Category: General

Every so often, something so bizarre comes along that even I take a deep breath.

So it was when I read in the Irish Independent that Irish Rail’s pugnacious PR manager, Barry Kenny, is currently working as a volunteer preparing food for soldiers on the Ukrainian frontline.

Here we have a senior manager in an Irish State Owned Enterprise actively assisting in a war effort against a nuclear power. Someone needs to explain to Barry that Ireland is a neutral State and what that means, in simple English.

One wonders how many Irish Rail employees are volunteering in Syria or Yemen against USA initiated/backed aggression or is State aggression OK if Uncle Sam carries it out?

For the sake of argument, if the war between Russia/Ukraine were to escalate from a proxy war with the West into an actual hot war, how would it look that a senior manager in an Irish State Owned Enterprise was actively assisting in a war effort against a nuclear power?

Let us not forget that during World War 2, when the Free State was neutral, the creamery at Campile in Co. Wexford was bombed by the Nazis, allegedly a “mistake”, however, in all reality, an attack on a food supply for Britain.

Courtesy of the Donegal Daily website, I became aware of the existence of this website, which shows the location of current and former railways on the island of Ireland. They claim that it is also available on the Irish Rail website, but a check of this led nowhere.

The production is reasonable, but only shows the location of the lines and no further details. For a more detailed set of maps of the current and former railways of Ireland, including stations and a page for each of the latter, my railway maps of Ireland can be consulted. The one aspect where this other site is better than mine is that it also shows city tramways, which I have not included on my site.

As a final thought, the article states that the website was developed with the support of Irish Rail. I thought that the State (which Irish Rail is, as a loss making State owned enterprise) was not permitted to fund projects where private capital (mine) has already funded something similar (see above).

I can say with confidence that I know where all “public” railways in Ireland are/were but private industrial/other railways are a different matter as these can be developed and disappear in short periods of time and as such, would not be picked up by organisations such as the Ordnance Survey.

One such line is this one, built and maintained by an individual somewhere in the west of Ireland.

Whilst out volunteer litter picking* on the Royal Canal between Confey and Clonsilla yesterday, I noticed that either Waterways Ireland or Irish Rail had cleared the overgrowth around the old Lucan North railway station, better revealing the former waiting shelter.

* I had a few passers by on the canal towpath thank me for doing litter picking. Whilst this is nice, the thought struck me – if you think that someone doing litter picking is a worthwhile social activity, why aren’t you partaking in the activity?

Radio Kerry reports that Irish Rail are hoping to have an hourly service on the Tralee branch by 2027.

As this service passes right by Kerry Airport, I would suggest that this should be the timeframe for withdrawal of any Public Service Obligation subsidy for flights between Dublin and Kerry as there will be a regular train service connecting to Dublin and Cork by then.

Irish Rail’s new timetable is due to commence on 11th December with small changes overall. On the webpage announcing these changes, IR also listed the main suggestions for service improvements from the public consultation process and the reasons for such suggestions not being implemented – the main one being insufficient drivers.

One of the suggestions which I disagree with (and which IR swiftly and correctly passed over to the NTA) is that Newbridge should be brought within the Short Hop zone.

This is a ludicrous suggestion and would see a commuter in Castleknock (10km as the crow flies from Dublin City Centre) paying the same annual fare as someone in Newbridge (42km as the crow flies from Dublin City Centre).

Some would argue that the distance determinations should be based on actual rail mileage. I would argue against that as modern day commuters should not be punished for engineering and landlord appeasing decisions made over 150 years ago when railway lines were built.

If the NTA were to include Newbridge in the Short Hop Zone, they would similarly need to extend the zone to Drogheda, Wicklow Town and Enfield – not an appropriate definition of Short Hop.

A better use of NTA resources would be to move PSO bus routes in the rail short hop zone that are currently with Bus Eireann/Go Ahead Regional services to the Dublin Area contracts, extending such services into North and East Kildare, thereby standardising bus and rail services in one zone. I will declare an interest here, residing as I do in Kilcock and would therefore be a beneficiary of such a move.

People wonder why I don’t like Irish Rail. Things like this are the reason.

I should be getting the 13:32 ex Kilcock to Maynooth to transfer to the 13:45 ex Maynooth to Confey, to undertake volunteer litter picking on the Royal Canal.

However, as is not uncommon for Irish Rail, the first train (from Sligo) is late and there is no guarantee of a connection at Maynooth. The second issue relates to the single track west of Maynooth. The real time departures section of the Irish Rail website is currently reporting an impossibility:

The first section is showing an arrival at Kilcock of a train to Sligo at 13:42. However, the second section is showing an arrival of the train I should be on at 13:45. Due to the single track section between Maynooth and Enfield, this is a physical impossibility and the IR website is publishing a lie.

This post has nothing to add about this venture, an excellent synopsis of which was written by the late Brian J Goggin on irishwaterwayshistory.com.

I was reminded of this just now when looking for information on the navigation planned for Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo – the reason for this being background work I am doing in updating the Gazetteer map to include primary rivers and lakes.

This will allow me to move into the second phase of the Gazetteer – including canals/river navigations therein. These will take the same format as the railway gazetteer (a map with links to pages for specific features and a photo gallery). However, I am planning to also create separate webpages for each canal/navigation.

This will, in no way, attempt to usurp what Brian has done (very few people, least of all me, would be fit to walk in Brian’s footsteps) but will showcase these features in a different way.

‘We like the information you provide, just not your site.’

If you don’t like it here, don’t come here.

One of the activities I started a few months ago was a monthly volunteer litter picking event on the Royal Canal at Clonsilla.

I was supposed to be doing that today, but Gobshite Rail decided to not bolster capacity on the Sligo line for whatever bogball match is on in Croke Park, meaning that when the relevant train that should have brought me to Maynooth arrived at Kilcock, it was already full and no boarding possible. Needless to say, the PA at Kilcock remained silent about this.

As a State body, Gobshite Rail is required to favour all equally or not at all. I would like Gobshite Rail to explain why those travelling to bogball matches should be prioritised over every other recreational activity.

A traditional trope in Ireland when someone criticises something (especially the State) is to hit back with a suggestion that the person making the criticism should go and work there if they think they could do better.

For the record, I recently applied for a role in the company and received a generic email yesterday advising me that they would not be calling me for interview. I did offer to put my money where my mouth is, but a company like this would only be intimidated by someone who is as knowledgeable about their company (and its dead bodies) as I am.