Displaying items by tag: Ryder Cup

6th December 2019

SFPC Press for Reopening of Foynes Port Rail Link

Shannon Foynes Port Company (SFPC) has called for the reopening of the rail-link to the Port of Foynes, the main terminal on the Shannon Estuary where above AFLOAT adds a project cargo of wind turbine blades where discharged from the vessel earlier this year.

Since the announcement in October by Transport Minister, Shane Ross TD, of the €450m project to upgrade the N69 between Limerick and Foynes by 2026, pressure has been growing for funding to be provided for the currently mothballed rail line to Foynes Port to be re-opened.

The port on the Shannon Estuary, reports Fleet Transport, handles 10 million tonnes of cargo annually, is currently constricted by poor transport links to the rest of Ireland, but despite this 19% growth was achieved last year. The rail link would require less investment, estimated at €25m (2015 prices) – around 5% of the cost of the road. It potentially could be re-opened several years sooner if work were to commence promptly. A big advantage over the road scheme is that all land along the railway is already owned by CIE.

Shannon Foynes Port Company (SFPC) have been pressing for the re-opening of the line for many years now and were awarded EU funding to carry out a structural survey of it. Prior to this SFPC had arranged vegetation clearance in early 2015 to enable structural surveys to be carried out to the TEN-T link to the deep water port.

For further reading on calls to reopen the rail-link, click here.

Published in Shannon Estuary

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Competitions

The most significant events for the Half Ton Class has been the annual Half Ton Cup which was sailed under the IOR rules until 1993. More recently this has been replaced with the Half Ton Classics Cup. The venue of the event moved from continent to continent with over-representation on French or British ports. In later years the event is held biennially. Initially, it was proposed to hold events in Ireland, Britain and France by rotation. However, it was the Belgians who took the ball and ran with it. The Class is now managed from Belgium.