Pictured updated 13.35
A WEST DUBLIN train station has officially opened, three years after being built at a cost of €10 million.
Hansfield train station was built to serve the community of Ongar, but was not opened due to an access road not being built. The road was the subject of a long-running battle between Fingal County Council and the developer, Manor Park Homes.
Funding for the road, estimated to have cost the National Transport Authority €1 million, was announced in 2011 and the first train finally pulled into the station at 7am this morning.
The station, on the Dunboyne commuter line, is expected to be served by 45 trains daily, with a peak journey time of 25 minutes to Docklands railway station.
Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar, who is a TD for the area, said that the opening was the end of a ‘long campaign’.
The days of watching the trains passing Hansfield Station without stopping are thankfully now over.
Iarnród Éireann Director of Railway Undertaking Jim Meade added that although the station won’t serve as many people as first anticipated, the opening of the station brought new communities onto the railway line.
“With the opening of Hansfield station we will be opening up the railway to the communities of Ongar and Barnswell.”
There are now plans to build a car park on the site, to make the station a park and ride facility.
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