Irish Railway Record Society

STATIONS  

Collooney   The station re-opened in March after completion of work on rebuilding and extending the platform to the standard length of 174-metres. It was closed since 8 November.

Cork    Local politicians and the Cork City Manager have been eyeing 17 acres at the southern part of the yard at Kent station for redevelopment into a 5,000-seat event centre and other commercial activities. This is known as the Horgan’s Quay development. However, in February the Chairman of CIÉ, Dr. Lynch said that the company would first focus on getting Kent station refurbished and the railway line to Midleton re-opened, as both developments would affect the layout of the site. He said 'I've no doubt that the city fathers would like me to move a little faster, but my priority is passenger service, not land development'. Dr. Lynch confirmed that the €24m that CIÉ needs for Kent station is in place and available for the refurbishment.

Heuston   Work continues on renewing the train shed roof (See JOURNAL 156). Extensive scaffolding was erected on Platform No. 5 initially and then was extended to other platforms. There was no disruption to train services.

New Stations   Amongst others, IÉ objected to planning permission being sought by a developer for a proposed new station 800-metres north of Howth Junction. The developer is planning to construct nearly 9,500 dwellings over the next 10 years and has applied for planning permission for the station. An Bord Pleanála had ruled that no more than 1,000 units shall be occupied until public transport facilities are in place. However, the design of the proposed station does not meet IÉ requirements. The concourse and ticketing area is inadequately sized, the turnstile location and position in the concourse doesn't allow for adequate passenger through-flows and the stair capacity is inadequate.

Fingal County Council has granted planning permission for a new railway station on the Maynooth  line.  It  will  be  located opposite the former Phoenix Park racecourse.

Tidy Stations   For the first time, Mallow has been selected as the Overall Best Station in the 2004 Waterford Wedgewood sponsored Iarnród Éireann Best Station Awards. Mallow was also the winner of the Best Major Station category. Waterford collected the Heritage Award for excellent work in converting the old buffet area into a railway museum for waiting customers. Thurles was awarded the title Best Intercity Station and Killarney won the Best Floral Display category. Ballymote was named as Best Intercity Halt and Collooney was awarded Best Unmanned Halt. Blackrock was named Best DART Station and Skerries won Best Suburban Halt for the ninth year in a row. Malahide was awarded the Community Involvement prize and Arklow collected the Innovation Award for the second year running.

Speaking at the awards, IÉ Managing Director Joe Meagher congratulated Mallow for its overall win, saying ‘it’s great to see a new station reaching the top in these awards, firstly because it shows that a determined effort has been put in to improve standards, and secondly because it shows other stations that it can be done, and so leads to greater standards all round’.

The remainder of this article appears in IRRS Journal number 157, published June 2005.

Copyright © 2005 by Irish Railway Record Society Ltd.
Revised: August 23, 2005 .