The Western Rail Corridor
Athenry is the crossroads of the west's railways. The Dublin to Galway line runs east to west through the station, and north to south runs the line the campaigners call the Western Rail Corridor, built piece by piece by Victorian companies from Limerick up to Sligo. Trains run again on the southern half through Gort to Ennis; north of Athenry through Tuam the rails lie idle.
Checked against the source on 2026-09-19.
Ingo Mehling, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Athenry Castle on the 3D model; tap a pin for its page and directions.
A line built by many companies
The corridor is a chain of nineteenth-century railways forming a south-to-north route from Limerick to Sligo, following roughly the line of the N17 and N18 roads. It crosses the Dublin to Galway line at Athenry, the Dublin to Westport and Ballina line at Claremorris and joins the Dublin to Sligo line at Collooney. Passenger trains between Claremorris and Collooney stopped in 1963 and that section closed fully in 1975. Freight kept the Limerick to Claremorris section busy until the mid-1990s; when the Asahi plant near Ballina closed, regular freight north of Athenry ended in 1997, and the last fertiliser and cement trains to Athenry ran in 2000 and 2001.
West on Track and Phase 1
West on Track was set up in 2003, with the sociologist Fr Micheál MacGréil among its founders, to preserve the line and get it reopened for passengers and freight. An Expert Working Group under McCann reported in 2005, and in September 2006 the government funded Phase 1, Ennis to Athenry, under Transport 21 and the National Development Plan 2007 to 2013. Every main party and the local authorities along the route backed the scheme; critics pointed to near-zero rail freight and to an Irish Times report, based on Freedom of Information papers, that the McCann report had been rewritten to drop a negative assessment. In September 2015 nine freight trains a week used the reopened section in each direction. The Athenry to Claremorris stretch through Tuam remains classed by Iarnród Éireann as engineering sidings.
Questions people ask
Is the Western Rail Corridor open?
When did trains stop running north of Athenry?
What is West on Track?
Written from Wikipedia, "Western Railway Corridor" (CC BY-SA 4.0), read on 2026-09-19, and from the OpenStreetMap places on the model. Nothing has been added from memory; follow the source for its footnotes.