Into The West hail draft rail review as ‘new dawn for rail in Derry’

The report was commissioned in April 2021 by Ministers north and south of the border, with a remit to consider how the island’s rail network could promote sustainable connectivity, enhance regional accessibility, and support balanced regional development.

A public consultation was held in early 2022 as part of the report’s development – and of the 7,000 responses received, the greatest number came from the north-west of the island.

The report was finalised at the end of 2022, but its public release has been delayed by the absence of an Executive at Stormont.

The document was finally released on Tuesday, July 25, in draft form, as part of an additional round of public consultation.

The draft report makes a number of recommendations for the improvement of rail in the Derry area and across the north-west of the island. It’s four main recommendations for the Derry area are:

1) Restoring the Derry-Portadown route - via Strabane, Omagh and Dungannon.

- This would provide a direct rail link from the north-west to Dublin, as well as also becoming the main route between Derry and Belfast with significantly faster journey times than at present.

2) Linking Derry and Letterkenny by Rail.

3) Restoring rail to Limavady.

- Via the creation of a spur line into the town from the existing Derry-Belfast route.

4) Acknowledgement that there should be an additional station to the east of Derry

- The report included a passing suggestion of Ballykelly for this, but made no firm recommendation. Other locations that have been under consideration recently for this additional stop are Strathfoyle and City of Derry Airport.

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Chairman of Into The West, Steve Bradley, commented: “We’re delighted that the reintroduction of rail from Derry southwards to Strabane and Portadown and westwards to Letterkenny has not only been recommended in this rail report – but is also ranked as the highest priority reopening on the island.

"We’ve been campaigning heavily for the reintroduction of this North West Rail Corridor, and held a series of packed public events on it in Derry, Letterkenny, Strabane, Omagh and Dungannon last year.

"Reopening these two routes will together revolutionise public transport within the North-West City Region and help to bind Derry, Letterkenny and Strabane closer together – whilst also offering direct rail access to the island’s main economic and tourism hubs in Dublin and Belfast.

"Into The West has also been campaigning for rail to be brought back to Limavady, and we organised a public meeting there on the issue only last month – so we’re delighted that it has made the cut as a recommendation too.

"The timescales for delivery of these proposals are quite long – in the region of 15-20 years – but that is not unexpected for such large scale infrastructure projects.

"So whilst we’d prefer to see them being implemented much sooner, if a direct rail service between Derry and Dublin is finally in place by the middle of the next decade, then that can be considered a real success story for our city.”

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Mr Bradley did, however, highlight a number of concerns Into The West has regarding the absence of certain other proposals within the report.

“We are disappointed that the idea of a multi-purpose rail halt at City of Derry Airport/Eglinton has been excluded, as well as the possibility of a rail freight hub at Foyle Port – especially as an inter-city railway line crosses right beside both of those facilities.

"And we have concerns regarding other parts of the north-west of the island being overlooked too. Under the current recommendations in this draft report, Fermanagh will be left as the only county on the island to not have any rail at all, which would be unacceptable.

"The report has also rejected reopening a rail corridor from Sligo northwards through Donegal to Letterkenny and Derry, whilst fast-growing Mid-Ulster towns like Cookstown are also being left out of the proposed new rail network.

"We will be using the current consultation process to raise all of these as proposals which we believe should be revisited for inclusion in the final report, and we will be seeking to galvanise public support behind that.”

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Mr Bradley concluded: “There is a lot of detail within the report that we still need to digest. But not withstanding the concerns highlighted above, we feel that overall the proposals which relate to Derry are both welcome and significant - and if delivered will usher in a new dawn for infrastructure within our city region.

"However, after years of campaigning to get these rail reopenings onto the public agenda, the hard work starts now - to get politicians and civil servants to back the recommendations with the funding and decisions required to take them forward.

"And that is made doubly hard by the absence of a functioning government at Stormont right now. The public in Derry have played a key role so far in supporting our campaigns and securing their inclusion within this key government document – and we are very grateful for all of their support over the years.

"We will all need to work even harder together now to keep pushing these proposals forward so that the promise of a new dawn for rail in our city can finally be delivered in the years ahead.”

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