Why we must let the train take the strain

Thursday, April 17, 2008

At a recent Belfast meeting of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy — not normally noted as a forum for fantastical ideas — David Clement made a case for the construction of a rail tunnel between Co Down and Dumfries. He pointed out that this would give Ireland open access to the Eurasian landmass via the sanest, safest, cleanest and most comfortable method of mass transportation ever devised.

It's do-able. At around 40km, the tunnel wouldn't be the longest in the world.

That's the 57km Gotthard Base in Switzerland. It wouldn't even be the longest tunnel under the sea. That's the 53km Sei-kan in Japan.

The chance of local politicians and planners ordering a feasibility study of an Irish Sea rail tunnel is some way off.

The most expansive proposal to emerge from last week's Assembly debate on the future of our rail network was a plea from John Dallat for cross-border funding for a line from Sligo up to Derry.

A splendid idea. But not quite the Parknasilla-Pyongyang express.

David Clement returned to the theme in The Times on Monday, taking his cue from figures released last Friday confirming a huge rise in the popularity of rail across the water. Passenger miles — the number of journeys multiplied by the distance travelled — have increased in Britain year-on-year for the past 14 years to reach 30.1 billion in 2007, representing 1.2 billion individual journeys.

The only time since the inception of rail transport more than 170 years ago that the trains have carried a greater number of passengers was during the second world war when the network was twice the size and troop trains were ferrying thousands of soldiers around the country daily.

The surge is set to continue. Transport historian Tim Leunig of the London School of Economics forecast last weekend that British passenger-mile records will be broken "time and time and time again" over the next few years.

All this despite the high fares and inefficiency that have come from privatisation.

The same upward trend is in place here. Passenger numbers on Northern Ireland Rail have increased by 87% since 2003/04.

Last year, even the chronically under-resourced Derry line broke through the million mark for the first time in decades. In the South, Iarnród Éireann carried a record 43.1 million passengers in 2006, expects to carry 48 million in 2009 and is planning for 100 million plus by 2016.

It's the same story all across Europe. One of the factors in this phenomenal growth is that other forms of transport, particularly aviation, are now seen as prime sources of pollution and agents of potentially catastrophic climate-change. A global switch to rail is not just a good idea but an urgent necessity.

In this context, the old slogan, think globally, act locally, becomes particularly apt.

All of the science now tells us that the measures needed to cut CO2 emissions to levels which will make the earth sustainable are more drastic than any which have so far been contemplated. Travelling to Asia by train may, at the moment, seem a fanciful proposition to all except visionary accountants (there's a phrase you don't often see) like David Clement.

But if even half of what we are told by the consensus of scientists turns out to be even half-true, it may, in time, seem an eminently sensible proposition.

Meanwhile at local level, the common sense case for prioritising rail over other forms of transport is unanswerable. Which brings us back to McConaghy's Crossing.

There is disagreement among rail buffs as to whether McConaghy's Crossing is unique.

Some say there's another example somewhere in Britain or Ireland of a public road crossed by a rail-line without warning lights or automatic barrier. Others say that nobody apart from users of the Coleraine to Derry line would be expected to put up with such a thing.

There are other problems on the Coleraine-Derry line. Indeed, the line itself — old, deteriorating, jointed track —is a problem. But the biggest problem is that there is no plan for replacement in the current spending round. Minister Conor Murphy has pencilled in plans to re-lay the line in the next spending round, but frankly concedes that he can give no guarantee at this stage. Thus, Derry's rail service will be suspended for around three months this year or next to allow for upgrading of Ballymena-Coleraine.

Then — if funds are forthcoming — it will be closed for relay for another three months, probably in 2013. This makes no sort of sense, locally or globally.

Some dream of a train that glides out from the Waterside station, en route for Tashkent and onwards across the horizon, and think that traffic lights at McConaghy's Crossing would be a good start. Others think that the idea of traffic lights at McConaghy's Crossing is just unrealistic at the moment.