Train fully booked on IR site

gerryR

Just wondering if a train is shown as fully booked on irishrail.ie is there any point showing up there to just buy a ticket? Like do they only sell a certain % of tickets online?

TIA

gR

loyatemu

gerryR wrote: »

Just wondering if a train is shown as fully booked on irishrail.ie is there any point showing up there to just buy a ticket? Like do they only sell a certain % of tickets online?

TIA

gR

afaik they only sell a couple of carriages worth of seats online - you can still buy at the station, and you can stand on the train as well. The maximum capacity of a train is generally higher than the number of people who could reasonably fit on it, they'll just keeping cramming people on as long as the doors can still be closed.

Cookie_Monster

ring and check first would be your best bet, may save an unnecessary trip to the station

gerryR

Thanks for the replies, had to get a train so headed down anyway. as you said, they seem to keep the first few carriages for prebooking and therest are a free for all.

monument

Fully booked online only means the online seats are booked. That's one or two cartages out of six on most trains.

It's worth turning up early, but in all likelihood many trains leaving from now on will still have some free seats. From what I've seen other years, not too many people travel on Christmas Eve, with the bulk of people already left. Although there could be larger numbers with the bad weather and the state of many roads?

kingshankly

Your guranteed to get a sear usually only one carriage for online booking

monument

Forgot the train I was getting is only really a three-car set. Galway and Mayo three car sets travel as one half the way, and then split. Luckly I was here early, seats filling up fast.

All the signage and audio on the whole train is set for Galway. Confusing the hell out of passangers. Wait, manual audio just there saying which end was which.

Small sign at the platform enterance but few people bar myself seemed to have seen it. Also note at the end of the main timetable board, but that would not be clear for anybody who does not know about this spliting service.

foggy_lad

monument wrote: »

Forgot the train I was getting is only really a three-car set. Galway and Mayo three car sets travel as one half the way, and then split. Luckly I was here early, seats filling up fast.

All the signage and audio on the whole train is set for Galway. Confusing the hell out of passangers. Wait, manual audio just there saying which end was which.

Small sign at the platform enterance but few people bar myself seemed to have seen it. Also note at the end of the main timetable board, but that would not be clear for anybody who does not know about this spliting service.

typical of irish rail keeping customers informed of changes to services and letting them knoe they are on the right train and in the right carriage.

fh041205

foggy_lad wrote: »

typical of irish rail keeping customers informed of changes to services and letting them knoe they are on the right train and in the right carriage.

True unfortiunately. On the other hand, splitting the set en route is a pretty good step forward IMO.

foggy_lad

fh041205 wrote: »

True unfortiunately. On the other hand, splitting the set en route is a pretty good step forward IMO.

and so easy to split the trains with the new carriages, would have needed two locos and several hours and "engineers" with the old trains

Cookie_Monster

foggy_lad wrote: »

and so easy to split the trains with the new carriages, would have needed two locos and several hours and "engineers" with the old trains

I suppose in theory they could have had loco-car-car-car-loco-car-car-car on the old ones and simply of unhooked them.