glad this is happening at all! Things were starting to look a little grim, but hopefully it’ll actually happen this time, albeit even if it was supposed to have opened 8 years ago. Apparently they’ll even use a short stretch of the Kingscourt line for the Navan North station, it would be cool if they opened that line too. Oh well, at least I won’t have to travel to another county to see trains anymore!

[Blaine]

22 minutes ago, Branchline121 said:

Apparently they’ll even use a short stretch of the Kingscourt line for the Navan North station, it would be cool if they opened that line too. Oh well, at least I won’t have to travel to another county to see trains anymore!

The Kingscourt line is now abandoned and some of it is in the process of conversion to a greenway, the short stretch, if its used will stop before the first former level crossing at the Navan-Kells road as all of the trackbed is still intact in that area, along with the track still being there, if disappeared under 21 years worth of weeds. Kilmainhamwood is the only place on the former line where it still looks like a railway station, its in reasonable order

Edited January 18, 2023 by Blaine

[Mayner]

A good piece of positive news, I walked a section of the line near Dunsaney on a Sunday afternoon drive/walk in the country with my parents as a small child and got seriously interested in the "Meath Road" as a teenager doing my first serious piece of research taking the bus to Dunboyne to sketch the station building on my summer holidays from work in 1976.

I built a 4mm model of Dunboyne station building, but scaled down to N and built a model of Kilmessan Junction based on a photo survey by Herbert Richards, because I struggled to fit a OO gauge layout in our box bedroom.

I believe that its likely to happen barring any severe economic shock, the Irish Government having re-opened the lines to Pace and Middleton and quadruppling Clondalkin-Hazlehatch since 2000. Projects that were unthinkable between the 70-90s when the future of the railways was under real threat and CIE/IE struggled to get funding for all but essential maintenance and renewals (DART & MK3 project) during the 80s and early 90s.

I would agree that some deviation from the existing track bed particularly to serve Dunshaughlin would be desirable, the trackbed runs largely through a rural area a deviating from the existing trackbed south of the Boyne Viaduct is un-likely to add significantly to the cost as the RPA/NTA will have to CPO the route as most of the track bead was abandoned and sold over 50 years ago.

It would be difficult to make a case to re-open the Kingscourt line for gypsum traffic though there may be a case for extending the Tara Mines spur to Kells for passenger traffic. The gypsum mines near Kingscourt station were abandoned during the 80/90s and the ore was transported from Knocknacran mine (near Carrickmacross) to the railhead at Kingscourt so would still involve a road transfer, traffic from Kingscourt was relatively light by Irish standards a maximum of 400tonnes daily between Kingscourt and Platin and a second train trice weekly to Limerick in the days when 1000Ton + is considered a viable train load.

Tara is likely to close within the next 7 years as the mineral reserves approach exhaustion, which places a question mark over the future of the Navan-Drogheda line especially with the re-opening of the direct line to Dublin

[Branchline121]

Yeah, it’s unlikely the Kingscourt line will reopen, but I like to think about it anyways. A spur to Kells like @Mayner said would probably be a better idea. I suppose it’s just that the greenway feels unproductive, seen as we already have one nearby in Ardee, but the reopening of the line would likely be unviable.

[Rush and Lusk]

Very interesting and encouraging - plus great value added knowledge from all you knowledgeable contributors - (every day is a learning day)

[Blaine]

On 19/1/2023 at 5:25 PM, Branchline121 said:

Yeah, it’s unlikely the Kingscourt line will reopen, but I like to think about it anyways. A spur to Kells like @Mayner said would probably be a better idea. I suppose it’s just that the greenway feels unproductive, seen as we already have one nearby in Ardee, but the reopening of the line would likely be unviable.

Most of the Kingscourt line is greenway'ed now, the original path to Kells is still there as the line that goes to Tara Mines is part of the original line from Navan to Kells and Oldcastle

[irishrailways52]

https://www.meathchronicle.ie/2023/09/25/irish-rail-advertise-for-consultants-to-commence-navan-rail-line-project/?fbclid=IwAR364tpT78fTrLpyvB65Ou71v2qC2MDeoZVO_vNxXeDyH6bsaRO9E5VZ2og