If the public had its way, Northern Ireland Railways would be facing a bright future. It would have shiny new trains providing fast, frequent services on renovated lines serving most of the region's main cities and towns.
But this is not one of the four options currently being considered by the Railways Task Force, set up earlier this year following publication of a rail safety review by consultants AD Little, which said £183 million sterling needed to be spent to meet modern standards.
The most favourable option under consideration would involve implementing the Little Report, plus a little extra money to upgrade rail services on existing lines. The worst option would mean closing down the surviving network apart from the Dublin-Belfast Enterprise service.
Alternatively, the task force could opt for a partial closure, retaining all existing services to Bangor, Larne, Portadown and Portrush but terminating the least-used Belfast-Derry line in Coleraine - despite a vigorous campaign by Derry City Council to keep it open. Friends of the Earth, in partnership with the Transport 2000 pressure group and the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association, has been lobbying the task force to come out firmly in favour of an expansionist policy, even including BART - a Belfast version of Dublin's DART.
"It is widely recognised that the rail network is suffering from serious under-investment in infrastructure and rolling stock," the joint report says. "Unless investment is made soon, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain the existing inadequate fleet of trains."
The report calls for a 20-year investment programme to create "a dynamic, sustainable rail network which will equal if not better the standard of rail provision in the Republic". This would serve as a tool of regional development as well as giving people an alternative to car use.
According to the report, compiled by Mr Paul Salveson, the current rail review has united "every section of mainstream opinion within Northern Ireland, straddling all communities and their political parties, as well as the business community and the voluntary sector".
At public meetings in Belfast, Derry, Ballymena, Larne, Bangor and Craigavon over the past two months, many of the 1,200 participants argued that the Northern Ireland Assembly now had an opportunity to demonstrate its faith in the future by investing in a modern railway network.
A report on the public consultation process, published recently by Belfast-based Community Technical Aid, said there was overwhelming support for "a long-term visionary approach", coupled with a belief that the current review was a short-term response to the legacy of under-investment. There was also widespread support for the view that everyone in the North should have equal access to public transport on a par with any other region in Europe and that any reduction in the rail network would lead to greater inequalities in access to employment, hitting the disadvantaged hardest.
The idea that bus services could replace trains was considered neither feasible nor acceptable in terms of congestion, pollution, health issues, travel times, comfort and convenience. Light rail or rapid transit systems were seen as a more realistic, acceptable and sustainable way forward. Although the public thought that private finance might have a role, there was little support for privatisation.
Translink, the publicly-owned holding company for bus and train services in the North, currently receives a subsidy of just over 5p per passenger mile for carrying some six million rail passengers a year. This compares with 22p per passenger mile for ScotRail and 41.5p for rail services in Merseyside.
Much of Northern Ireland Railways' rolling stock is "life-expired". A 1998 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers warned that without "urgent investment" in new rolling stock, NIR would have only 16 train sets available by 2006, out of a requirement for 29 sets to maintain even the current level of service.
Using unusually blunt language for consultants, PWC said this would have "an increasingly devastating effect" on NIR's viability. This view is endorsed by Friends of the Earth and its associates in their report, which warns that the crisis could become progressively worse, leading to a loss of confidence.
Although passenger numbers on the Dublin-Belfast line grew by nearly 12 per cent last year to 927,484 - proving that investment in a better-quality product attracts more passengers - the numbers of people using other routes such as Larne, Bangor, Derry and Portadown are either static or in decline.
"Unless a decision is made very soon to invest in new trains, the decline in rail patronage will continue", the report says.
The report cites examples from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France and Switzerland, where major investment is going into regional routes and there are "dramatic increases" in the number of passengers. It also notes that £500 million sterling is earmarked under the National Development Plan for mainline rail in the Republic.
"Business on Iarnrod Eireann is increasing rapidly, reflecting the dynamic economy, with passenger growth averaging about 10 per cent each year," it says.
What Friends of the Earth would like to see is the diversion of most of the £40 million sterling allocated to the upgrading of Belfast's Westlink motorway to public transport improvements.
On the Belfast-Derry line, the report blames falling passenger numbers on the poor level of service and the circuitous route, via Lisburn, which makes for a journey time of 21/2 hours.
The Belfast-Derry line serves several major towns which are likely to grow rapidly in the next 10 years. Any suggestion that it should be closed "makes a mockery" of everything "Shaping Our Future", the North's regional development strategy, had to say about sustainable development.
The report also notes that the surviving rail lines in the North represent only a small part of a once extensive network. It even recommends that the task force should examine the feasibility of reopening the line that used to run from Portadown to Derry, via Dungannon, Omagh and Strabane. "A good rail link to Derry, with connecting bus services into Donegal, would offer a much-improved cross-Border service."
It also proposes reinstating the disused rail route between Portadown and Armagh as a new southern terminus for Belfast-bound commuter rail services, as well as a new branch line to serve Aldergrove Airport, now catering for three million passengers a year.
In the meantime, the report calls for greater commercial freedom for Translink to lease "desperately needed rolling stock", thereby overcoming the perception that it is "a bus company running trains". A strategic rail authority and a Belfast passenger transport authority are also envisaged.
A spokesman for the Department of Regional Development told The Irish Times that the Railways Task Force would be "taking on board" the results of public consultations on the options it is considering, with a view to publishing an interim report on its findings to the Minister, Mr Gregory Campbell, early next month.