 General News
Skerries Station takes coveted title of Best Overall Station. by Corporate Communications
SKERRIES IS THE BEST RAILWAY STATION IN
IRELAND!
South East and South are the big winners at
this year’s Best Station Awards
Skerries Station took the coveted title of Overall Best Station for the second time today at the 15th annual Waterford Crystal-sponsored Iarnród Éireann Best Station Awards. The award was presented to Skerries Haltkeeper, Nicholas Martin by Minister for Transport Martin Cullen TD at a ceremony at Croke Park Stadium, with Skerries also collecting the Best Suburban Halt prize.
The Waterford Crystal Iarnród Éireann Best Station Awards reward excellence in customer facilities, cleanliness, innovation and customer service in the country’s 135 railway stations, with Skerries scoring highly in all categories.
Haltkeeper, Nicholas Martin and Station Manager for the area, Kevin Connolly accepted the magnificent Waterford Crystal sculpture for the station, of an Iarnród Éireann locomotive as part of the prize for winning the Best Overall Station title. They had their arms full as they also collected a Waterford crystal trophy specially designed for these awards for winning Best Suburban Halt.
The judges were fulsome in their praise for Skerries, saying the award was “well deserved, with clear hard work paying dividends.” Skerries has been well placed in the past winning Best Suburban Halt for a record eleven years in a row and scooping the top award once before in 2000.
In other categories, Mallow Station collected the hotly contested Heritage Award, a title awarded to the Station for its excellent work in restoring of a steam crane, a turntable and a water column, which were found during the development of a new car parking area. Station Manager Pat O’Sullivan and Tim O’Brien were presented with a Waterford Crystal replica of the Locomotive Maedhbh for all the excellent work that they and their team have put in to ensure that out rich railway heritage is preserved for generations to come.
It was a great day for all at Mallow Station as they also received the Mary Linehan Floral display award for the magnificent floral arrangements on display at the station.
Elsewhere, stations in the south east performed well with the Norman McAdams Intercity Stations award and the Best Staff Effort Award going to Arklow the judges described it as “a truly well kept station, with its fine stonework reflecting the charms of the sunny south east” And the staff were praised for their “display of railway photos and a model railway in the waiting area”.
Greystones was the winner of the Best DART Station, Joe Gunning accepting the award for the “well maintained and welcoming station”. Wicklow was awarded an Innovation Award for their use of sponsorship to provide customer seating. To complete the run of good luck for the south east Rosslare Station was runner-up in the Heritage category in recognition of all the hard work undertaken to celebrate 100 years of Rosslare Europort in August of last year.
In the west Collooney was winner in the Best unmanned Station category following their win in 2004 and their runner-up prize in 2005. Castlebar was the winner of the Louis Mongan Award for the Best Intercity Halt, This is the 9th win for Castlebar in this category.
Speaking at the awards, Iarnród Éireann Chief Executive Dick Fearn congratulated Skerries Station for its overall win, saying “its great to see Skerries station scooping the top award, They have been featured highly in the Suburban halt category for a record 11 years in a row, so its fitting that after so many years of excellence Skerries are the overall winners once again.”
He added that “our investment programme continues to transform so many aspects of the service to allow our colleagues deliver their best – the infrastructure we operate on, the station environments for our customers and for our staff, the technology and systems to deliver better customer service, and critically, our fleet. The first of our 120 new Intercity railcars have arrived and are due to go into service later this year delivering increased frequency, Comfort and reliability on our Intercity routes. Already our new Intercity carriages on the Dublin – Cork route are enabling us to implement clock face timetabling with a record 31 services between Dublin and Cork everyday”.
ROLL OF HONOUR
MAJOR STATIONS
First Prize Drogheda
Second Prize Dundalk
Most Improved Rosslare Europort
INTERCITY STATIONS
First Prize - Norman McAdams Award Arklow
Second Prize Westport
Third Prize Killarney
Most Improved Kilkenny
INTERCITY HALTS
First Prize - Louis Mongan Award Castlebar
Second Prize Carrick-on-Shannon
Third Prize Roscommon
Most Improved Enniscorthy
DART STATIONS
First Prize Greystones
Second Prize Bray
Third Prize Malahide
Most Improved Sandymount
SUBURBAN HALTS
First Prize Skerries
Second Prize Donabate
Most Improved Balbriggan
UNMANNED HALTS
First Prize Collooney
Second Prize Woodlawn
Third Prize Castleconnell
Most Improved Hazelhatch
INNOVATION AWARD Wicklow
BEST STAFF EFFORT Arklow
MARY LINEHAN FLORAL DISPLAY Mallow
HERITAGE AWARDS
Winner Mallow
Runner-Up Rosslare Station
BEST STATION OVERALL Skerries
Skerries Station takes coveted title of Best Overall Station.
<< Back
|
