Exciting ‘Metro North-West’ rail initiative launched for Donegal, Derry and Tyrone

Rail campaigners ‘Into The West’ are launching an ambitious new proposal to radically improve rail across the North-West of the Island.

Branded as ‘Metro North-West’, their idea takes the existing rail network that runs between Derry, Coleraine and Portrush; expands it in ways that are already progressing following the All-Island Rail Strategy (i.e. towards Letterkenny, Strabane, Omagh and Limavady) and then enhances it further by adding a number of new stations – many of which are already under consideration (e.g. City of Derry Airport, Manorcunningham).

READ NEXT: Concern over ‘disruption’ caused by bus route not reaching Fanad Lighthouse

This would create a new regional rail ‘brand’ operating within and alongside the wider rail network - stretching from Letterkenny in the west to Coleraine/Portrush in the east and Omagh in the south, all converging on Derry city in the centre.

This new regional sub-network is branded as ‘Metro North-West’, and envisages a greatly enhanced passenger experience for rail users from the proposed stations in Donegal, including services every 30mins, seven days a week, from 7am to at least 11pm; A ‘Pay As you Go’ system (with Tap in, Tap out payment), Ticketing & timetables integrated with local bus networks, Improved on-board cycle space and fully electrified routes/trains (for quicker, cleaner & quieter journeys).

The idea takes its inspiration from similar ‘Metro’ networks which have recently been introduced in England and Wales. These networks take existing rail services, improve them in obvious ways, and then rebrand them into coherent new regional sub-networks – often without requiring major sums of money to get started. They continue to operate within and alongside their wider rail network, but also have their own distinct regionalised identity and branding.

The Welsh government introduced three such networks last year within the wider Transport for Wales network = North Wales Metro (connecting Wrexham, Bangor and Holyhead), South Wales Metro (linking Cardiff, Newport and the Welsh Valleys), and the West Wales Metro (connecting Swansea, Carmarthen and Milford Haven).

The largest population centre covered by the North Wales Metro is the Wrexham Borough Council area – which with 135,000 residents is smaller than the Derry-Strabane council district. Meanwhile in England a ‘Mid-Cornwall Metro’ has also been established using the same principle - taking existing services, improving them in sensible ways, and branding and promoting them as a single regional network within the wider rail system. The largest town served by this new Mid-Cornwall Metro is Newquay, who’s population of 24,500 is almost identical to both Letterkenny and Coleraine.

Into The West are promoting the Metro North-West concept as an essential solution to the challenges that Letterkenny and other towns across this region are facing – such as poor connectivity, growing road congestion, economic underdevelopment and university expansion.

Chair of Into The West, Steve Bradley, explained “When people hear the word ‘Metro’, they probably think of expensive and complicated networks like the London Underground. But that’s not what the Metro North-West proposal is about. Instead it’s an exciting and relatively low-cost way to tackle a number of key challenges facing towns across this region. Firstly it seeks to address the extremely limited presence of rail here, and the very slow progress to-date in changing that.

The 2024 All-Island Rail Strategy agreed rail should return to Donegal, Tyrone and Limavady. And there is also now recognition that having only one station for the Derry area is insufficient. The problem is that despite all of this, addressing these issues has been made the lowest priority by the transport authorities in Dublin and Belfast.

The Derry-Portadown route will reconnect the North-West to Dublin by rail, but isn’t scheduled to reopen until 2045 at the earliest. And the plan is that Letterkenny won’t see rail again until after that route has been completed. Which not only means it will be well after 2050 before trains come back to Donegal, but it also puts the county’s rail future in the hands of Stormont – which is skint and unstable. So the first key challenge is to not only tackle the poor rail provision across the north-west, but crucially also the low priority that the authorities have placed on doing so.

Secondly – towns in this region face significant challenges which Metro North-West would help address. Letterkenny has been blighted by serious road congestion for years - and as the town continues to grow it is clear that building more and bigger roads alone won’t fix it. Alternative ways to get in and out of Letterkenny are therefore urgently required.

Similarly Derry has experienced a notable increase in its traffic in the last few years, which will only get worse as its economy and population increase. The three key towns across the north-west - Derry, Coleraine and Letterkenny - all have universities, two of which are expanding rapidly - so the limited ability of staff and students to access campuses by public transport is also a significant barrier and a source of further road and parking chaos. Metro North-West would therefore give students and everyone else across the region an alternative way to travel for work, study, health, entertainment, tourism or sport.

Finally – Metro North-West aims to completely change the conversation about transport across this island. At the moment the decision makers on both sides of the border think that infrastructure is primarily about getting people to and from Dublin and Belfast. That ignores the huge amount of travel that occurs daily WITHIN the North-West City Region, especially on a cross-border basis.

We need to alter the mindset that everything must always be about Dublin or Belfast, and recognise that this region has significant localised and internal journeys which generate problems on our roads because they can’t be fulfilled by pubic transport”.

Mr Bradley continued: “The Metro North-West concept aims to tackle these challenges by creating a new localised and meaningful ‘brand’ for rail across our region. The concept starts with the limited rail that already exists here, expands it in ways that have already been agreed in the All-Ireland Rail Strategy, and then enhances it further by adding additional stops – many of which are already under consideration. It takes its inspiration from similar Metro networks in places like Wales and Cornwall, covering regions with similar or smaller populations.

If Cornwall can justify a branded Metro network when its largest town is only the size of Letterkenny, then why couldn’t it also happen here? And because the Metro North-West concept is largely about branding and frequency – and takes advantage of rail improvements that are already due to progress anyway - it doesn’t require huge sums of additional funding beyond what is already being planned. What it does do instead is create a reason to expedite those plans – and ensure that projects in the North-West receive a higher priority within the island’s transport plans. Because every individual improvement to rail here will no longer be able to be treated as an isolated project, but instead as another core piece of the much larger Metro North-West jigsaw”.

Into The West have created a short video to help explain and promote the Metro North-West concept, which can be viewed on their website at www.IntoTheWest.org/MetroNorthWest .

They are also holding a series of public meetings across the region to discuss Metro North-West, the All-Island Rail Strategy and the case for better rail in Donegal, Derry and Tyrone. The dates and locations for these are as follows: Derry: Monday 16th February, 7pm (Holywell Trust, 10-14 Bishop Street, BT48 6PW); Letterkenny: Wednesday 18th February, 7pm (Station House Hotel, Lwr Main Street, F92 ERV1); Strabane : Monday 23rd February, 7pm (Strabane Library, 1 Railway Street, BT82 8EF); Omagh: Tuesday 24th February, 7pm (Strule Arts Centre, Townhall Square, BT78 1BL): Coleraine Weds 4th March, 7pm (Causeway Rural Urban Network, 1 Foundry Mews, BT52 1XH) and Limavady: Thursday 5th March, 7pm (Roe Valley Arts Centre, 24 Main Street, BT49 0FJ). Anyone interested in finding out more about the Metro North-West concept and the campaign to restore and improve rail throughout the region is encouraged to attend these free meetings.