Gort Station Passenger Useage

Jim Martin

Does anyone know if there are any figures available anywhere. On the journeys I've recently made, only 1 or 2 passengers if any, have either got on or off the train.

For such a comparitively large centre of population on the Ennis - Athenry line, I'm puzzled! There must be something going seriously wrong here!

CptSternn

It's very dear, so I know many people who just don't use it.

Jim Martin

CptSternn wrote: »

It's very dear, so I know many people who just don't use it.

OK, perhaps now we're getting to the nub of it!

drunken_munky52

The Ennis/Limerick service had very few passengers at first, but it caught on. Give it some time.

CptSternn

The Ennis/Limerick service also had a huge price jump once the new line opened.

Just a couple years ago you could go to Limerick and back for €8. Now it is €17.50. The Ennis to Galway line is like €29.50. Who is going to use either at those prices? I used to like to hop the train to Limerick to go shopping, as it was under a tenner, now with my wife it is almost €40. I mean, it costs around €60 to get a taxi from downtown Limerick to Ennis. That means it is cheaper for 3-4 lads to get a taxi to Limerick than it is to take the train. Same goes for the Galway line.

dr.fuzzenstein

Ennis to Galway is about a hundred Kilometres round trip.
My car uses about 6 litres of diesel over that distance.
Total cost in fuel E8 (about, probably less).
Since I'm travelling with the GF that cost is halved.
I'm not going to take tax and insurance into account, since I will be paying these anyway, so they would also be on top of my rail journey.
Result:
If you own a car and want to go to Galway for a days shopping you'd have to be a monumental, complete and utter idiot, moron, dimwit, cretin or have more money than sense.
Also, you're tied to a mode of transport that does not depart from your home, does not necessarily depart at times that suit you and you will have to share with a lot of strange and quite possibly smelly people that you wouldn't salute in the street or quite possibly even avoid altogether.
And I have never known for my car to depart without me if I was 5 minutes late (luckily).
Maybe one day I will take the Ennis to Galway train, when I'm feeling flush, to remind me of a bygone era, a mode of transport that was gentler, slower, more relaxed.
In fact they should convert the line to steam and cash in on the nostalgia market.

CptSternn

It's sad they open a new rail line under the guise of trying to make public transport more available, then jack the price so it is unusable to the common person.

In Dublin they have the DART. The DART kicks ass. I used to live in Leixlip, Kildare - about 30 minutes outside of Dublin. The DART line went straight there from Connolly station - stopping at a few other important towns along the way - and it cost all of €1.70.

How is it the DART can go twice the distance for 1/10th the price? Have they ever thought that if they did drop the price, that students, workers, etc. might actually use it on a daily basis?

It's like pizza places that sell pizza for €25 (cough *dominos*) - these days there are alternatives.

drunken_munky52

Railway lines outside of Dublin are normally considered loss making by Irish Rail. They would all be shut if it weren't for the government subsidizing them to keep the basic civil infrastructure open. It seems the subsidies are not even enough to convince Irish rail to drop their price to a reasonable level. There should be a regulator for the price of trains, but with Irish rail not having any competition a regulator wouldn't work I think.

NewApproach

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Ennis to Galway is about a hundred Kilometres round trip.
My car uses about 6 litres of diesel over that distance.
Total cost in fuel E8 (about, probably less).
Since I'm travelling with the GF that cost is halved.
I'm not going to take tax and insurance into account, since I will be paying these anyway, so they would also be on top of my rail journey.
Result:
If you own a car and want to go to Galway for a days shopping you'd have to be a monumental, complete and utter idiot, moron, dimwit, cretin or have more money than sense.
Also, you're tied to a mode of transport that does not depart from your home, does not necessarily depart at times that suit you and you will have to share with a lot of strange and quite possibly smelly people that you wouldn't salute in the street or quite possibly even avoid altogether.
And I have never known for my car to depart without me if I was 5 minutes late (luckily).
Maybe one day I will take the Ennis to Galway train, when I'm feeling flush, to remind me of a bygone era, a mode of transport that was gentler, slower, more relaxed.
In fact they should convert the line to steam and cash in on the nostalgia market.

Basically I agree, I would always take the car, but you're leaving out a good few things here. What about other wear costs, parking costs and the hassle of parking (and the driving itself if that affects you). I enjoy driving and would usually always drive somewhere if feasible, but there is more costs than just petrol.

Jim Martin

NewApproach wrote: »

Basically I agree, I would always take the car, but you're leaving out a good few things here. What about other wear costs, parking costs and the hassle of parking (and the driving itself if that affects you). I enjoy driving and would usually always drive somewhere if feasible, but there is more costs than just petrol.

and don't foget depreciation - that can add a huge amount to the bills, especially if you've bought a new car! Doesn't a new car lose half its value in the first year? You would have to be mad to buy a new car!

NewApproach

Jim Martin wrote: »

and don't foget depreciation - that can add a huge amount to the bills, especially if you've bought a new car! Doesn't a new car lose half its value in the first year? You would have to be mad to buy a new car!

The marginal depreciation involved in a 100k round trip is tiny

browneire

I don't think the stop will add much to passanger numbers, especially in the case of Gort --> Galway. This is most likely to be the highest demand direction for the service.

The train runs 3-4 times a day and takes 50mins. Bus Eireann runs hourly and takes 50mins (ish). On top of that, citylink run another 8-10 services daily. In terms of price, the train cant/wont compete. Perhaps when the by-pass opens, the busses will be less likely to stop in the town, the train may get more popular.

dr.fuzzenstein

Jim Martin wrote: »

and don't foget depreciation - that can add a huge amount to the bills, especially if you've bought a new car! Doesn't a new car lose half its value in the first year? You would have to be mad to buy a new car!

Good point!
If you buy a new car, depreciation is so high you couldn't possibly afford to take the train.
If you have an old banger depreciation is so tiny you'd be mad to take the train.

My argument here is that if you do own a car depreciation will always occur, whether you drive it or not.
So when you take the train you simply add the cost of the ticket on top of all that tax, insurance, wear and tear, depreciation, etc...
That's why taking the train when you actually own a car is utter madness.
Unless you're going to the airport on a 2 week trip and don't want your car to be parked in an E8 a day car park.
But since the train doesn't leave from anywhere near my house and (funnily enough in this country) doesn't go anywhere near the airport, I'm still taking the car.
Public transport only makes sense if 90% of the cost of owning a car is associated with driving it and public transport is relatively cheap and freely available.
Currently you're simply giving up convenience and punishing yourself financially.
And that's why I hate the greens, they just want to tax us out of our cars but I don't see an alternative.
It's like making food really unaffordably expensive but not giving you a choice other than starving to death.