North Wall- Then & Now

[Rob]

Interesting photo comparisons at North Wall.

Safe to say a lot has changed in the last 15+ years.....

Earlier photos from Ciaràn Cooney / Eiretrains site.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by Rob

[Sean Hogan]

How times have changed so much when it comes to freight and the north wall yards it was a hive of activity when I was growing up and look at it nowadays a couple of movements per day is this called progress.

[jhb171achill]

Dreadful to see it like that. A few sidings, and loads and loads of fencing, gravel, graffiti and dayglow warning signs.......

[DJ Dangerous]

3 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

Dreadful to see it like that. A few sidings, and loads and loads of fencing, gravel, graffiti and dayglow warning signs.......

And no Tin Vans!

[Rob]

Agreed it is disappointing compared to what action there was to be seen there before for sure.

On the positive side, although reduced and less varied than before, it is still is one of the few places left that you can see freight / shunting action at reasonably close quarters, obviously not to the same extent as before but we'll take what we can!

 

[Mayner]

The area 

1 hour ago, Rob said:

Interesting photo comparisons at North Wall.

Safe to say a lot has changed in the last 15+ years.....

Earlier photos from Ciaràn Cooney / Eiretrains site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The area North of the Sherriff Street road bridge between the approach roads to the Midland & Holyhead Yards was always something of a shambles originally used as a sleeper store, later for storing crippled stock & now a PW depot and currently reserved as part of the rail corridor for the Interconnector Tunnel. 

The big mistake in strategic planning was the failure to develop the proposed National Distribution Centre alongside the Cork Line in Clondalkin during the late 1990s which was rail linked with good connections to the large scale industrial development that was taking place to the West of the City and around the M50.

The privately promoted project fell through because of a political environment that was unable to grasp the potential for public private sector investment in railfreight, despite similar projects being the norm outside of Ireland since the 1980s.

 

 

H

 

 

H

Holyhead Yard late 2004 following transfer of remaining traffic to stub of Midland Yard North of Sherriff St bridge. New temporary freight offices and access to Midland Yard behind gantry at left.

Bizarrely IE had to apply to the Dept of Transport for €1m funding to set up the temporary freight arrangements rather than Spencer Dock Developments funding the re-location.

Similar view point 29 May 2005

The last week of Liner Operation July 2005 just Cork & Ballina Liners left. Individual container services ceased Belfast, Sligo, Galway, Tralee & Waterford lines

Loading CPWs on 12:00 Cork Liner at left.

This area and gantry was originally planned for groupage traffic and interchanging containers between Liner Trains to an from different destinations as part of the Railfreight 80 'no-shunt' railway concept in practice most of the interchange appears to have taken place in the Holyhead Yard and the area was mainly used for storage