There exist service providers that provide access to the records maintained by the Companies Registration Office for a fee (that this data is not available free to the end user is a disgrace, but not surprising in this kakistocracy).
I came upon this entry on the record for Irish Rail:
From my limited legal knowledge, I understand that the Plantiff is the person/entity initiating legal action (the person/entity on the receiving end of a legal action is the defendant).
As with most Government entities, Irish Rail tends towards fascism when enforcing laws in their favour whilst not applying a similar standard to rules that apply to them (I’d cite the closure of Dunleer station in 1985 without the requisite 2 months notice required by law, but on a technicality, that would fail as it was CIE that did that – Irish Rail only came into existence in 1987).
I recently commented on the report by the RAIU on track access by passengers at Navan Road Parkway. One of the points raised in this report was that information posters which could have allowed imprisoned passengers to contact Irish Rail, contained a phone number which was no longer in use.
I spotted the information poster below on a train recently and checked out what EC Regulation 1371 states. According to the eur.lex.europa.eu site, this regulation was repealed in 2023, stating:
“No longer in force, Date of end of validity: 06/06/2023; Repealed by 32021R0782“
Makes you wonder what other misinformation about the law is put out.
Over the decades of taking photos of Ireland’s railway built heritage, I noticed that different periods see station buildings and other paintable structures in one particular colour across the network, which would suggest that Irish Rail buy their paint in bulk.
Looking back across my archive (over 15,000 railway images), there was a period where yellow was the norm and another where grey took over.
Passing through the walkway in Connolly Station from Amiens Street to the IFSC, I noticed a section of the wall painted in pink. Any bets on pink station buildings in the second half of this decade?
I finally got around to setting up a ChatGPT account, one of the features of which is the ability to create AI generated images. The issue of copyright in such images is unclear, with advice veering towards copyright not been held by the person who initiated the request.
I asked Chat GPT to produce 2 images and to be fair, it did a middling job.
Nothing to do with roadside features – just a post to note that my image collection has, in recent days, hit 15,000 railway digital images and 3,000 canal images.
To commemorate this, digital railway image 15,000 and digital canal image 3,000 are below:
I don’t normally comment on trains, not even railway accidents (although technically they do constitute railway history). However, this news item got me thinking about Westport and suggestions for a change.
TLDR, there is actually freight handled at Westport station, specifically timber trains. These are loaded in the old goods area. Not a large area to start with, it was inevitable that something like this would happen eventually.
Looking at the map above, the greyed out section of track is that in use for train stabling/timber loading. If this activity were to move to a dedicated loading site east of the station within Westport station limits (track circuits/axle counters could protect trains), this would free up the area west of the passenger station, allowing for the connection of the Westport to Achill greenway to that running to Westport Quay, improving the tourist amenity of Westport and segregating passenger and freight trains. I have added a line in blue to the map above, showing how the 2 greenways could be connected.
I have finally gotten around to starting the processing of the images I took of the Youghal Greenway just after Christmas (this took a while as multiple culverts/accommodation bridges etc had to be added to my Access database as a location and geo-referenced).
Looking at the aerial views of Midleton station online, CIE have kept a large amount of land east of Midleton station, which requires the greenway to Youghal to be diverted around this site before joining the original trackbed near to Broomfield Bridge.
Is this the site of the future CART depot (Cork Area Rapid Transit)?
Another weekend, another trip to Northern Ireland. Due to the realpolitik of driving a Republic of Ireland registered car, I have tended to prioritise taking photographs of historic station locations in the Republic of Ireland over Northern Ireland.
This weekend, through combination of bike and train, I successfully visited many former station sites on the railway between Belfast and Larne Harbour.
However, this post is about Grand Central Station. I had the need to use the facilities in the station and, notwithstanding that the station is only open for 4 months, one of the 5 stalls in the gents was out of order, the lock on the door of another stall was missing and the stall I used, the hi tech “button” to flush the toilet did nothing (i.e. failed to flush).
Therein lies the problem with State investment. Governments will provide a lot of money for one off investment in capital projects, but not a red cent towards ongoing maintenance costs. Having said that, I’d have expected the facilities in Grand Central to still be operational 4 months after opening.
I traveled southside for the first time in a long while today to photograph the stations from Glenageary to Bray.
At Shankill, I noted that Irish Rail has taken de-staffing to the extreme by walling up the ticket office, leaving a building with no ability to staff it (reminder to IR – the present byelaws don’t reference TVMs – if no staffed ticket office, technically, there is no need for a ticket).
Anyway, the thought struck me, as there is separate access to both platforms not going through what was the ticket office, why maintain this building?
Notwithstanding that it was built in the 1970s as a ticket office, it would surely be within the capability of CIE, the property development company, to repurpose this as a 1 bed house and sell it. Bijou residence, adjacent to DART station, council owned carpark adjacent where a resident’s permit could be arranged. They could even throw in a villa ticket* to smooth the sale.
* Villa tickets were a 19th century idea of the (private sector) railway companies. They were typically granted by the railway company to anyone building a new house in designated areas near to the companies’ stations for a period of up to 10 years, the idea being that this would encourage such development and increase the usage of the railway line in the process.
I found this video on YouTube which explains the track layout at Connolly Station in Dublin very well whilst covering the issue of why the station is a bottleneck.