Iarnrod Eireann will bring in additional earth-moving machinery this morning to tackle a landslide which has halted train traffic through Killiney, in south Co Dublin.
The company has said, however, that the mainline Rosslare, Wicklow and Arklow services, as well as the DART service between Dalkey and Greystones, are unlikely to be restored before the weekend.
According to the company, the landslide which disrupted services since last Friday involved "several hundred tonnes" of earth falling across the railway line.
While this has been cleared, Iarnrod Eireann engineering staff had determined that part of the remaining section had been destabilised. The company said that the source of the landslide is not in Iarnrod Eireann's ownership, but is privately owned.
A spokesman for the company, Mr Barry Kenny, said that both the landowner and the company had engineers advising them on the remedial work.
Last night the company had a team of 50 personnel on site including sub-contractors, working under arc lights. There were about six earth-moving machines, both on the slippage site and on the railway, and lorries were delivering small rocks. The cost of the work was described by Iarnrod Eireann as "significant". Mr Kenny said he was aware that some development work had been taking place on the site prior to the landslide but added "we don't honestly know what effect this had, if any".
Mr Kenny pointed to the heavy rainfalls in November and again in the past week and said that "this may have been the cause". He added it would be the weekend, at least, before the line is reopened. In the meantime passengers for Wicklow and Arklow are being bussed to those towns. Passengers to Rosslare are being bussed to Bray with a rail connection to the port. DART passengers have been advised to take city buses instead. A spokesman for Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council said the council was treating the matter as "primarily an issue between Iarnrod Eireann and a private landowner" although he added that the council would be maintaining a "watching brief" on the remedial works to ensure public safety.
