West=On=Track -News

Western Rail Corridor announcement coming very soon, says Connolly

Tuam Herald - Thursday 31st August 2006

A POSITIVE announcement on the Western Rail Corridor is imminent and Tuam could be back on the rail map a lot sooner than anyone expected, it is being claimed this week by a local politician.

Vice Chairman of the Inter County Rail Committee Cllr. Michael Connolly has stated that he believes that a fresh announcement on the time schedule for the reopening of the Western Rail corridor is now imminent and an announcement will be made in the next two weeks.

The Tuam area Fianna Fail councillor states that this will be great news for Tuam, Ballyglunin, Milltown, and all of North Galway.

As a long-time campaigner for the reopening of the track from Colloney to Athenry, he said that some of the projects in Transport 21 were almost sure to run into time delays because of objections, CPOs and other factors, but the reopening of the line was always going to be more straight forward by virtue of the fact that the line is in State ownership.

Major advantage

This ownership, Cllr. Connolly said, was always going be a major advantage to the Government in making the decision to fast forward the reopening of this most valuable piece of transport infrastructure.

This will also have the knock-on effect of getting cars off the N17 sooner than anticipated and help to relieve the ever-growing problem with traffic in Claregalway and other approaches to Galway city.

"This will be further evidence of the Government's commitment to re-introduction of a train services to the West, as a bimodal approach to transport is and will be required to solving our traffic problems," Cllr. Connolly concludes.