Pro Rail Services Ireland has turned the sod on a specialist rail training academy in Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo, following planning permission granted earlier this year. The facility is intended to address a skills shortage across the rail sector by training railway professionals, with students expected from Ireland and the UK.

Plans for the academy include training rooms, an overhead line electrification facility, an industrial rope access training centre and a confined space training unit, alongside meeting rooms, tool storage and administration offices. Proposed courses cover overhead line electrification, rail surveying, rope access certification, confined space training, track safety and technical and supervisory qualifications.

Pro Rail Services (Ireland) Limited, established in July 2022 and based in Dublin and Kiltimagh, specialises in rail civil engineering, safety-critical labour supply and consultancy, with a focus on Irish Rail projects. It provides skilled staff such as surveyors and manages rail engineering projects across Ireland and the UK. The company already has offices at the Cairn International Trade Centre in Kiltimagh, and the academy will sit on a derelict site in the town.

Kiltimagh’s former railway station, closed to passengers in 1963, is now a museum, and the town’s restored section of line hosts the Velorail tourist attraction, which the academy would complement.

The structural driver is a skills shortage across the rail sector, which the academy addresses through practical, industry-specific training in rail infrastructure and site management.

Councillor Adrian Forkan welcomed the project as “a really positive investment” for the town, saying it is “exactly the type of investment that brings new opportunities locally.”

Forkan said the project involves Ed Maloney and Siobhan Fitzgerald returning to live locally and invest in the town where both went to school, and that the academy is expected to create jobs and a spending boost.

For the sector, the Kiltimagh academy confirms that rail contractors are investing in dedicated training capacity close to their own operations to tackle skills shortages.

Source: midwestradio.ie / con-telegraph.ie / westernpeople.ie