In a breathtaking display of what can be achieved when a nation collectively stops pretending it’s still 1953, the Irish government has pledged a cool £197 million to revive the ghostly spectre of cross-border rail. The money, sourced from a leprechaun’s tax break and the sale of four redundant peat bogs, will connect Derry to Portadown, a route currently serviced by a single asthmatic bus that only runs on Tuesdays and when the driver fancies a day out.
Meanwhile, across the Irish Sea, our own transport minister, a gentleman whose name I have already forgotten due to its sheer beigeness, responded with the usual boilerplate about “aspirational plans” and “investing in levelling up,” which is ministerial code for “we’ve booked a feasibility study for 2027 and will then lose it in a drawer.” The contrast is stark: the Irish are laying track with the zeal of Victorian engineers hopped up on gin, while Britain’s rail infrastructure strategy appears to be “let’s repaint a station sign in Middlesbrough and call it a green revolution.”
Let us examine this Irish proposal with the forensic detail it deserves, because frankly it deserves more than the half-arsed tweet my Parliament will likely give it. The cross-border line, which currently resembles the set of a post-apocalyptic drama where all hope has died, is to be resurrected. It will link Derry, a city whose name still causes unionist aneurysms, to Portadown, a place that exists solely as a punchline in jokes about motorway service stations. But here is the rub: the Irish government is actually, genuinely, shockingly doing it. They are not commissioning a report on the philosophical implications of a train. They are not appointing a tsar for railway fantasy. They are spending real money, the kind that could buy several MPs their fourth homes, on steel and sleepers.
Shame, you magnificent bastards. Shame. For the British approach to rail infrastructure is an embarrassing national saga of underfunding, renationalisation threats that never happen, and a punctuality record that would get a schoolboy detention. We have the Elizabeth Line, sure, but that was basically a civil engineering miracle delivered by a wizard who has now retired to a small island. Meanwhile, our beloved Northern Rail network runs on the power of a single hamster on a wheel, and the TransPennine Express has made cancelling services an art form. The Irish, with a fraction of our GDP and a third of our pompous self-regard, are building a railway. We, in contrast, are still arguing about whether HS2 should stop at Crewe or Wandsworth Common because a backbencher once got lost there in 1974.
The audacity. That is what stings. The sheer, unapologetic audacity of the Dail to sit down, count their pennies, and say “yes, trains are good, let’s do that.” Here, our government would set up a cross-departmental taskforce to consider the carbon footprint of the rail sleepers, commission a review into the impact on badger habitats, and then announce a new express coach service instead. Because nothing says “we care about connectivity” like replacing a train with a coach that gets stuck in the same traffic as everyone else.
But let us not be entirely churlish. Perhaps the Irish success is a beacon, a reminder that infrastructure is not a luxury but a necessity. Or perhaps it is a taunt, a green-felted finger wagged in the face of every British transport secretary who has ever said “the system is under review.” Either way, the message is clear: while we are still polishing the brass on our Victorian stations, Ireland is laying the tracks for the 21st century. And we are, once again, sitting on the platform, clutching a cold pasty, wondering when the next cancellation will be announced.
Hats off to them. I shall raise a glass of dubious Dublin gin in their direction. But for my own country, I reserve only the bitterest of bile. Britain, wake up. The train is leaving. And you are not on it.
