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.
There are a few significant Youtube content creators in the railway sphere, providing material/commentary on railways locally/globally. One of these is Reece Martin in Canada, whose channel RM Transit is well worth a visit.
RM Transit has just dropped a video about the railway/tramway network of Dublin (see below). I have watched and left a comment on the video with clarifications/background info.
Whilst I don’t think my comment will be deleted, I repeat the comment here to provide additional context to what was published:
A few comments on this. Generally OK, but I would dispute that LUAS is the backbone of the transit system – that would be the heavy rail (both DART and diesel services).
The LUAS spur to Connolly Station was the original terminus of the line, which ran initially from Connolly to Tallaght. There was a subsequent extension of the line to The Point, which left Connolly on a spur.
The LUAS Green line was originally planned to be in a cut and cover tunnel through the city centre but business interests objected and the Irish Government caved into their objections. Co-incidentally, the politician who did this (Mary O’Rourke) passed away recently.
Originally, the heavy rail Harcourt Street line did connect to the coastal line to Bray, however, south of Cherrywood, the local authority has permitted housing to be built on the original alignment, cutting off the possibility of a return.
The genesis of DART goes back to the combination of north/south commuter services post 1958 when trains started to run from Howth to Bray. This became the original electrified section.
The reason for the northside DART stations being in a cutting with ramp access is twofold. The Dublin & Drogheda Railway (original company) built their line without level crossings (hence the cutting) and they had a pathological also hatred of footbridges. Most stations on their line used an adjacent road bridge to connect the platforms rather than provide an internal footbridge.
The conversion of the Green Line LUAS south of Charlemont to Metro is required due to capacity constraints, however, when the LUAS was being planned, the designers stupidly removed the 1850s grade separated embankment south of Ranelagh, which introduced a level crossing at the modern day Beechwood station. Recent proposals to close off this crossing were dropped due to voter objections.
I am interested in your source for the planned 4th through track at Connolly Station, not being sure where the space for this is (a look at Googlemaps would confirm this). The main problem with the line from Connolly Station to Pearse Station is that it was built on the wrong side of Connolly Station – 19th Century laissez faire British politics. That Pearse Station faces south and not north is another problem.
Just saying.
I was out and about in Dublin recently and spotted a new map on the DART:
What caught my eye was the marking of the Short Hop Zone at its current boundaries of Balbriggan, Kilcock, Sallins & Naas and Kilcoole. These would be the boundaries that the National Transport Authority are proposing to reduce in geographic area, which would require new maps to be produced.