Editorial: Paucity of railway services leaves visitors bemused - Kilkenny Live

Ireland’s anaemic railway network is becoming a source of embarrassment, and a situation which is difficult to defend given our environmental commitments to improving public transport and decreasing reliance on the personal vehicle.

It’s an issue that regularly comes up for people and was very much played for laughs at last weekend’s Kilkenomics festival, where visiting economists and comedians mulled over the paucity of services here.

At one panel discussion, speakers who had recently been to Dublin Airport seemed bemused by the fact that there is no metro or light rail link from there to the centre of our capital city. Other cities, such as Cork and Galway, have no light rail at all.

For Kilkenny, there is no direct rail link to Cork or Galway. Over the years, tens of thousands of students have had to make the trek to these cities to attend third-level , often leaving them with a lengthy commute and a tedious wait for a transfer. Those looking to travel by rail to return home effectively surrender a chunk of their weekend waiting on or for trains.

For commuters, there is no late night service back from Dublin, with 6.40pm being the final train, creating enormous pressure on workers to get finished and make it on time to pack into an often-overcrowded locomotive.

There is no train from Kilkenny to nearby Waterford at an early enough time to suit most people; the earliest departure is after 9am.

It’s really only when this all has to be explained to someone not from here that it hits home how off the pace we are. Our European cousins must be nonplussed by it all, given the size of Ireland.

Many other countries such as Japan, France, Germany, China and Morocco have all embraced high speed rail, with trains capable of speeds of hundreds of kilometres an hour.

It’s high time some of the measures proposed in the All-Island Strategic Rail Review were implemented, giving us a railway network and service fit for the 21st Century.