Professor Alan McKinnon:

The example I was thinking of when I spoke about the 40-mile transit for rail is in Scotland. It is from a whisky distribution centre to the Port of Grangemouth for exports, where there is a very regular high-volume flow over that distance range and it works viably. I concede, however, that this is exceptional. Many people think that railways require a length of haul in excess of 200 km to be viable. There are examples from the past of short distance viable rail movements where there were merry-go-round services from coal miles to power stations. However, that type of transit is obviously a thing of the past as countries have been getting out of coal powered electricity.

Another issue of modal split is that the railways will have a problem increasing their share of the freight market because one of their core traffics has been fossil fuel - coal and oil.

As we use fewer of those primary products, it is going to be tough for railways to replace those products with higher value manufactured goods. Again, that is another factor we may have to bear in mind when thinking of the Irish modal shift.