Andy Boal – Slugger O'Toole

Time flies by when you’re the driver on a train…

Andy Boal on August 25, 2024, 8:00 am

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Andy at the NIR train driver simulator

12 August saw the start of training and gauging train services into Grand Central station, which opens for bus services on 8 September, but Thursday of this week was rather special. The media were invited to see the NIR driving and signalling simulators in Adelaide depot, which was the site of the GNR’s loco shed, then NIR’s freight depot after the closure of Grosvenor Road (now the site of Grand Central), and for several years now, a split site between …

All Island Rail Review final report analysis – how are those buffers looking?

Andy Boal on August 15, 2024, 7:00 am

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Brian took a brief look at the final report a couple of weeks ago, but real life has stopped me taking much more than an even briefer look up to now. Last year, I did a fairly in-depth review of the draft report, which Mick generously described as “proper scepticism.” I’m not going to repeat the analysis today, rather I’m going to look at what has changed between the two, but will it be enough for me to change what …

The right reason to take religious offence

Andy Boal on August 11, 2024, 8:02 pm

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Oh, great was the fuss. A Bacchanalian scene of a drag queen and an oversized smurf during the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, redolent of the Last Supper… and more than one painting of Dionysus, of which I understand at least one or two are held in French art galleries, unlike da Vinci’s fresco. As I pointed out, the wrong reason to get offended. If someone thinks that a painting is satirising Christ, use the situation to talk about the real …

The most fundamental rule of politics

Andy Boal on July 1, 2024, 7:23 am

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Elections are won by the party (or coalition of parties) which can attract the most support and agree a common programme. This applies whether you have a two-party state or a multi-party state. Sinn Fein have faced this in the Dail where they have been the equal-largest party, but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would rather set aside their historic differences and work together than form a coalition with Sinn Fein. In US politics, where the bell curve of left …

15 minute cities. Exactly who is being controlled?

Andy Boal on May 12, 2024, 6:22 pm

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man walking on street

15 minute cities. Within 15 minutes’ walk you will find all your amenities. Work. Recreation. Shopping. School. Places of worship. Must surely be government oppression to take our freedom. #amiright? #areyouwhat? If you know anything about me, you know I don’t do conspiracy theories. What I do is turn things on their head. Find a paper street map of your town or city (not village. Villages are a different issue.) Get a pair of compasses out. Old school. Set them …

A quiet man

Andy Boal on May 4, 2024, 4:29 pm

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The name Denis Grimshaw will mean nothing to most people who will read this post, but a quiet man from the Ormeau Road made an immeasurable contribution to keeping the lights on at Northern Ireland Railways. The news of his death after many years ill with dementia last week, only eight days after his wife, came to mind as I attended the formal opening of York Street station on Monday. Yorkgate station, its immediate predecessor which will be demolished on …

Chris Heaton-Harris is not the only one who could stop the public sector pay disputes

Andy Boal on January 18, 2024, 3:33 pm

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As a lifelong Trade Unionist, I’m on strike today. All because Chris Heaton-Harris refuses to deal with public sector pay in the absence of the Assembly and he is holding us hostage. No it isn’t. Let’s blame the right people. Chris Heaton-Harris could end the public sector pay disputes at the stroke of a pen. We know that. There is one other group of people who could also end the public sector pay disputes at the stroke of a pen. …

Equalising rail fares – balancing the books but at what cost?

Andy Boal on October 19, 2023, 7:50 pm

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Once upon a long ago – I think way back in the 1990s – I looked at the fares from Belfast Central to every station on the network. In those days, the Great Northern branch line from Knockmore to Antrim was still open, and I found a few surprises. Chiefly, that Bangor, 13 miles from Belfast Central, had the same fare as Whitehead (15 miles away) and Crumlin (a lot further). Granted, Crumlin had an unusual fare because the fare …

All Island Rail Review has been published – but will it hit the buffers?

Andy Boal on July 27, 2023, 9:22 am

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Regional and rural interventions rail map from All Island Rail Review

Yes, I’m cynical. You can’t entirely blame me. There is some great stuff in the All-Island Rail Review, published on Tuesday, including some blue sky thinking. The summary, with my annotations, is below. Short term and decarbonisation Electrify remainder of Belfast-Dublin line, Belfast-Bangor, Dublin-Cork/Galway/Limerick/Waterford (both companies were already working on plans to abolish diesel traction, but NIR I think also intends to electrify the Larne, Portrush and Derry/Londonderry (hereafter referred to as Derry) lines) Increase line speeed to 100mph (currently …

Early reversal of previous Minister’s policy as fares rise scheduled

Andy Boal on February 8, 2023, 12:55 pm

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Enterprise crossing Craigmore Viaduct near Bessbrook

It shouldn’t actually surprise us in the slightest, and for once I can’t entirely blame the DUP’s collapse of the Assembly. On 25th October, John O’Dowd announced as Infrastructure Minister that Translink fares would “remain frozen for another year”, but today it was announced that they would rise by an average of 7% from 6 March. The Secretary of State made a statement to the House of Commons on 24 November 2022 saying he recognised “that steps will also need …

Why the neo-Thatcherites’ gamble is doomed…

Andy Boal on September 28, 2022, 7:00 am

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calculator, calculation, insurance

“Trickle down economics never existed in the first place, just in the minds of those who don’t like tax cuts” said a friend of a friend, citing a 2015 Spectator article by Thomas Sowell on the same subject. He proceeded to describe the “basic premise of conservative economics [as being] that the most effective way to help people out of poverty is to grow the market, [which] creates opportunity for people on the lowest rungs to earn wages”, which sounds …

How to ensure that the Assembly can do its business

Andy Boal on August 23, 2022, 7:00 am

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Note: this article is written on an entirely personal basis. What is to be done? The DUP has been single-handedly preventing the Assembly from sitting for 100 days, its defenders pointing out that Sinn Fein “prevented” it from sitting for three years, as though sauce for the goose were sauce for the gander, and ignoring the failure to offer (or at least publicise) negotiations that might persuade Sinn Fein to enter government before sections 8 and 9 of the Executive …

The latest polls are not good news for those of us who love the United Kingdom

Andy Boal on August 22, 2022, 7:00 am

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To be polite, I have been… annoyed by the shenanigans over the NI Protocol. Unfortunately, real life has taken up too much time to allow me to writing for Slugger in recent months. This Irish passport holder who was born British and Irish, will die British and Irish, and quite frankly has better things to worry about than whether Belfast is in the United Kingdom or an independent Ireland, has been extremely frustrated by the (to continue to be polite) …

The abuse of “controversial and cross-cutting”

Andy Boal on February 2, 2022, 9:06 pm

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port, pier, cargo containers

There is no doubt that the question of border checks at Northern Ireland’s ports is controversial. The question is whether Edwin Poots has the ability to ignore the law of the United Kingdom? Jamie Bryson argues that that section 20(4)(aa) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 overrides the obligations of the Northern Ireland Protocol. It isn’t in the Programme for Government, therefore it needs to be decided by the Executive. However, Sinn Fein state that that decision was made by …

They say variety is the spice of life, but has anybody told commercial radio executives?

Andy Boal on December 12, 2021, 9:20 pm

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There is a conventional wisdom in commercial radio that you should play what the listeners like, and lots of it. This sounds eminently sensible. The problem is that this conventional wisdom is taken to extremes, specifically that what listeners apparently like is the same songs over and over again. A spot of background. Every commercial radio station has a playlist. Songs that station management want to be played several times a day to promote, combined with a computer that would …

Why the Circle Line is a dead end siding – but Antrim-Lisburn-Belfast trains can’t be lost

Andy Boal on November 20, 2021, 2:16 pm

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The Circle Line sounds like a great idea. Go either direction according to your needs, with a total journey time of 90 minutes or so, you’re no more than 45 minutes from anywhere on it. However, picking up on my comment on Jay’s article, there are certain logistical barriers that mean it is a non-starter in its proposed form. The key assumption I will make in this piece is that the line from Antrim-Monkstown is doubled, including the total reconstruction …

Ireland commits to funding Enterprise replacement from 2027 – what about NI?

Andy Boal on October 5, 2021, 1:22 pm

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The Irish National Development Plan is a long document, and I have had little time to do more than skim it, but the key headline spotted by Jonny McCambridge and noted by Mick, one of the concrete proposals in the plan, is the replacement for the Belfast-Dublin Enterprise service by 2027. The branded Enterprise service was introduced by the Great Northern Railway in 1947, and at one time was extended to Cork. NIR relaunched its side of the service in …

Boris’s burrow? Boring in more ways than one.

Andy Boal on February 19, 2021, 8:01 pm

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I do not promise an absence of any further puns in this piece. So last Sunday the big news was: we can’t put a bridge over the top of the Beaufort’s Dyke, so sure we’ll just build a tunnel round it. It’ll only be 25 miles long. Except… The Channel Tunnel is 37.92km (23.57 miles) from the English coast under Shakespeare cliff to the French coast at Sangatte. It takes a further 9.14km (5.68 miles) to reach the tunnel mouth …

Surviving Covid has to be done together

Andy Boal on October 12, 2020, 8:54 am

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As cases of Covid rise, the Northern Ireland Executive meets today, reportedly to consider a circuit breaker to reduce community transmission, as concerns continue to be raised about the effect of lockdowns and shielding on mental health and jobs. We know that mental health is seriously affected by lockdown, businesses with fewer customers are likely to fail or at least require redundancies to survive, and the prioritisation of Covid has had a serious effect on elective Health Service treatments. Yet, …

Change here for Ballinderry, Glenavy, Crumlin and… Aldergrove?

Andy Boal on September 23, 2020, 1:09 pm

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Wesley Johnston very kindly gave me some old NIR, UTA, GNR and even NIRTB timetables owned by his father, and it got me thinking. I’ve long been an advocate of reopening Lisburn-Antrim for commuter services, but what would a train service look like? The 1977 NIR timetable is the benchmark, rather than the much slower timetable which applied by the mid-1990s. 10 minutes Antrim-Crumlin, 5 minutes Crumlin-Glenavy, 6 minutes Glenavy-Ballinderry, 9 minutes Ballinderry-Lisburn including a stop at Knockmore. Trains call …