Madam, – Your article on the welcome reopening of the Limerick-Galway rail line (Home News, March 29th) describes the journey time of under two hours as “slow”. While the train might not be TGV speed, it does beat the published journey time by bus of two hours 25 minutes and the actual journey time of over three hours. And while the AA might calculate the road journey time at 1 hour 29 minutes, those of us who don’t have the opportunity to drive in rocket cars at 2am might have experienced more realistic driving times of about two-and-a-half hours between the two city centres.
The cost of this rail connection has been €100 million. This represents one third of the cost of the Gort Bypass, and one eighth of the cost of the Shannon tunnel – both of which were needed to get the “official” road travel time below two hours, along with further hundreds of millions spent on the Ennis bypass, the N18 dual carriage way, etc.
Indeed, money spent on this rail link, and its reasonable journey time, compares very favourably with the multiple billions spent trying to achieve a similar journey time by road. Had a fifth of this money been spent on the rail line, we really would have a TGV between Limerick and Galway. – Yours, etc,