Rail Freight Services
Freight services ran regularly on the Limerick to Claremorris section until the mid 1990s. However with the closure of the Asahi factory near Ballina, regular freight services north of Athenry ceased in 1997. Fertiliser trains from Foynes continued to use the line as far as Athenry until 2000 and bulk cement trains from the Irish Cements Ltd Castlemungret factory near Limerick until 2001, when the line ceased to have any regular traffic. In 2002 the section from Athenry to Claremorris was severed at Athenry during re-signalling of the Galway line. Container freight from Mayo has returned to the railway since 2006. Coillte, together with Mayo Industries Group export several thousand container loads via Waterford port (Ireland's best rail-connected port).
Read more about this topic: Western Railway Corridor
Famous quotes containing the words rail, freight and/or services:
“We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“These have been wonderful years. How many happy, happy times we have traveled about together! Day and night, in stage coaches, on freight trains, over the mountains and across the prairies, hungry and tired, we have wandered. The work was sometimes hard and discouraging but those were happy and useful years.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“Working women today are trying to achieve in the work world what men have achieved all along—but men have always had the help of a woman at home who took care of all the other details of living! Today the working woman is also that woman at home, and without support services in the workplace and a respect for the work women do within and outside the home, the attempt to do both is taking its toll—on women, on men, and on our children.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)