Wagons roll as historic day marked in style

"The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance......" So read the poster in one of the carriages on the first official train from Dublin Docklands to Dunboyne last Thursday. We were glad that the Lord didn't want us to perish, for it would have been a fair wipeout if the train didn't make it safely to its final destination, such was the number of dignitaries on board. Half of Meath County Council, TDs and ministers and officials from Meath County Council and Iarnrod Eireann were among the passengers, as well as locals from Dunboyne who had made the trip up to Docklands Station, just below Sheriff Street, for the historic first journey on the new Dunboyne M3 Commuter Rail. It could have been mistaken for being a Fianna Fail train, as a poster in the front window declared 'Well done to Minister Noel Dempsey, Cllr Noel Leonard and Deputy Mary Wallace' for bringing the train to Dunboyne. Cllr Leonard and Deputy Wallace seemed to be arguing over who was going to drive, but then realised they were at the wrong end of the train. The Junior Minister at the Department of Transport, Ciaran Cuffe of the Greens, joined the chairman of Iarnrod Eireann, John Lynch, and others for the ride. There were cheers just after midday as the train began to pull out of the station, with Peter Gallagher providing a bar of 'Are you right there, Michael, are you right?' The techno-savvy junior minister tracked the route on his iPhone as the train travelled out under Croke Park and through northside Dublin, past cemeteries and housing estates and murky-looking canal waters, through Ashtown Station and on through the new M50/M3 junction, only opened the previous day by the Transport Minister, to the first stop, Clonsilla, arriving at about 12.20pm. Here, the cargo became more heavyweight as the Minister for Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Noel Dempsey, arrived on board. Then, it became obvious we were venturing into the Royal County as the views of high-rise apartments were replaced by country houses with jeeps and horseboxes, horses relaxing in railed paddocks of stud farms and hay being baled in the Meath meadows. By 12.29, we were in Dunboyne, where a huge crowd awaited. There was a brief stop here to pick up more passengers before setting off for the end of the line, the M3 Parkway station. There was a good sized crowd here as the ministers alighted to unveil a plaque on the wall of the new station, and a rugby scrum ensued as TDs and councillors dived to try and get into the pictures of the curtain pulling. Then, it was back to Dunboyne for the formalities and celebrations, where Coca-Cola, burgers and choc ices were the order of the day in the marquee. Among those soaking up the atmosphere were Dunshaughlin men working for Iarnrod Eireann, Pat O'Brien and Don McLoughlin, and Navan O'Mahony's footballer Lee Russell, who had worked on the project for SIAC. The Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, from the neighbouring Dublin West constituency, also arrived to mark the occasion. "We planned to have it open in time for September, in case you needed it for Croke Park," John Lynch, the Iarnrod Eireann chairman told the large crowd gathered around the marquee in the Dunboyne car park. "But I hope we won't have to depend on Meath getting to an All-Ireland for people to support the line!" One man who will be making use of the new rail line is Tom O'Mahony, the secretary-general of the Department of Transport, and himself a Dunboyne man. "I'm delighted with the opening of the commuter line, and intend using it to get to the office in Kildare Street as often as possible," he said as he hopped on the train for the return journey to the city centre.