NI Railways - Future

Future

The development of railways in Northern Ireland has been linked to the future economic growth of the region, and as a way of reducing the levels of road congestion. One of the major challenges which NIR has faced is the limited number of trains available for service at peak times. The limited fleet size has led to services being cancelled due to failures or delays. This can lead to widespread disruption across the network and potentially a huge loss in revenue to Translink. Upon its establishment in 1998, the Northern Ireland Assembly put in place an investment programme costing £100 million to bring about major improvements. This programme saw various projects including the purchase of the new 3000 Class trains, the complete relaying of track on the Belfast-Larne line and the construction of a new maintenance depot. Following completion of this, as part of its long-term investment programme for NIR Translink conducted what it termed the "Strategic Rail Review" in 2004, an independent review of rail services to determine its funding request under the Comprehensive Spending Review. This report determined that so-called "lesser used lines" were an important and economically viable part of the total network, and that investment should be consistent rather than in the "stop-go" manner of previous years.

A debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly on 14 May 2007 raised several proposals as to how the railway network could be improved:

• Reopening of existing but closed infrastructure, notably the Lisburn-Antrim line
• Improvement of the infrastructure on the Belfast-Londonderry line through, at the very least, the installation of passing loops to allow service frequency to be increased, and upgrading the track to allow higher speeds.

Proposals from external pressure groups have advocated the protection of former routes, where the track has been lifted but the trackbed remains intact, to enable these to be reinstated for commuter traffic as an alternative to increased road building.

In October 2007, following the CSR which provided funding allocation to the Northern Ireland Executive, the Department for Regional Development announced its draft budget. Conor Murphy, the Regional Development Minister, stated that approximately £137 million could be allocated from for investment in the railways for the period 2008-2011.

In June 2008, Brian Guckian, an independent transport researcher from Dublin, presented a wide-ranging proposal to Translink for a £460 million expansion of the network called Northern Ireland Network Enhancement (NINE). This proposes the return of the network to several towns that have not had access to rail services for many years; the main part of the proposal would see the Londonderry-Portadown line re-opened, which would link Omagh, Strabane and Dungannon, with branches to Enniskillen and Armagh. In addition, this plan would see the re-introduction of services into the centre of Newry through a short spur from Goraghwood, and the introduction of the long-proposed rail link to Belfast International Airport via the Lisburn-Antrim line. This proposal has been tied with the cross-border link to Donegal, as it would potentially allow travel from Letterkenny to Dublin via Omagh in approximately three and a half hours.