Limerick Junction changes

[Weshty]

Looks like IR are adding a new separate platform  to connect to the north east side of the station. 

[jhb171achill]

Interesting..... a platform on the "main line" of the W & L (after 160-odd years!).....

So, the main (only) platform will become one face only, presumably,  and there will also be a new down platform?

[Weshty]

That's what it sounds like.  Big change!

[hurricanemk1c]

Platform will be on the Down Dublin - Cork line. Apart from that, no change

[StevieB]

Presumably adjacent to the remains of the old loco shed.

Stephen

[jhb171achill]

They say "north east" of the existing one. What will become the down main would be east or south east of it, I would have thought. Will this new one have a "corner" where it faces the W & L behind the loco shed too?

[ei6jf]

JHB you must be losing your marbles if you think they would do anything to saveguard the future of the WLWR. The drawings associated with the planning application show one face only on the down main.

Mark

Edited June 24, 2018 by ei6jf

[hurricanemk1c]

As far as I am aware it is a 300m-ish straight platform. Nothing more or less.

Plus if you are measuring from the station building it will be to the north east of the existing facilities

[Robert Shrives]

Quite amazed at the cheek of requiring to pay 20 euro to exercise a democratic act of protest against a state run organisation you fund as taxpayers. Heads have physically rolled for less in other nations .

No doubt  it helps folks but really does traffic levels and inconvenience caused justify it , an already step free station exists and this goes away from it by more than a country mile.  Savings ? Somebody will surely have to cost build and maintenance  costs  of the building and lifts/ bridges over pointwork and track maintenance costs. 

I recall the suggested savings on a loop on a preserved railway and when I asked about the gold bearing lub oil prices quoted the who argument  fell over with a loud crash !  As no labour savings were anticipated in the project and another loop to built further along the line the only savings would be on lubricants ... I wonder if  much the same wool is being knitted here.   

Those of you in the Isle may see things differently and I hope not to have caused offence with this post from a very casual  observer from Birmingham - where many things are not much better !! 

[Noel]

I was passing through the junction on Monday and an IR chap showed me where the new platform was going. He told me the reason was so that both the north and south going Cork main line trains could arrive and stop in the station at the same time allowing more flexible time tabling as well as less wait times for connections to Limerick, Ennis, Galway, etc. But they will have quite a bit a walk and climb instead of just across the current platform. I don't understand because Mallow has two platforms but they nearly always use the same one for both north and south bound trains so folks just have to walk across the platform to connect with the Killarney/Tralee trains.

Limerick junction is a shadow of its former self. Way of the world it seems there are just so few foot passengers on ferrys and intercity rail compared to decades ago.  I was watching a programme on TV where an academic explained that before 1940 in Ireland urban planning and design focused on people movements by foot, cycling, and public transport (i.e. nobody had cars), but since the era of the car the focus shifted to roads hence the massive fall off in national rail transport except for urban commuters. Agri transport which used to be the country's biggest industry is now all by road, but 60/70 years ago it was nearly all by rail. At least with models we can go back in time to a golden era of railways.

[Robert Shrives]

As fuel prices hike and home gown food returns as the base  of staple diets we will rue the day  of these changes - but I guess its progress.

[Mayner]

Those of use over a certain age tend to see the railways of the past through rose tinted glasses.

Passenger traffic was in decline from after WW1 up to the mid-late 1960s when BR & CIE started to concentrate on what we now call Intercity services, mainly because more people could afford to travel on account of the 60s boom and growth in 3rd level education. Freight traffic remained more or less static and CIEs road and rail monopoly a sitting duck once road transport was liberalised in the early 1990s.

I certain respects Ireland's railways North & South have never been in a better condition with relatively frequent passenger service on the main routes with modern rolling stock and adequately maintained infrastructure, no place for the run-down railway of most of the pre-2000 era with infrequent services, worn out infrastructure and rolling stock.

Most of freight traffic on Ireland's railways was based around exporting livestock or manufactured. Ireland has developed a highly successful agri -business based on exporting high value goods by road direct from the factory to the UK or European Market rather than cattle on the hoof through The North Wall, Belfast or Waterford. Manufacturing has moved in a similar way with most IT, Pharmaceutical & Chemical Manufacturing clustered around Cork and Dublin Ports and the Shannon Estuary. 

Coca Cola in Ballina is something of an exception and no doubt a hangover from subsidising the transport costs of businesses in the west.

Internationally railfreight is moving away from the railway goods yard to new purpose built terminals often owned and financed by the railfreight customer, its telling that this has only recently happened in Dublin Port and DFDS struggled to fill the spaces on their very short Ballina-Waterford liner. Distances in Ireland appear shorty and traffic too light  for rail to take on the Line Haul between posts and distribution centers for logistics and shipping companies, 18 wagon 36TEU container trains are unlikely to compete on cost and time with road freight.

The continuation of railfreight in Ireland up to 2007 was largely supported by dominant/monopoly manufacture of beer cement & fertiliser. Craft breweries are giving Diagio a run for their money, Irish Cement has long ceased to have a monopoly of cement manufacture, IFI is history farmers are moving away from urea and nitrogen fertilisers on account of cost and environmental issues.

Perhaps there is a case for Tipperary & Waterford County Councils to come to the party and finance a more frequent Limerick Junction-Waterford passenger service and a Waterford Line platform at Limerick Junction

 

 

 

[DERAILED]

The farcical new Down platform will at least be handy for the inevitable Greenway between Limerick Junction and Waterford.