IT’S been almost six months since the Enterprise rail service between Belfast and Dublin extended its timetable to provide hourly train journeys between the two cities. As one of the main transport routes along the east coast of the island, commuters rely heavily on the rail network as a means of facilitating both trade and leisure.
The service now runs fifteen times during weekdays – between 6am and 9pm – and eight times a day during weekends. Enterprise received nearly €25 million of funding from the Irish Department for Transport in one of the first manifestations of the Shared Island Fund.
Government ministers on both sides of the border have been enthusiastic about what the new service could mean for intra-island cooperation. Speaking in the wake of increased timetable operations in October, then Taoiseach Simon Harris called it “really, really important for the all island economy, for the island of Ireland, from a public transport point of view”.
Former Northern Ireland Infrastructure Minister John O’Dowd said that the expanded service “offers opportunities to drive jobs and growth, stimulate development and regeneration and boost access to services and education… [It will also] help decarbonise transport and encourage behavioural shift to public transport”.
Environmental impact concerns have been at the heart of both Translink NI and Iarnród Éireann’s lobbying around Enterprise. Yesterday, a spokesperson for Translink said that boosting the economy and meeting climate change targets justified increasing the number of daily trains, despite any potential breach of planning rules by the service.
Translink revealed that they had been asked by the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland to justify granting retrospective consent for breaching a condition that the number of services would not exceed more than eight journeys each way.
This, they said, was one of the main contingencies for receiving nearly £340 million to open a new state-of-the-art train station at Grand Central in Belfast. Residents in the nearby Sandy Row area of the city have claimed an increased level of noise and a deterioration in the quality of life. Residents in the Co. Armagh town of Lurgan – which the rail network passes through – have also claimed disruption as a result of increased level crossing closures and higher car traffic.
See More: Enterprise, Iarnród Éireann, Translink
