Sir, – Ultan Keady (Letters, August 10th) is spot-on in his assessment of the savings Ireland could make by extending and expanding its rail network.
It is nothing short of absurd that the “express” service from Dublin to Galway is single track after Portarlington, as are the lines to Sligo after Maynooth, Waterford beyond Cherryville Junction and Wexford after Bray. This is Toytown stuff. These lines need to be doubled. Only then can significant extra services be provided. They should also be electrified, together with the existing mainline to Limerick and Cork.
The worst example of penny-pinching (a concept rarely applied to roadbuilding in recent decades) is, of course, the “Enterprise” service from Dublin to Belfast.
Just eight trains a day link the two largest cities in Ireland, and the average speed attained by the elderly locomotives (purchased in 1997) is less than 80 km/h. The line is a national disgrace. It takes more than two hours to travel 170 kilometres.
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We were told in 2020 that the Government was launching a study into a high-speed railway that would run from Belfast to Cork and Limerick via Dublin.
More recently, Jim Meade, the CEO of Irish Rail, said that an hourly, high-speed service from Belfast to Dublin was “more than an ambition” and that a more frequent service, with new trains and rolling stock, was something he intended to deliver “over time”.
Mr Meade should remember that time is something we’re all running out of. – Yours, etc,
WALTER ELLIS,
Plusquellec,
France.