New Irish Rail Intercity, Commuter and DART Timetable Public Consultation

What is the big need for the morning Heuston to Carlow service? Gets into Carlow at half 9 so useless got schools/college/work?

Id have thought a later evening service that goes all the way to Waterford much more needed in that timetable. 18.35 last train is just ridiculous

I will be leaving my comments to Irish Rail but they really are only tinkering around the edges with the exception of the Newbridge extras during the day.

The last trains in my view are all very early. Last Waterford 18:35. Galway 19:xx, Sligo 19:xx. Wexford 18:xx. etc

They built a depot in Portlaoise for servicing ICR's yet the last train goes to Kildare only (23:10) and is worked by a Heuston driver. This should be Portlaoise worked with a set that needs servicing and operate, like other services (Dundalk / buses) as a 23:30 Heuston to Portlaoise 7 nights a week. It could run express to Hazelhatch and connect with the late service from GCD to the Hatch (M-F).

No Sunday service on the Waterford to Limerick Junction which would allow weekend travel home to those stations (even just an afternoon service like Ballybrophy).

Poor running / connections which could be overcome with a tweaking of times. Eg. 17:10 FO to Westport sits in Roscommon 19:15 / 19:39 and then runs just ahead of the 18:15 by 23 minutes, making the point of this train being extended to Mayo pointless as it is over 35 minutes slower than the service behind, which is chasing its tail!

Sunday's 10:00 to Cork still provides a 44 minute "connection" at Mallow for the Tralee service. Poor planning that a work around cannot be found. Some of the times seem very much, ah sure that's how it has always been.

There are also inefficiencies in crewing all over the place. All the Limerick drivers and CSO's work up to Dublin in the morning and travel home doing nothing. Then in the afternoon the 3 crews travel up to Dublin doing nothing and then drive one way back down. A mid morning return to Limerick and the last up being deferred slightly and the 15:30 being advanced to 14:30 would cut out two drivers and CSO's immediately.

Running an empty train to Gorey etc. Empties up and down to Portlaoise all day. Plenty of opportunities.

Another timetable cycle that fails to address variuos problems.

07:08 Athlone-Westport - odd addition which most likely points to meddeling from individals. Otherwise operational connivance.

So no improvements to the shambolic evening service for the Maynooth line? 🙁

because that would be common sense, would benefit passengers, would show the policy of no early services to the smaller cities as being of the 1950s.

and they probably don't have the stock for it anyway.

They should restore the old 09:XX and 11:XX services, scrap the current 10:15 and this proposed 08:26.

09:XX Waterford-Heuston should be added and the set for this added onto the 13:15 ex Heuston in the absence of 19:XX evening service.

The reopening of second platform in Waterford should help with scheduling. I would be surprised if Waterford is still short drivers to facilitate the 09:XX Waterford. If XPO asked for a daily service they would have drivers available!

They might say no ICRs available, that is solved by IVs operating the route it was purchased for.

It would be good to know the thinking behind this Carlow service and who decided on such a pointless addition (08:26),

Now maybe we should all suggest extend this to Muine Bheag because the 45 minute sit in Carlow isn’t necessary. Just maximising the limited driver and fleet resources!

They were quick to add Muine Bheag onto the 07.00 service which isn’t at all justifiable so this additional service to/from there would be good for locals. This wouldn't go down well I suspect.

to be fair we only have irish rail's word for it that there was no demand for that early service previously.

now maybe there genuinely wasn't and there genuinely isn't demand for it i don't know, but it is irish rail and they do use no demand as an excuse to not improve services when it suits them so it's hard to take them seriously when they claim no demand.

still i do take the point that it would be gauling for passengers on the waterford line to see westport get extra services but waterford not and i do sympathise with them on that even though in general i am in no way against mayo getting extra services but not at the expence of waterford.

as for the hourly belfast, they would be as well now to wait until the new stock for that arrives and then launch the whole lot together but i guess what will happen is 3 or 4 I C R sets will be dedicated to it meaning less improvements which themselves are just as much needed.

I didn't say it wasn't a positive move just questionable move that IE have been lobbied heavily on it. I'm not sure I would put this addition as a result of Connecting Ireland Strategy.

I am not going to comment on the 05:20 service or tarffic west of Athlone.

Less than two months until implementation of the new timetable and yet they haven't been confirmed and dates beyond Dec 11th are still not bookable online...

Really wish they’d run trains through the Phoenix Park Tunnel on weekends. It’s crazy to me that this is only a Monday to Friday service.

For now I guess I’ll keep taking the car.

I cannot understand this either. I made a submission mentioning this that a weekend service is sorely needed.

Which has a hilarious side effect - in August and September I put together a book format timetable of all Irish Rail lines. The DART Greystones/Bray/Connolly/Malahide[or]Howth lines, including all trains over them, take up 16 pages Mon-Fri. Saturdays fit on 9, simply because all of the Phoenix Park and Maynooth trains disappear from the pages, never mind the frequency drops. Sundays - 6 pages.

Such a shame they can't commit to this section of track. You could add stops at Phoenix Park and Cabra and make it a line worth operating regularly. Unfortunately, they omitted new stations on this section in the Dart+ application.

In the near term, Platform 7 in Connolly could be used as a regular terminus and turn back for services to Maynooth and Celbridge every 15 minutes (combined frequency) without any major disruption to other services which would use platforms 5 and 6 for the coastal Dart.

I know it's not 'that' simple but it should be easily doable in near term.

Anyone else hopeful that the apparent delay with the new timetable means that IÉ/NTA have actually taken a significant amount of the consultation on board and are making changes where possible? Otherwise one would assume, the proposed changes announced by them in September could have been implemented a lot quicker?

I heard about 2 weeks ago the timetable had been completed internally. I presume they then go to loading everything into the system, double checking everything and then final approval. I would imagine the "new" timetable and bookings will be available very soon.

I say "new" because it is probably for the most part the same as before with a few tweaks around the edges and still the same issues as I highlighted on this thread and to IÉ.

The backlash online about the quieter carriage was funny yesterday. Lots of slamming IÉ for lack of staff interaction on trains. Seems like some of the CSO's and hosts are very much enjoying chilling out in the back cab and doing one quick walk through the train once or twice during the journey. That has been my experience on some of my recent IC journeys.

Your lucky if you get one walk through with many. Its a shame as there are some really good CSOs but overall the CSOs based on current performance are not worth it. Prehaps the NTA needs to specify minimun dutites within the PSOs and monitor it themselves. Head of customer sevice in IE clearly to busy.

Bear minimun CSOs visable on platfroms, walk through at major stations which is typically 3 or 4 stops on all routes and announcements.

They were also due to be equiped with ticket equipment. Then again we also have 2 year old e ticket machines not been used.

Sometimes I wonder if covid excsues are still been used.

Good to see they're actively planning on adding in a 20:00 service from Connolly to Gorey in 2023, which "is being examined as an utmost priority with implementation at the earliest opportunity in 2023."

Would it not make more sense to have this service continue to Wexford? I assume the train would continue on to Wexford for stabling.

Ah right, I would have thought Wexford was the driver base, not Rosslare. Makes more sense now