Rail Row

DerekP11

From the Kildare Post.

RAIL ROW
By Laura Coates

Commuters are running the risk of a court appearance if they take a train journey promoted by Irish Rail on its internet site.

Rail lobby group Platform 11 has rediculed the situation facing rail users where an extra fare is demanded off Sallins commuters who take an evening train to get home quicker.
Members have since conducted an experiment to show that they can legitimately take the controversial evening journey from Dublin to Sallins, via Newbridge.
Commuters can use the Irish Rail internet booking engine to book a place on the 19.05 hrs train to Galway, with a change at Newbridge and a return journey to sallins by Arrow. The option is also featured in the online timetable. This journey is scheduled to take 48 minutes. The next direct train to Sallins after the Galway train's departure is at 20.05 hrs and does not arrive in the Kildare town until nearly half an hour later. A commuter taking the earlier option saves a wait of an hour on the platform in Heuston and gets home over 40 minutes earlier.
However, Irish Rail's conditions of travel state a ticket is valid for use only between the stations shown on the ticket. Two members of the commuter rail lobby group successfully booked this journey online and were allowed onto the train after showing the itinerary they printed off the internet.
"They're still operating off a rule book that's donkeys years old", said Platform 11 spokesperson Derek Wheeler, one of those who took the experimental journey. "They have to sort it out, definetly not call the gardai or charge people."

MarkoP11

Irish Rail claim that such journeys are invalid and that they can in fact prosecute. Strangely they sold us tickets and didn't stop us

In fact careful examination of the terms and conditions (which you won't find on the IE site or at most stations) http://www.platform11.org/resources/IE_conditions_of_carriage_2004.pdf

Shows that Irish Rail have in fact made the journey legally permissible, clearly I won't give away the specific sentence but Irish Rail have overridden the usual a to b rule

You don't need a reservation, I booked a seat just to really test the system in case things got ugly (again). Anyone with any ticket Dublin Sallins can do this once they carry a printed copy of the online timetable http://www.irishrail.ie/your_journey/timetables_junction3.asp?hidLegsOut18=2&From=Dublin+Heuston&To=Sallins&Month=03&Day=02&Changes=1&DepDate=02%2F03%2F2007&DepTime=19%3A05%3A00&ArrDate=02%2F03%2F2007&ArrTime=19%3A53%3A00&uid1=Z90462&dp1=3&arrSta1=Newbridge&sc1=B&rc1=R&dtime1=20070302&serviceBrand1=I&uid2=Z92687&arrSta2=Sallins&sc2=S&dtime2=20070302&serviceBrand2=A&valid=Runs+every+Monday+to+Saturday+from+15+January+until+9+April%3B+except+20%2C27+January%3B+3%2C5%2C10%2C17%2C24+February%3B+3%2C10%2C17%2C19+March.&Details.x=12&Details.y=3&resOut18001=A714%3B02+Mar+2007%3BHSTON%3B19%3A05%3BNBRGE%3B19%3A37%3B1%3B27+%3Bfirstclass++++++++++%3Bintercity+++++++++++&resOut18002=A714%3B02+Mar+2007%3BHSTON%3B19%3A05%3BNBRGE%3B19%3A37%3B2%3B21+%3Bstandard++++++++++++%3Bintercity+++++++++++&resOut18013=P217%3B02+Mar+2007%3BNBRGE%3B19%3A45%3BSALNS%3B19%3A53%3B2%3B0++%3Bstandard++++++++++++%3BRailcar+++++++++++++&hidBookableLegsOut18=2

Ste.phen

Based on a quick read of those rules, looks like it's OK based on:

* Except as mayb€ specfr€d In the publicalons and notc€s of and applcable
to arndd € feann, the holdefofa s nqleti ket may break h s orhefloumey
dt ftermedatestatonson anyfolteforwhchthetrck€t svaldwilhin th€
per od of valdiiy of ih€ t ckel

and

Ex.ept wh€fe spec atLy authoflsed, passenq€rc afe not perm tl€d to rc book at an ntemcdrate statron fofthe purpose of contiu ngtherJoumeyby lhe
same t|an

Apologies for the awful text there, it seems that OS X Preview app for PDFs has some weird built-in OCR functionality that I didnt know about, but which didn't work too well on this document, the 2 points I pasted are 8.1 and 11.1

Anyways, looks like it's OK to book from A - B but get off somewhere in between, NOT OK to then book a ticket from there to B (continuing the journey), but it's implied that it IS OK to book from that point back towards A.

MarkoP11

Thats not the section involved, thats just the you can't use two tickets for the same journey (as in same train) unless the price of those two is the same or more than the equivalent direct ticket.

You don't need to reserve a seat to make the journey print out the page on the IE site which shows the journey and in doing so you bypass the relevant regulation

Another point to this is what if I was a tourist, its unlikely Iwould realise that Newbridge is beyond Sallins, its on the site the fare is the same.

There is a bigger issue, why are such journeys possible in the first place well its simple the service frequency is so patchy that when big gaps open up some weird journey options can appear

Best one was Thurles Sallins on a Saturday afternoon last year
Thurles Dublin then
Dublin Newbridge and finally
Newbridge Sallins

Zebra3

I've noticed that in the past in their website, and if it ever went to court, I couldn't imagine anyone getting done for it.

Talk about smallmindness. :rolleyes: