The railway built Tuam once, it can do it again
PROPERTY
Property insights by Johnny Gannon, Fair Deal Property
I GREW up on the Ballygaddy Road watching freight trains carry their cargo up and down the line.
Long before that again my great-grandfather worked horse-drawn floats from the station, distributing goods around the town, porter from St. James' Gate among them.
The railway made Tuam. It brought trade, services and people, and the town boomed around it. The last passenger train ran on April 5 of 1976, the freight disappeared in the years that followed, and since then the car and the motorway have carried everything the railway once did.
In November the Western Rail Corridor, Athenry to Claremorris through Tuam, was secured as a targeted priority in the revised National Development Plan: over €200 million, construction from 2028, delivery by 2030, enabling works beginning shortly.
Because the line was never legally abandoned, no planning permission is required. The Department of Transport and the European Investment Bank are now finalising the business case. Over €6 million is already earmarked for redeveloping our historic station building.
This is a passenger and freight project, connecting Ballina, Westport, Castlebar and Claremorris through Tuam and Athenry to Galway city, and opening a direct freight route from Mayo industry to Foynes and Waterford.
Sceptics cite a 2019 report questioning value for money, but the case has transformed since: the Limerick–Foynes freight line completes this year, and national policy now targets regular services at 120kmh on rural routes.
What does it mean for Tuam? Everything my great-grandfather's generation understood: connectivity is trade, and trade is prosperity.
A rail link makes Tuam genuinely commutable for Galway city at a fraction of city prices, precisely as newly zoned and serviced land comes on stream.
Property markets price in infrastructure from the moment it becomes credible, not the day it opens; November was Tuam's credibility moment. Students commuting to the universities, workers into the city, tourists north to Mayo, freight south to the ports, and our town back at the junction of it all.
The railway built this town once. Tuam in its railway years was a booming town, a hub of trade and commerce for north Galway, and this line can be the key point of transformation in the future development of the town.
Given the chance, the railway will help build it again. It is time for Tuam to recover its past glories.
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