Westport on track

Light at the end of the tunnel for Mayo railway users

>    New rolling stock for Westport by the summer
>    Five daily services from Westport to Dublin in 2009
>    Commitment given to early bird service

Neill O’Neill

WITH the steam that was vented towards Iarnród Éireann at the February meeting of Westport Town Council still lingering in the council chamber, company representative Myles McHugh ventured into the lion’s den last week and put ‘cautious’ smiles back on the faces of the nine elected representatives, who had berated his organisation a month earlier.
The Council’s stern message, which stemmed from years of discontent and perceived neglect, certainly triggered a response in Iarnród Éireann, and Mr McHugh came to Westport with the news that new rolling stock would be operational on the Westport line in a matter of weeks. Accompanied by Westport’s highly-lauded Station Manager, Anne Eliott, he was met with a barrage of questions from around the table, and answered most of them to the satisfaction of the Council, who in the main gave a guarded welcome to his presentation.
“Without giving an exact date, which might come back to haunt me if it is missed by a week, I can tell you that the new trains will be in Westport before the summer, and where I went to school the summer always started in May,” he said. “There are things that need to happen, like adjustments at stations and driver training, and they are happening, and I can’t see anything that will hold this up. Westport is next for the new trains.”
Mr McHugh also said that the next timetable change within Iarnród Éireann would be in December this year, for 2009, and that there was a provision within it for five daily services each way between Westport and Dublin.
“An early bird service is on the agenda for Westport. I am committed to it and where we have increased the frequency of trains on other routes in the past, early and late services have been a part of this,” he said.
This prompted each of Westport’s councillors to state that it is essential that there be an early bird service that arrives in Heuston Station before 9am, to accommodate the many people who attend business meetings, hospital appointments and one-day courses in the capital. Cllr Keith Martin reminded Mr McHugh that this was not just an early bird service for Westport, but for the whole of Mayo – a county with a population in excess of 120,000 people.
On the rumour that Westport train station is to move from its current location to out beyond the railway bridge on the Ballinrobe Road, he said that he had never heard any suggestion of this prior to it being brought up in the chamber. He also stated that the idea that Claremorris would become a central hub for rail transport in Mayo, which would adversely affect the Westport service, was never discussed or suggested anywhere else but amongst Westport’s councillors.
Addressing the issue of catering, Mr McHugh said that this aspect of the business had been outsourced to a private company, Railgourmet. He said that while he understood the councillors’ concerns that people getting up early in the morning and travelling long distances wanted hot food, not every train had the capacity to produce this. However, he undertook to sit down with representatives of Railgourmet and see what could be done about this. The possibility of running a pilot programme to see if the days of the full Irish breakfast on Westport trains could be brought back will also be investigated.
On the question of capacity, Mr McHugh said that it is his experience that passengers will disperse more with an increase in daily services to five, and that this would leave extra room on trains. He added that Iarnród Éireann were launching a huge drive to get people to book seats on-line, and that in doing this your name would be written electronically above your seat, reserving it for you. He also stated that the new trains would have a reduced capacity for bicycles, as seats had to be sacrificed to accommodate these.
“We are in a real business here and cycling is a seasonal pursuit. We are currently looking at a proposal to have bikes available at train stations in towns where cycling is a major holiday activity,” he said.