Look at the picture above. It is from Manor Park Homes’ glossy brochure for the Barnwell, Hansfield, housing development in Ongar, north-west Dublin. You will notice they boast about a rail service offering a peak-time frequency of every 15 minutes?
All well and good, you might think. However, assuming such a service does transpire on September 2nd (Irish Rail’s promised introduction of the Docklands-Dunboyne rail link) if you live in Hansfield you will have to be content with watching the shiny new trains whizz past, as they will not be stopping at the newly built station.
Why? Well, it seems Manor Park Homes and Menolly Homes have not provided a planned access road to Hansfield Station, meaning the trains will pass through like it is not there.
First we have ghost estates, now ghost train stations.
We’ve more ghosts than a Doris Stokes séance.
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18 comments:
great little country GM
So much buck passing and thoughtlessness goes on…in boom building era developers build large estates for young couples- but the Dept of Education never monitored these with plans for primary schools, or even insisted the developers help build schools . And then huge protests ensued and crisis talks with Dept of Education when their children reached primary age. I thought then Dept Education would have wakened up and finally started intelligent plotting where all schools would be but no. I now hear that estates that lacked primary schools 10 years ago – and now in distress again as children leave primary – for non existent secondary schools!
This post is similar- should have been obvious to Irish rail 2 years ago that those developers were in trouble-and wouldn’t be finish that road. So the top brass at IR should have ahd talks, tendered for someone else to finish the road. Doesn’t matter that those developers were concentrated and paid to do it. They NEVER will e doing it now- so stop dreaming they’ll start it soon. The opening of the line is 2 weeks away- why was a new building not found for that road 6-9 months ago?? Sue the original developers or their liquidator later. Irish Rail is providing as service to US- the people.
However all the above would require someone at Irish Rail TAKING RESPONSIBILITY, and showing a bit of Forward thinking- qualities very absent in Irish public life.
It would be illuminating to check the Irish rail website to see if they are selling tickets for that stop- I guess they are – Irish officialdom gets away with so much by pretending all is normal and on schedule.
Froma 4th Aug 2020 press release form Irish rail, but I picked it up on:
http://www.railusers.ie/forum/showthread.php?t=12633
“Iarnród Éireann has confirmed that the new Dunboyne (M3) to Dublin commuter rail service will commence this September.
Construction is now complete and driver training has commenced. Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey TD today joined with Iarnród Éireann on one of the first driver training runs. The new line will branch off the Maynooth line at Clonsilla and serve Dunboyne and M3 Parkway Station, a major park and ride station at the interchange with the M3 north of Dunboyne.
All trackwork, signalling, station and bridge works are now complete.A third new station will be provided at Hansfield, a developer led station, providing infrastructure for the Hansfield strategic development zone (SDZ). This station will be subsequently opened when a new link road to allow access to the station is completed by the developer.
Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey TD said "This new commuter rail service is going to make a huge difference to Meath based commuters. People deserve reliable public transport options and that’s what this new service will provide here in Meath. I have no doubt that it will be a very popular service. This is a major milestone in the delivery of phase one of the much needed Navan rail line.”
”The development and construction of the Navan rail line is a key part of the Government’s infrastructure investment programme. Even in these difficult times the Government continues to invest in world-class transport infrastructure. This investment will create jobs and ideally position us to take full advantage of the economic recovery."
CIÉ and Iarnród Éireann Chairman Dr John Lynch said “this new commuter route next month, will make daily commuting so much faster and easier for thousands of commuters from Co Meath and beyond. With the M3 Parkway Station, customers from a wide catchment area will be able to eliminate congestion completely from their daily journey, by switching to rail before encountering the notorious bottlenecks from Clonee to the city.”
* Describing the station as ‘developer-led’ is no excuse for this cop-out- they are developing it in association with IR, who should therefore take some responsibility for this. And our ever reliable Minister . Try his site www.NoelDempsey.ie or here’s an email :
getintouch@noeldempsey.ie to air your views.
That phrase "only in Ireland" comes to mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTo7VHFvu6o&feature=av2e
nice little song from The Specials for all of those living in Ghost towns (sorry GM, any excuse to introduce your readers to some decent sounds!)
I remember once fining a copy of the old magazine "Dublin Opinion" and they had a whole page of small cartoons, each about some messed up situation, much like smaller versions of this train station story. The caption to each one was "Ah, sure it'll do".
Should be the official motto for the State.
Two words cart and horse. Another Irish past time.
I wonder how would you value a train station? (If NAMA is looming, that is) Those EU people must be really scratching their collective heads. First houses that no one could or would live in, now a train station with no access. Great comedy.....
No wonder those nice people at Standard and Poor are rather sceptical, eh?
Yes Anna, making a road a couple of hundred metres long can't be that difficult in relation to a railway from Dublin to Dunboyne! BTW I got notification for a comment from you earlier put it didn't publish. Might be a size thing? Tried putting it up from the notification but Blogger won't have it.
Thank you for indulging us with that one Ella.
Dakota, Laurence. You couldn't make it up, as they say.
Hey, boy. Would you mind telling us, what you are trying to sell with these tirades of yours? You see, when somebody's complaining day in, day out about how bad everything is and what a bad place Ireland is, he should at some time stop to think, how his ideal Ireland would be, or what his political aims are.
You haven't yet told us, what you are trying to sell, or where the beef is. You sometimes boast about being "anti-Fascist", but anybody can see that that is just window-dressing to make you look like the good guy. You deceive nobody else, except perhaps other anguished youths.
Any fifteen-year-old can be against everything. Especially your anti-Irish-language stance is the obvious last resort of the ignorant and lazy: denying that something his highness was too big a shot to learn at school could have any worth, or that people who (unlike you) get off their asses to really make a difference (that would be us, the Irish-language activists) could be doing anything worthwhile.
Any fifteen-year-old could do what you are doing, and write what you are writing. Grow up today, and find something worthwhile and positive to contribute to your society. And no, writing a stupid and tedious blog does not qualify.
Oh well GM it's been great while it lasted. Obviously you'll not only have to quit the blog immediately but also I'd imagine a move to the Irish speaking part of the country would be in order. You might actually meet some of the true Irish visionaries out Rosmuc way and be finally convinced regarding the sad empty shell of a life you've been leading with all us 15 year olds and i WOULDN'T BE AT ALL SURPRISED if while out there, pondering it all under the true Irish sky at night - you might just also realise that you'd make a bloody great priest - we need them and you're always bangin on about Maynooth. G'wan ahh g'wan - PB
LOL, Ponyboy. There's gratitude, eh?
@ Panu, myself I don't find anything incorrect about railing against the non -access to a train station!
Don't get me started on the Irish, as it happens it was my fav subject at school, but how I wish it had not been compulsory, 3 of us were interested in studying it for the leaving cert, the other 30 were not. there were no winners here.
GM is not selling anything, it's his blog and if he has a beef about something then that's the forum to do it. I'd say why don't you bog off, I'm sure there is a suitable site for you somewhere, what with bible now being available as Gaeilge.
another thing it's only when people complain and demonstrate that change is brought about.
@PonyBoy ha ha ha!
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
George Bernard Shaw
Fair play to the Gombeen Man for pointing out the innumerable failings and foibles of our little isle, crushed under the jackboot of the Roman church, crippled by hordes of immoral political dunces, and wallowing in a self-induced delirium of "independence" and "freedom".
The last hope for Ireland was Parnell, for the gobshites that came after him led to nothing but division and disorder. Partition, and the resulting exodus from the state of many "protestants", was akin to cutting off the head of a chicken. It may run around for a bit, but the focus, the work ethic, is gone.
(Not that I'm looking at things through rose tinted glasses. I've met many sectarian, bigoted, and thieving protestants growing up too).
Anyway, the Gaelgoirs would probably denounce me as one not fit to comment, as I'm currently holed up in the hated England. (Where I enjoy free doctors visits and free nursery schools for my children).
"When the Irishman is found outside of Ireland in another environment, he very often becomes a respected man. The economic and intellectual conditions that prevail in his own country do not permit the development of individuality. No one who has any self-respect stays in Ireland, but flees afar as though from a country that has undergone the visitation of an angered Jove."
- James Joyce
I am appalled at the Negativity and nastiness here - not in things like GN website Highlights tho: It’s Sneering from southern Irish born people NOT at what is wrong- but at Solutions or people who propose them : EG Irish Times main blog has a blogger ‘Eddie the Aggravator;’; who Delights in having a go at anyone who proposes a reasonable solution to the blog masters questions. The nastiness, ‘having a go ’ and bad manners here bewilders and shocks me- like immature school kids wanting to upset another person .
BUT having a go at those pr Proposing Solutions is only a part of it!- Irish people v often DENY there are problems. If you Admitted your country Had problems then you might have to try to find solutions- so another great feature of life here is “All is fine, Even IF we’re different we get the same results as other nations –(!! See example below) -or other nations are just as bad ( or worse!) “!
A Big hurdle here tho is Ignoring what’ s wrong- and that why I Like this blog.
Something for the All Is Fine brigade: Like all UK/NI people I was banned from donating blood here 8 yrs ago ( blood board had decided there was a risk – But only a theoretical one- of transmission of BSE) so they lost 10% (TEN) of donors overnight.
I used this as a subject on a work presentation training course and said I still give in Belfast Blood Board HQ . ALSO the board there said Most of their supply was Not walk-in donors like me, but from going to a big employer / Village hall/ College Every week.
My workmate said ‘ But we have that there – we Once organized a bunch of us to go from the office to the nearby blood board.!’ NOT good enough.
There’s A huge difference between a few workers persuading their employer to get 3 hours off on a Once off basis- UK/NI blood service has teams that tour the country 50 weeks pa. But our stocks are well down- and no-one demands that kind of constant outside collection service. Ireland has no need to congratulate itself on its blood service – and that’s just 1 example.
YET I was at a ‘Young Scientist Expo’ at RDS a few years ago, where a young girl had done a study of the blood board saying the reason they didn’t get enough blood was that the Few blood service offices didn’t open long enough hours!. She was stunned when I told her other countries have constant traveling collection teams.
BTW a site called Gombeen Nation is set up to Bury Gombeens - not to praise them.
"First we have ghost estates, now ghost train stations"
Not an entirely new concept. They had a few of those in Berlin for a while.
MPH seem to be going for the "train spotter" market ? Then again depriving residents of access to Irish rail might really be doing them an awful big favour really.
@Netgeek 13:47 Maybe so but it's easier to commute around Berlin, they can afford to have them there.
@Panu 02:57 I think this is a great site and GM has his finger on the pulse of a nation here, lol. Panu, theres always McDonalds.....Have a good day.
@Laurence 09:14 Totally agree.
@Laurence
Nice to see sanity's in the majority, on Gombeen Nation at least! Thanks folks ;-)
GM, thank you very much for pointing out this (yet another) total ridiculous farce of a transport/infrastructure mechanism that is/is not (I'm still deciding if I should actually call it one) in place in this nation of ours. "Only in…..", yet again.
@panu, "GOMBEEN" - the clue is in the blog title there! I also don't see any link to PayPal or similar on this site, nor is it a subscription service, so there's definitely nothing "for sale" here and "the beef" can be found on a certain four legged animal that "moos".
I'm only taking the Mick there, but seriously, panu, I'm totally aghast at your own very negative - to use your own word – "tirade". All that GM is doing is expressing his own opinion/take (in a very good-humoured, way in my opinion), on the stupid things that go on in this country that he's either observed himself or has read in news articles that are quite readily available everywhere for anyone else to read, if you open any newspaper in this country! So if you're gonna attack him, you may as well write the same to every newspaper editor in Ireland for reporting them in the first place – are they to be seen as complaining, money-seeking, vegetarian, 'tiraders' as well?
However if reading this very well informed and might I also add "finalist in the 2010 Irish Blog Awards for best political blog" website is not to your taste or humour, then I would suggest that you click on that little cross at the top right hand side of the screen and close it ! I thought that one of the things that us Irish as a nation are supposed to be famous for is our great sense of humour? Where's yours?
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