LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Campaign to reopen Killucan Railway Station

Editor,

Exactly a year ago to this day I wrote to chief executive of Irish Rail, Jim Meade, asking him to meet our group and examine objectively the reopening of Killucan station. In March of this year he gave an undertaking to three elected representatives that he would meet the Westmeath council chief executive to examine in detail a business case for the station. He intimated that a real case could be made for the station at Killucan in 2021, with a large investment of new carriages coming on the Dublin Sligo line. Months later he sent two directors, who referred to an internal research study that we have yet to see, saying they have no immediate plans to open it.

The reality is that Irish Rail have watched while two thirds of the track in this country has been taken up and hardly a station has opened at a time of climate emergency and a third of our emissions coming from transport. A county with a population of 90,000 people cannot stand over the fact we only have two rail stations and patchy or non-existent bus routes. Are we in Westmeath going to allow the body that operates the rail lines of this country on behalf of the nation to ignore Westmeath?

Killucan station would cost less than €2m, at a time we are spending billions on Dublin transport; it would be eligible for up to 50% EU grant aid, pay for itself in time, take hundreds of commuters from the choked road network, and take tons of carbon out of the atmosphere.

We in Killucan and Kinnegad have worked closely with various ministers and have lobbied the Dept of Transport on many occasions in relation to reopening our rail station. Last year Minister Ross gave a commitment both in the Dáil and by email that he would visit the station; he has yet to do so. For many years I have worked in conjunction with BMW MEPS to release the matching funding for Killucan station. There is a real case for the 2021-27 fund or any new EU stimulus initiative as well as the government’s 2040 plan to work together to reopen the station that give a valuable transport option to the midlands and give one of the fastest growing rural areas access again to the mainline rail system.

We have been working for nearly 20 years to secure the reopening of the station, which closed in 1963 after 115 years in operation. The population of Kinnegad and Killucan has now quadrupled since that closure to more than 5,000, and a hinterland of thousands more. All areas east Mullingar also need a park and ride option.

Everything is in place and all we need now is a local area plan to secure its reopening. There is no station between Mullingar and Enfield on the Sligo line, a distance of 37km, and the area is filled with Dublin commuters. Trains have to stop at Killucan eight or 10 times a day anyway as it’s the only double track between Mullingar and Enfield and one train has to let the other one pass. We feel the cost of reopening the station is a small cost to pay for a local public transport option when double track, buildings, signalling and potential parking are already in place.

We are asking that proposals submitted by the Dept of Transport for any EU structural funding include Killucan station as the first station on entering the BMW region on the Sligo line. Surely now the time has come to give the third largest area in Westmeath its rail station. Places 50km up the Sligo line like Dromod in Leitrim with a pollution of 600 people have eight services a day to Dublin. We have a population of more than 3,000 in Kinnegad, 2,000 in Killucan, beside the station, and a catchment area of 10,000 or more.

It is also apparent that transport spending around Dublin is no problem but access to the national rail network from the midlands seems to have been forgotten. We are in the all the development plans for the midlands and we are now asking our council to ensure we are included in the 2040 national transport planning framework.

If we move thousands of people out of Dublin to the midlands, we need a public transport option. Park and ride car parks for the buses are full, and the services cannot meet demand. There is not even a bus service in Rochfortbridge or Milltownpass and a poor service in Killucan, after many cuts to mainline services through Kinnegad.

A third of our emissions come from transport and having hundreds of cars leaving Killucan and Kinnegad for Dublin every morning is unsustainable. Few transport options in Ireland will be as cost effective as modernising a station that served the area for 115 years.

I have asked the Westmeath council chief executive this week to meet Jim Meade to pursue this issue on our behalf and also allow us as a council to pursue an up to date feasibility study to back up the Athlone IT study of 2007, which showed hundreds of people would use the station weekly. That survey was based on house to house questioning and remains the only scientific study on the use of Killucan station out to date. We would like Irish Rail to honour its commitment of “high quality transport infrastructure and services, delivering a better quality of life and supporting economic growth”, not just in Dublin, but also in Westmeath.

Yours, Cllr Denis Leonard,

Chairperson Killucan Kinnegad Transport Lobby Group.

September 12, 2019