Oranmore railway station

Galway Suburban Rail (Planned)
Legend Galway Ceannt Oranmore (open 2011) Athenry

Oranmore railway station is a planned railway station intended to serve the town of Oranmore and its surrounding areas in County Galway.

The original Oranmore station was opened in 1851 by the MGWR on its route from Dublin to Galway. The station was open until the rationalisation of the railway network by Córas Iompair Éireann saw it closed in 1963, with the building sold as a private residence.^[1]

As part of the Western Railway Corridor project, intended to link several intercity lines to the west of Ireland, a new station will be built to serve Oranmore. This is intended to serve as a park and ride for commuters into Galway.^[2] As a consequence of this, the old station will not be rebuilt; instead, the new station will located at Garraun.^[3] Once completed, Oranmore will serve as an intermediate stop both for services to Galway from Limerick, and for the proposed new Galway Suburban Rail services from Athenry. It is speculated that the new station will remove as many as 65,000 cars from the roads into Galway each day, this being the amount of cars that travel from Oranmore to Galway each day, according to Noel Grealish, TD.^[4] Oranmore was not included in the initial opening of Phase 1 of the Western Rail Corridor, but is now planned for opening in 2011.^[5]

A tender notice appears to have been issued for the new station.^[6]

Preceding station	Iarnród Éireann			Following station
		From 2011
Athenry		Commuter Galway Suburban Rail		Galway Ceannt
		Intercity Limerick-Galway

References

1. ^ Oranmore station - eiretrains
2. ^ Oranmore Park and Ride takes step forward - Galway Independent, 05/04/06
3. ^ Call for clarity on Oranmore Railway Station - Galway Independent, 07/01/09
4. ^ Oranmore train station could remove 65 thousand commuters - Galway News, 07/01/09
5. ^ Oranmore station on track for next year
6. ^ [1] - Unearthore.com entry 06/01/2011