Astonishing news

The Western Rail Corridor has attracted rather fewer passengers than the, er, “business case” proposed. Well I never. I wonder whether there is any news about the religious affiliations of the Bishop of Rome.

A recent enquiry had me revisiting my page about the Tralee Ship Canal, another major waste of public money.

But governments (or at least their civil servants) never give in: it seems that the present crowd is determined to build an unnecessarily lavish road in the United Kingdom. Perhaps it would be cheaper to move the Limerick–Galway railway line up there. [The Alternative A5 Alliance could add that idea to the Wikipedia entry on the A5, which doesn’t seem to reflect their views.]

While responsibility for waterways has moved from Craggy Island to the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport, it is entirely possible that existing policies will be implemented. It’s impossible to have any confidence that reason will prevail and that the planned Clones Canal will be dumped, although I continue to hope that there is an influential economist somewhere in the department.

Meanwhile, the Clones Dudes are trying hard to get people to invest in waterways businesses: they organised visits to some of the surviving businesses along the Erne and the Shannon–Erne Waterway and they’re having a workshop on 23 June 2011 to tell people how to set up boat-repair, marina and water activity businesses.

Still, at least they’ve stopped referring to it as the Ulster Canal: they’ve now adopted the term Clones Canal, which suggests that they’ve accepted that the thing will never get beyond Clones. Perhaps there is a limit to the willingness even of Irish governments to waste public money (or ECB money) on pointless projects.