Portlaoise / Portarlington / Ballybrophy Commuters.

civdef

Following from another thread, are there many other members of this select band of long distance commuters on Boards.ie?

If ye are, what do ye make of the service of late?

enterprise

Despite a few recent failures and incidents out of the control of the railway company I have found the service to be excellent. The last month has seen a few bad mornings but its to be expected from time to time.

Beats the car any time!

Our man in Havana

Its fine except for the small number of trains that call at Ballybrophy. Pity this fine station is underused.

civdef

Generally I'd agree with Enterprise that the service isn't bad (except for the ongoing farce that Heuston), but for some reason the trains I was on were late 4 days out of 5 last week.

dowlingm

Ballyb would be better off eliminated, with a direct curve to the Limerick line north of there, Dublin-Nenagh line changing at Portlaoise and Ballyb-Nenagh line pax boarding at a station in Borris on Ossory.

Fat chance of it happening though...

Our man in Havana

dowlingm wrote:

Ballyb would be better off eliminated, with a direct curve to the Limerick line north of there, Dublin-Nenagh line changing at Portlaoise and Ballyb-Nenagh line pax boarding at a station in Borris on Ossory.

Fat chance of it happening though...

Long live Ballybrophy!

dowlingm

Bond-007 wrote:

Long live Ballybrophy!

Exactly why the Irish railway system will remain screwed for years on end.

Oh and if you're going to use pig latin, spell it right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegitimi_non_carborundum

DerekP11

I agree with what your saying dowlingm, but whats the point of Borris on ossary?

Rovi

[pedant mode]
Borris-in-Ossory
[/pedant mode]

.

Our man in Havana

dowlingm wrote:

Exactly why the Irish railway system will remain screwed for years on end.

Oh and if you're going to use pig latin, spell it right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegitimi_non_carborundum

Sorry to say the people of Borris in Ossory, Rathdowney and Ballybrophy will not give up on Ballybrophy station without a fight.

John R

DerekP11 wrote:

I agree with what your saying dowlingm, but whats the point of Borris on ossary?

No point at all, it would probably take 200 years to take in enough revenue to justify the construction of a prefab platform. Of course these days any new station costs a fortune as everything has to be accessable.

Borris is no more than a village and it has an excellent hourly bus service to Roscrea/Nenagh/Limerick and Portlaoise/Dublin which is far better than that rail line will ever have.

Ballybrophy is a waste of resources, few trains stop there and even fewer people use the station.

Portlaoise has a south facing bay which would be ideal for terminating Limerick via Nenagh services.

That line is all but dead these days, it is regularly run with a single railcar without any fear of overcrowding. The line needs to be re-laid to 60/70mph throughout and a commuter service to Limerick operated. If the line speed was improved it would also be useable as an alternative to Limerick Junction
for connecting to Dublin trains.

Our man in Havana

I for one frequently catch the 0705 train to Dublin and back in the evenings. I think the station is well patronised in the mornings. Car park is always full.

MT

Bond-007 wrote:

dowlingm wrote:

Ballyb would be better off eliminated, with a direct curve to the Limerick line north of there, Dublin-Nenagh line changing at Portlaoise and Ballyb-Nenagh line pax boarding at a station in Borris on Ossory.

Fat chance of it happening though...

Long live Ballybrophy!

Long live the parish pump! :rolleyes:

Genghis

I think the service is generally very good, in fact excellent (I use Portlaoise mainly, but sometimes Portalington).

There are a few delays from time to time, but far less than you'd expect, and I would say that I have more often missed my train by being 1 minute late than I have been early for my train and it left more than 1 minute late.

The slight exception is the 07:27 (ex-Cork) Dublin Service, which can be a few minutes late arriving in Portlaoise, but is rarely more than a couple of minutes late getting to Dublin.

Some of the things I'd like to see:

1. An earlier train than 06:45 - I think there would be demand, for a service at 06:25 (arriving 07:40) - there would also be demand up the line for this service, it could possibly be one of the trains that start around 06:50 from Kildare or Newbridge.

2. A 20:00 or thereabouts train back - it is a nightmare to miss your 19:00 by 2 mins and have to spend 2 hrs sitting in Heuston. Perhaps this will be more likely when the full hourly service to Cork comes on line (was it to be in March?)

3. A later evening service (up to say 22:45) from Heuston.

4. More parking - anything after the second departure in the morning and you are scrounging for a space. I am not sure how this will be done given the elevation of the station. (A downward three-level multi-storey car park would be perfect, but thats not going to happen!)

I am hopeful that points 1 & 3 above will happen when the new maintenance facility is moved to Portlaoise, effectively making it a depot from which trains can overnight to depart in the morning and arrive late at night. Point 2 should happen with the planned hourly upgrade to Cork, along with a generally more frequent service.

Point 4 - any ideas?

FinoBlad

Genghis wrote:

Point 4 - any ideas?

Could IÉ buy the strip of land adjoining the up platform as far as the Ridge Road. Extend the car park all along it, with a one way road system, Entering from Mountmellick road and exiting from Ridge Road side.