Retired train driver Jimmie O'Grady shakes his head as he surveys the overgrown rail line heading south from Collooney in Co Sligo. It is nearly 27 years since he took the last scheduled train along the line from Sligo to Limerick.
Where brambles and weeds now climb over the platform on the former Collooney South station, Jimmie remembers an era of crowded platforms, wagons full of cattle on fair days and a whole community who lived and worked along the line.
It may have been a service for a different time, but a growing and determined campaign right along the western counties is now demanding the re-opening of the Sligo-Limerick line, which is still in public ownership.
Local authorities, county development boards, business and community groupings are all arguing for a "western rail corridor" to help bring transport infrastructure in the west up to a standard taken for granted in the eastern part of the State and in most modern societies. It is seen as a hugely symbolic project, an investment which could have major spin-offs for attracting development and increasing tourism as well as improving quality of life.
But the big question remains - will the Government commit the relatively small amount of money required? A pledge to re-open the line was ironically included in Fine Gael's election manifesto.
It is estimated that the cost of reopening and upgrading the disused section of the line from Collooney to Ennis would be in the region of €150 million, which includes ancillary works. This corresponds to less than 1 per cent (0.84 per cent) of the €17.78 billion the Government plans to spend on its transport plan for Dublin "A Platform for Change".
Opinions vary on whether the Government will make such a symbolic act of faith in western development. The former chief executive of the Western Development Commission, Mr Liam Scollan, who has led many battles for improved infrastructure for the west, says it would be naïve to think the Government would fund the Sligo-Limerick line.
He fears instead it "will hide behind the excuse" that it is not viable, but this viability argument can only be used "because of a lack of attention to policies to stimulate rural development" and "a series of failures by the Government".
Mr Scollan says for the rail line to be found viable, there would need to be a viable rural economy, but because the Government does not have effective strategies for rural enterprise, rural tourism and natural resources and while farming was declining, this was not possible. Such strategies are urgently need for the rural economy to thrive, he believes.
Because the line ran through relatively small towns in sparsely populated areas, the Government was "very safe" in anticipating that any feasibility study would conclude it was not financially viable. Mr Scollan says reopening the line would demonstrate a confidence in western development.
He believes the Government has two choices - to accelerate investment in the Sligo-Limerick line in anticipation of ensuring rural development strategies are put in place or "it continues to neglect both".
Campaigners take hope from a strategic rail study announced by the former Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O'Rourke, at the end of January which specifically mentioned the line among others to be assessed by consultants. The study, she said then, would develop "a 20-year blueprint for the future of the network" and would identify priorities for investment. It would dovetail with the national and local spatial strategies.
Three city and nine county development boards from Donegal to Limerick and including Cork, submitted a joint submission to the rail review, arguing for the western rail corridor.
Mr Frank Dawson of the Galway County Development Board says support was unanimous. All the local authorities backed the proposal and some 3,000 communities had been consulted through the community forums of county development boards.
He believes there would be "a remarkable level of return for the scale of funding" involved. In comparison to the money needed to reinstate the 114 miles of track from Collooney to Ennis, a new railway bridge over the East Wall road in Dublin is to cost €20 million and three new platforms in Heuston Station will cost €117 million.
There are three dimensions to the project, he adds - a high speed intercity passenger service, local commuter links and a freight service. He says the financial viability argument should be used against the project as it is "a very crude instrument"; when road or water projects are discussed, the same criteria are not applied - they are provided on the basis that communities needed them.
"What we are looking for is equality - why should people in the west be satisfied with a public transport service that would be unacceptable to people on the east?"
The submission from the county development boards envisages a rail network from Sligo to Limerick with existing links to Cork, Waterford and Rosslare, as well as new spurs to Knock and Shannon airports. It says this could form "a key strategic socio-economic corridor in the west region" which would tie in with the Government's stated aim of balanced regional development.
The campaign to reopen the Sligo-Limerick line has been going on for more than 20 years. Father Michael McGreil, through his Western Inter-County Railway Committee, is credited with ensuring the line was kept intact and in public ownership all these years. He is optimistic given recent massive investment in the main radial lines from Dublin, that there is a new attitude to railways.
A close associate of the late Mgr James Horan, Father McGreil says he is taking his friend's advice to beware of "the MAD file" or the "maximum administration delay".
"He described this as a strategy by bodies like church and State, not to say no but to defer, defer, defer until you are worn out. But until the daisies come for me, I will never be worn out on this one," he insists.