Rail Network Under Threat In Northern Ireland

International Railway Journal, Sept, 2000

WHILE billions of pounds are being committed to revitalise railways in mainland Britain, the 340km broad-gauge network in the province of Northern Ireland faces an uncertain future that could lead to at least part of it being mothballed.

A task force considering four options for the future of Northern Ireland Railways (NIR) is due to report soon. But Eurotrack Ireland, a company trying to arrange a finance package to privatise NIR, believes the task force has already made up its mind. "The options do not include privatisation despite previous government commitments, and we think they have chosen the option to mothball part of the network," commented Mr Bob Pue, a former marketing manager with NIR, who now is now chairman of Eurotrack Ireland.

The task force consists of civil servants and representatives of Translink, which controls public transport in the province. The other options are: funding to upgrade and develop the network; bringing the network up to basic standards; and closing virtually everything except the Northern Ireland section of the Belfast-Dublin line, which is one of the European Union's TransEuropean Networks corridors.

Background to the present, rather negative, situation is a report by consultants, AD Little, which made 123 separate recommendations costing [pound]183 million over 10 years in March following a number of accidents in earlier years. NIR currently receives an annual subsidy of about [pound]10 million and makes an operating loss of [pound]1.5 million. It operates only passenger services as the limited amount of cross-border freight is handled by Irish Rail (IE). The planned level of railway investment in Northern Ireland for the next two years is [pound]27.1 million in 2000-1 and [pound]10.2 million in 2001-2

Like its former big-brother railway on the mainland, NIR has suffered from considerable under-investment for decades. Crunch time has now arrived and the stark choice is: invest or die. Whether Eurotrack Ireland will be able to persuade financiers and other backers to contribute to a rescue package remains to be seen, but at least the company is thinking positively.

"We want privatisation because it is only private sources that can produce the finance to develop NIR rather than just keeping it in a holding pattern, which is probably as much as the government ran do given competing priorities," Pue told IRJ.

Among Eurotrack Ireland's plans are to convert the network to standard gauge with the exception of the Belfast-Dublin line, take back and develop freight using rail ferries between Lane and Stranraer to create a direct rail route into Europe, re-open lines previously closed, and invest in new diesel railcars. Since the track is currently in need of replacement, the gauge change would involve little, if any, extra cost, said Eurotrack Ireland.

One thing in Eurotrack's favour is that the man who will make the ultimate decision on the future of NIR, Mr Gregory Campbell, Minister of Regional Development, has already said he supports retaining the network. The question is: at what level?