Sending a package on a train

budgemook

My friend came home from Japan the other day and stopped in the my house in Dublin before going back to Waterford. He left his bag behind and he wont be up for a while nor will I be down. Someone said you can send things places on a train. Is this right? If so any idea of the cost?

Thanks

Stark

There used to be a service called FasTrack for sending parcels on the train but I believe it's been discontinued now.

Run_to_da_hills

The lack of goods space on the modern fleet of 22'000's has definitely knocked this once handy service on the head.

A courier service or an Post is your best bet.

budgemook

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

The lack of goods space on the modern fleet of 22'000's has definitely knocked this once handy service on the head.

A courier service or an Post is your best bet.

Is that expensive?

Judgement Day

Yes - a courier will be quite expensive. Fastrack was discontinued because CIE/IE could not run a piss-up in a brewery and nothing to do with lack of space on the 22000s - that was just Barry Kenny spin.

budgemook

Dang

Would a bus take it for me does anyone think?

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

minikin

fastway would be one of the cheapest ways of getting it there.

budgemook

Bus Eireann said they don't have a service for it. I asked if I asked the driver do you think he would take it. The woman said you'd have to ask the driver. Might just go down and try my luck. I'll ring Kavanaghs first though. Cheers

LeBash

Someone like fastway or DPD will pick it up and delivery it for roughly 5-8 euro and have it there next day.

Fastrack was crazy money. If i remember correctly, around 30 euro from 0-5 KG, but it was same day

budgemook

Gonna go for fastway. Could go down to Bus Aras and ask the driver but this is probably handiest

budgemook

Turns out you have to buy 20 labels for 20 packages off fastway. You can't just send one thing. Feck.

Run_to_da_hills

Another way out of it is to purchase two Iarnrod Eireann web fare specials and make a day out of it if you decide to take a sickie from work. This would cost you e10 each way with a e4 credit card fee probably the less than what a courier would charge.

budgemook

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Another way out of it is to purchase two Iarnrod Eireann web fare specials and make a day out of it if you decide to take a sickie from work. This would cost you e10 each way with a e4 credit card fee probably the less than what a courier would charge.

Yeah thought about driving down and staying for the weekend with my mates but I'm broke at the moment to be honest. Gonna chance asking a bus driver tomorrow.

enda1

budgemook wrote: »

Yeah thought about driving down and staying for the weekend with my mates but I'm broke at the moment to be honest. Gonna chance asking a bus driver tomorrow.

Could try not even asking and just chuck it on the bus. No one will notice if its JJK's I'd say.

budgemook

enda1 wrote: »

Could try not even asking and just chuck it on the bus. No one will notice if its JJK's I'd say.

Bit risky, there's a laptop in it

enda1

Risky either way, especially if you let people know there is no one to supervise the bag. It could easily just go missing, perhaps no one knowing makes it safer

foggy_lad

ask the driver in busaras if he will drop the bag into the office in waterford and mark it "for collection by" your friend, and have your friend waiting in waterford at the bus station for the bus. i cant see any problem with doing this as long as the bag is not bulky or very heavy.

Victor

Why can't your friend collect their own bag? Or pay for you to deliver it?

foggy_lad wrote: »

ask the driver in busaras if he will drop the bag into the office in waterford and mark it "for collection by" your friend, and have your friend waiting in waterford at the bus station for the bus. i cant see any problem with doing this as long as the bag is not bulky or very heavy.

And doesn't contain explosives.

budgemook

foggy_lad wrote: »

ask the driver in busaras if he will drop the bag into the office in waterford and mark it "for collection by" your friend, and have your friend waiting in waterford at the bus station for the bus. i cant see any problem with doing this as long as the bag is not bulky or very heavy.

Yeah, When I was living down there I had left my house keys at home and my Mother sent them down on a bus and I met the driver. Just have to hope the bus driver is sound enough. It's no skin off his nose really but you know how some people can be.

budgemook

Victor wrote: »

Why can't your friend collect their own bag?

Well he will do if needs be but he lives in Waterford and it's in my house in Dublin so I'm just trying to do him a favour.

bg07

Whats wrong with posting it? Standard post is generally next day delivery. A laptop wouldnt be that heavy.

Postal Rates

budgemook

bg07 wrote: »

Whats wrong with posting it? Standard post is generally next day delivery. A laptop wouldnt be that heavy.

Postal Rates

It's not just a laptop, it's a schoolbag sized bag pack with other stuff in there

dowlingm

When did BE get out of packages? They certainly used to carry them.

Victor

dowlingm wrote: »

When did BE get out of packages? They certainly used to carry them.

About a year before Irish Rail.

Run_to_da_hills

budgemook wrote: »

It's not just a laptop, it's a schoolbag sized bag pack with other stuff in there

If its a laptop I would be very slow to let a courier take it unless its wrapped extremly well and also coovered by insurance.

spacekiwi

Hi just joined boards and have not got the hang of starting a new thread.

Does anyone recall how much it was to send a package by railroad sameday?

also how did it work?

Thanks spacekiwi

foggy_lad

spacekiwi wrote: »

Hi just joined boards and have not got the hang of starting a new thread.

Does anyone recall how much it was to send a package by railroad sameday?

also how did it work?

Thanks spacekiwi

if you read through the thread you will see neither bus eireann or irish rail do parcel services anymore. best thing would be one of the couriers listed or the post office, or get a bus or train yourself with the package.

Judgement Day

spacekiwi wrote: »

Hi just joined boards and have not got the hang of starting a new thread.

Does anyone recall how much it was to send a package by railroad sameday?

also how did it work?

Thanks spacekiwi

It was a shambolic rail parcels service operated/run into the ground by CIE/IE. It offered a station to station parcel service (by regular passenger train) and a door to door parcel service. Based entirely on weight so the pricing structure was completely insane which latterly led to only very expensive items being sent by the service. To send an ordinary business envelope from any one station to another cost a staggering €20.00 (the minimum weight being 1kg). Valuable items regularly were 'mislaid' and large amounts of money were wasted taking out double page colour ads in prominent publications in a partially successful effort to discourage critical coverage about the company. Further large sums of money were spent on plush offices for the staff/parcel depots at some terminal stations.
Despite being run into the ground the service still managed to carry a considerable amount of parcels every year - although it is hard to get an accurate up-to-date figure for traffic when the service was withdrawn. Like everything else that CIE comes into contact with it was cursed with the reverse 'Midas Touch' and turned to s......te!:mad:

DWCommuter

€20 for same day station to station is/was a feckin bargain! For example; Dublin to Galway sameday by courier is €300. For €20 you get station to station on a choice of trains and its hardly a hassle to have it collected at the other end. Even the Door to door service was a fraction of the cost of a sameday courier.

Judgement Day

DW - agreed €20 was cheap compared to a courier but the courier has to put on a van specially whereas the train was running anyway full or empty and if properly (cheaply) priced could have been a market winner not an overpriced, poorly marketed, poorly operated loss maker. At the end it was only things like blood samples, motor parts etc that were being sent. The way the traffic was roughly manhandled and the state of many of the parcels offices around the network beggared belief. I have much personal experience of Fastrack and can definitively state that it was a total an utter shambles.

DWCommuter

Judgement Day wrote: »

DW - agreed €20 was cheap compared to a courier but the courier has to put on a van specially whereas the train was running anyway full or empty and if properly (cheaply) priced could have been a market winner not an overpriced, poorly marketed, poorly operated loss maker. At the end it was only things like blood samples, motor parts etc that were being sent. The way the traffic was roughly manhandled and the state of many of the parcels offices around the network beggared belief. I have much personal experience of Fastrack and can definitively state that it was a total an utter shambles.

I agree with all that except on price and range of goods sent. I also had much personal experience of it and it hurt me financially when it went. I find it so frustratingly annoying that they abandoned it. No attempt was ever made to market it en masse. I put loads of customers their way and these were ordinary joes who would just have a need to get something from A to B sameday and cheaply. Some had never heard of it and those that did didn't realise you could walk into a Dublin depot and just pay cash. There was an assumption it was for big business only.

Ive no doubt that if it had been farmed out like their catering business, then a private concern would have made a success of it. Why it wasn't is another CIE mystery.

budgemook

I ended up sending my package by post. It was €24 which included €1000 insurance. Think €20 with €300 insurance. It arrived the next day. Pleasantly surprised.

dowlingm

Unfortunately I think the only way packages will return to the trains is if a private company makes enough of a fuss like IWT did with freight. The wifi trial going on right now does give some hope that IE might be open to "plug-in" services run by third parties.

foggy_lad

dowlingm wrote: »

Unfortunately I think the only way packages will return to the trains is if a private company makes enough of a fuss like IWT did with freight. The wifi trial going on right now does give some hope that IE might be open to "plug-in" services run by third parties.

there is a wifi trial going on?? i thought iarnrod eireann were not going to have wifi on trains because they said we can all use the non-existant mobile broadband that rarely works along the rail network areas.

dowlingm

foggy_lad wrote: »

there is a wifi trial going on?? i thought iarnrod eireann were not going to have wifi on trains because they said we can all use the non-existant mobile broadband that rarely works along the rail network areas.

The RUI boys have the scoop: http://www.railusers.ie/forum/showthread.php?t=11618

Technocentral

Just got a quote of 30 euro plus vat from deadline couriers to send a hard drive from Rathmines to Connemara.


http://www.deadline.ie

corktina

did it take a year and a half to get the quote?

Technocentral

corktina wrote: »

did it take a year and a half to get the quote?

Rang them, took 10 seconds. Why is there a problem with them, cant find anyone as cheap if you know someone?

corktina

Im wasted on here:D