Time to take the train

News that Sligo County Council has voted for a defacto support for the reopening of the Western Rail Corridor from Sligo to Collooney is an important step forward for the region.

The mechanics of what was voted on point to the nature of the debate that has hung over this issue for some time. What councillors voted for was as follows: ‘In support of a greenway between Collooney and Bellaghy but it must be at a safe distance from the rail line to Galway.'

What has been campaigned for by some in recent years is that the closed railway line (last fully operational in the 1970s) from Collooney in Sligo to Athenry in Galway be turned into a greenway. 

A good section of that proposal is a goner at this point with the reopening of the corridor from Athenry to Claremorris within touching distance and strongly recommended in the recent All-Island Rail Review. However, there has been a campaign for an East Mayo greenway along stretches of the railway from Claremorris to Charlestown (via Kiltimagh and Swinford) and also in Sligo (the aforementioned Bellaghy to Collooney route).

Greenways are a great amenity. Living in Achill, I see the benefit they provide to the area as community amenities firstly but also as a tourism draw. The latter is sometimes overstated – you can often have the local greenways here virtually to yourself and not just in winter – but there is no doubt that it has aided hospitality businesses along the route of the Great Western Greenway from Westport to Achill and is a spectacular route.

However, there is a big difference between putting a greenway on the old Westport to Achill railway line and Galway to Sligo.

Firstly, the Achill line was no longer in public ownership but was the property of landowners along the route. Some marvellous negotiating by Mayo Council Council engineers created a great piece of community and tourism infrastructure.

So reopening the railway line – which closed officially in 1936 – was almost an impossibility due to the fact the tracks were long gone. The Sligo to Galway line remains in state ownership. Exceptional campaigning by visionaries like the late Fr Micheál Mac Greil in the early 1990s ensured the tracks were not ripped up and ensured the long-term viability of the route. It is therefore a shovel-ready project – the old route is protected.

Furthermore, it is a far more viable railway route than Westport to Achill. You are talking about a route that will connect the two largest urban areas in the region. A route that is one of the busier road routes in the country that does not radiate to Dublin.

Thirdly, and I say this as someone who grew up in the non-coastal part of Mayo. The draw for tourists to cycle around my native Breaffy, Kiltimagh, Swinford, Charlestown et al would simply not be the same as the coastal cycle on the Great Western Greenway. If you can find a more spectacular cycling route in the country than the couple of miles either side of Mulranny, consider yourself very lucky.

Looped local greenways like Clare Lake in Claremorris and around Lough Lannagh in Castlebar are the type of greenways that should be explored and available to towns throughout the West as wonderful civic amenities. But using a potentially vital piece of regional infrastructure for a greenway is shockingly misguided.

The reality is that the west of Ireland lags far behind most of Europe when it comes to infrastructure. The Northern and Western Region (Connacht plus Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan) is ranked 218th out of 234 regions across Europe for infrastructural development. The Midlands and Eastern Region scores over three times higher. We are so centralised to Dublin that it is little wonder we are lagging so far behind (indeed, officially, we’re deemed a ‘lagging region’ by the European Commission).

Successive governments have failed to arrest this to the extent required. Civil servants seem indifferent to projects outside the M50 and certainly west of the Shannon. There is not one mile of motorway in Mayo (the new N5 Castlebar to Westport road is a dual carriageway). The N17 north of Tuam all the way to Sligo is a dangerous road. The alarming number of fatalities there in the past year testify to this.

The rail services that currently exist need radical improvements. But our region needs much more investment as a whole and needs widespread and wholesale infrastructural investment if we are to get any sort of parity with other parts of the country.

Poor infrastructure is why Sligo is stagnating compared to Galway. We need far better connectivity in terms of road, rail and air travel. Industries in the region are crying out for more freight options and routes. They want to remain here but sometimes you’d wonder if the Government are indifferent to this. You’d wonder about our own population too.

Why do we seem to accept our standing and not fight for our fair share? Perhaps we do not have enough political clout – there is no one at the Cabinet table from Connacht. This should not matter but we know that’s how Irish politics works.

In terms of the railway itself, there may be arguments put forward as to the current demand for such a railway from Sligo to Galway. One could say similar arguments were made about the Limerick to Athenry section of the Western Rail Corridor before it was reopened (and many times since) but that route has proven a tremendous success.

What one can say is that it appears increasingly likely that the need for such infrastructure – strong as it is at present – will continue to mushroom in the years ahead as rail becomes an increasingly viable alternative to road travel.

We won’t get a railway to Achill but a railway from Galway to Sligo hardly seems too much to ask for.