THE timetable for trains travelling between Tipperary and Limerick has not changed since World War Two, a Dáil committee has been told.
The North Tipperary Community Rail Partnership (NTCRP) made the claim to the Oireachtas Transport and Communications Committee during their presentation to the committee last week.
Addressing the proposals of the national Rail Review, the NTCRP said that “Iarnród Éireann Strategy 2027” makes no commitments to improve regional rural services, except for improving services in the four metropolitan areas of Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.
The presentation outlined how both Iarnród Éireann and the NTA describe the line as ‘lightly used’. But this is because “the lack of useful journey opportunities making it irrelevant and largely unusable to the population it serves”, said a spokesperson for the NTCRP.
With just 31 passenger trains a week “the North and South Tipperary lines maintain a very basic service”.
“There are no rail services from Limerick to Ballybrophy between 06.30 and 16.55, and from Ballybrophy to Limerick between 10.05 and 17.05. There are no services on Sunday mornings or at all on the Sunday of bank holiday weekends,” the presentation stated.
The NTCRP remarked that “the timetable has essentially not changed since the restoration of services after The Emergency and fuel crisis of 1947”.
“The line should be part of the vision for commuter rail into Limerick with the delivery of an hourly service from Nenagh to Limerick. This would serve the proposed Ballysimon Parkway station and the reopened station at Annacotty.
“Annacotty could then serve the University and local industrial estates and be integrated with the M7 Park and Ride bus station, as proposed in Limerick Shannon Metropolitan Area Transportation Strategy,” the NTCRP concluded.
