Athlone to Mullingar ‘Dart’ debated at council meeting
Adrian Cusack
An idea for a “light rail” system between Athlone and Mullingar would require the use of trains similar to those on the Dart system in Dublin, a top council official has said.
“There’s no such thing, in my mind, as light rail. Rail is rail, and what we’re talking about here is something equivalent to the Dart,” said Westmeath County Council official Barry Kehoe.
He was referring to a motion from Cllr Tom Farrell at this month’s meeting of the Athlone Moate Municipal District. Cllr Farrell asked the local authority to “carry out a feasibility study examining a proposal for a light rail system on the old railway line from Moate to Athlone, to include Mullingar at a later date.”
Cllr Farrell said the idea would be for a single rail system with stops at the old Moate railway station, Mount Temple, Glynwood, Garrycastle, Retreat/Lissywollen, and the former St Mel’s Terrace area in Athlone.
He said the project would have environmental, economic, and tourism benefits and would help ease traffic delays experienced by people coming to Athlone to work or study.
“For example, a stop at Garrycastle would leave commuters within walking distance of Athlone IT, Ericsson, and Blyry, With Mr Price also likely to develop their current warehouse facilities as a central storage unit, the numbers in this area will likely increase, worsening traffic problems.”
He added that a car park could be built in Moate that would allow commuters travelling to Athlone from further east to park their car “and finish their commute via light rail unobstructed by vehicle traffic.”
Cllr Farrell listed examples of places where similar rail systems have been operating successfully, mentioning the Saar Cycle Route in Germany and France; a shuttle train between Taunton and Bishops Lydeard in Somerset, England; and the predominantly single-track Inverness to Aberdeen line in Scotland.
The council’s written response to his motion said the project was “outside the remit of Westmeath County Council” but that a letter could be written asking Irish Rail to carry out a feasibility study.
Mr Kehoe said there would be “huge benefits” to reopening the Athlone to Mullingar line, but the difficulty was the scale and cost of the project. He said reopening the line was included Irish Rail's list of future capital projects, but it was far down the list in terms of priority.
“A few years ago, Irish Rail had put a minimum cost of €100 million on reopening the line," he said, adding that the best the council could do was seek to get the project bumped up the Irish Rail priority list.
He said there was now an "additional challenge" of protecting the greenway, alongside the railway line but this would be "do-able" if the reopening of the line was to go ahead.
A number of councillors spoke in favour of Cllr Farrell's motion. "There is no good connection between Athlone and Mullingar, and it's something that came up time and time again when I was canvassing," said Cllr Louise Heavin. "People are struggling to get to Mullingar hospital. Tullamore is easy to get to, but Mullingar is not."
Some of the councillors referred to a separate a 'tourism train' idea previously raised by former councillor Michael O'Brien, saying they felt this had potential.
Cllr Liam McDaniel, meanwhile, pointed to the light rail experience which Bord na Mona workers have, and he said this was something which should be drawn upon.
"I agree that it's so sad we have no regular public transport between Athlone and Mullingar. In the short-term, I think we should be looking for regular bus routes between the two towns," said Athlone's Mayor, Cllr Frankie Keena.
Cllr Farrell concluded that it would be worth raising the reopening of the Athlone to Mullingar line with the National Transport Authority. "If it's just left up to Irish Rail then I'll be growing daisies (before it happens) anyway," he remarked.