Waterford Ireland - New Station

[Sir Felix Pole]

Interesting video of the new station in Waterford (due to open 'Q2 2026') and the surrounding works. It includes a new pedestrian / cycle bridge over the River Suir to the city centre. One of the last bastions of semaphore signalling will go , with the closure of Waterford West SB.

Waterford

What caught my eye, apart from the unusual first floor passenger facilities, is that it will have two through platforms - the old station having been reduced to one operational west facing bay. This facilitates an increase in services but also allows for the possibility of reopening the South Wexford line to Rosslare Hbr. One intriguing suggestion doing the rounds is that certain Dublin to Waterford services could be extended to Wexford (to a new station roughly where the old South station was). The curve near Rosslare Strand (closed 1912!) would need to be reinstated. Counterintuitively, despite being about 50 miles longer, Dublin to Wexford would actually be quicker via Waterford than via the DSE route. The DSE main line is very slow, heavily congested at the Dublin end and threatened by climate change on the coastal sections.

 

[duesselmartin]

it does look like a good location with room for expansion.

 

[melon68]

Interesting video of the new station in Waterford (due to open 'Q2 2026') and the surrounding works. It includes a new pedestrian / cycle bridge over the River Suir to the city centre. One of the last bastions of semaphore signalling will go , with the closure of Waterford West SB.

Waterford

What caught my eye, apart from the unusual first floor passenger facilities, is that it will have two through platforms - the old station having been reduced to one operational west facing bay. This facilitates an increase in services but also allows for the possibility of reopening the South Wexford line to Rosslare Hbr. One intriguing suggestion doing the rounds is that certain Dublin to Waterford services could be extended to Wexford (to a new station roughly where the old South station was). The curve near Rosslare Strand (closed 1912!) would need to be reinstated. Counterintuitively, despite being about 50 miles longer, Dublin to Wexford would actually be quicker via Waterford than via the DSE route. The DSE main line is very slow, heavily congested at the Dublin end and threatened by climate change on the coastal sections.

There's also the threat of mainline services being truncated to Wicklow by the DART expansion plans. That could increase the number of services south at the expense of overall journey times and passengers would probably switch to the bus to avoid changing trains there.