Killucan station ‘won’t reopen due to overcrowding on trains’
Irish Rail won’t reopen Killucan Station any time soon due to the overcrowding problems on the Sligo to Dublin line, Cllr Denis Leonard says.
Speaking at the February Planning and Transportation Strategic Policy Committee (SPC) meeting, where members were informed that Irish Rail had once again requested that Westmeath County Council provide a business case, a frustrated Cllr Leonard said that the station will not be reopened until the overcrowding problems on the Sligo to Dublin line are resolved.
“In the last month they [Irish Rail] announced a series of projects in Dublin, extensions to the Luas, over the next 10 years that they are going to spend billions on.
“Why can’t they spend €5m in Westmeath, of which they’d get back half in EU funding? That’s my one question.
“Why in the world is there so much obstinacy over 20 years about opening the station when they spend €5m reopening one in Adamstown a few weeks ago?
“The train stops at Killucan eight times a day. I’ll tell you why [Irish Rail won’t open it], the carriages in Mullingar are full. Everyone stands all the way to Dublin. It’s just an operational problem they have and they are refusing to fix it.”
Following a meeting with council officials in May of last year, Irish Rail made a commitment to seek funding from Transport Infrastructure Ireland to carry out a feasibility study into the potential reopening of Killucan Railway Station.
In its latest correspondence with the local authority, however, Irish Rail asked the council to provide a business case for the station.
Cllr Leonard, who has campaigned for the reopening of the station for two decades, says that the feasibility study should be carried out at the same time as the business case.
“We need to know where the feasibility is at. Once we know, we can talk about business cases.
“It could be done jointly between WCC and Irish Rail. That’s the only way this can proceed,” the Kinnegad based councillor said.
Cllr Hazel Smyth, chair of the Strategic Policy Committee, said that the letter from Irish Rail is “very disappointing”.
“For Irish Rail to say they need a business case from Westmeath County Council, yet previously they said that they needed the policy documentation in order to proceed with the feasibility study, is just incredibly frustrating.”