Irish Rail Web Sale

foggy_lad

dowlingm wrote: »

Welcome to capitalism and PD mandated competition.

This is interesting:
http://www.etenders.gov.ie/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=APR330495

That could see the abolition of first class tavel and full meals being served.

bk

dowlingm wrote: »

Welcome to capitalism and PD mandated competition.

Well my reaction is different, simply open up those other places to private operators too.

foggy_lad wrote: »

That could see the abolition of first class tavel and full meals being served.

No harm, I'm not sure many people use it anyway.First class is a throw back to when second class was truly awful.

Does anyone really want to get a crappy hot meal on a train over getting to your destination quicker and having a meal in a nice restaurant?

Today it is better to offer a good high level, fast and affordable service to all customers.

dowlingm

bk wrote: »

Does anyone really want to get a crappy hot meal on a train over getting to your destination quicker and having a meal in a nice restaurant?

while I would prefer restaurant food, the fact that I get a hot breakfast and dinner on VIA Rail between Toronto and London/Kingston means I don't have to use up on site time etc. The leisure traveller makes a different calculation but for my firm my time is worth enough $ that they have paid for First the last eight years knowing they easily make that back even considering the much higher First prices over here (First also gets lower penalties for change of train which is important if a project duration has uncertainty in it). The First cars are often quite busy so plenty of other people make a similar call apparently.

foggy_lad

dowlingm wrote: »

while I would prefer restaurant food, the fact that I get a hot breakfast and dinner on VIA Rail between Toronto and London/Kingston means I don't have to use up on site time etc. The leisure traveller makes a different calculation but for my firm my time is worth enough $ that they have paid for First the last eight years knowing they easily make that back even considering the much higher First prices over here (First also gets lower penalties for change of train which is important if a project duration has uncertainty in it). The First cars are often quite busy so plenty of other people make a similar call apparently.

While I accept that many business people will be required to work with their laptops on the train and for this reason on our awful trains first class is their only option because of the lack of powerpoints on the other loco-hauled trains, on all the new trains there is power at every seat and the first class cars are exactly the same as the other cars so it would be wasteful for a company to pay big money in these cash-strapped times for a first class seat on services using the 22000's.

dowlingm

foggy - I kind of agree with you - as currently offered by IE First is a waste of money. For me, there should be two classes:

First -

• reasonable included food or light snack plus for pay extras,
• better legroom
• two dedicated staff for each First carriage to ensure prompt service selected from those with either Irish (esp Galway/Tralee routes) or foreign language proficiency
• either fold out or fixed table at all seats
• no-fee reservable seat
• total ticketing flexibility
• spotlessly clean lounge with dedicated bathrooms at all *terminal* stations served by First class trains with armchairs, workstations, snacks and papers
• priority boarding at stations with gated platforms.
• zero tolerance for messing of any sort and phones requested to be on silent/vibrate mode

The fare for First would have to rise a bit and the upgrade fee from Standard/Standard Plus would have to be commensurate with the actual fare difference rather than a loophole. (Why for instance there is a Student discount on First is beyond me)

Standard -

• for pay food only
• fee required for change of ticket
• fee required for reserved seat

There should also be a "Standard Plus" option which entitles you to change ticket and reserve seat for a combined/smaller fee which is what people who normally travel First could get on regional routes and people on a budget pay on trunk routes.

Finally, I would institute a frequent traveller scheme like VIA Rail's for which you get points based not on distance but on fares paid (70 Euro fare = 70 points) with bonuses for Standard Plus (10%) and First (25%). The points would be redeemable for tickets or upgrades to SP or First. This could also be a bonus for tourists - VIA Rail has a reciprocal arrangement with SNCF where points can be redeemed on each others services so with a similar agreement you could have French tourists arriving in Ireland with prebooked rail travel using SNCF points to get them around the country.

foggy_lad

dowlingm wrote: »

foggy - I kind of agree with you - as currently offered by IE First is a waste of money. For me, there should be two classes:

First -

• reasonable included food or light snack plus for pay extras,
• better legroom
• two dedicated staff for each First carriage to ensure prompt service selected from those with either Irish (esp Galway/Tralee routes) or foreign language proficiency
• either fold out or fixed table at all seats
• no-fee reservable seat
• total ticketing flexibility
• spotlessly clean lounge with dedicated bathrooms at all *terminal* stations served by First class trains with armchairs, workstations, snacks and papers
• priority boarding at stations with gated platforms.
• zero tolerance for messing of any sort and phones requested to be on silent/vibrate mode

The fare for First would have to rise a bit and the upgrade fee from Standard/Standard Plus would have to be commensurate with the actual fare difference rather than a loophole. (Why for instance there is a Student discount on First is beyond me)

Standard -

• for pay food only
• fee required for change of ticket
• fee required for reserved seat

There should also be a "Standard Plus" option which entitles you to change ticket and reserve seat for a combined/smaller fee which is what people who normally travel First could get on regional routes and people on a budget pay on trunk routes.

Finally, I would institute a frequent traveller scheme like VIA Rail's for which you get points based not on distance but on fares paid (70 Euro fare = 70 points) with bonuses for Standard Plus (10%) and First (25%). The points would be redeemable for tickets or upgrades to SP or First. This could also be a bonus for tourists - VIA Rail has a reciprocal arrangement with SNCF where points can be redeemed on each others services so with a similar agreement you could have French tourists arriving in Ireland with prebooked rail travel using SNCF points to get them around the country.

That will never work here now because the 22000's are built and the carriages all have the same seats etc so to slap on a first class car would be impossible! loco-hauled passenger trains are being phased out by Irish Rail as far as I can see and it also appears that standard class passengers are subsidising first class accommodation on most journeys due to the extra cost of staff serving the first class car and dining car.

Take an average Dublin-Cork train with maybe 30 passengers in each carriage while only a few pay the extra for first class maybe 10. Those 10 pay €120 return each except some will only be paying the upgrade to first class because they have free travel. now set this against the level of service for first class and the cost of providing a first class service and compare it to the 210 other people with little or no service from staff but who are paying almost as much for a return journey. normal standard class passengers are subsidising first class!

bk

dowlingm wrote: »

Standard -

• for pay food only
• fee required for change of ticket
• fee required for reserved seat

All already exist, you pay for your food, your pay if you change your ticket and you have to pay to reserve a seat and book online, in fact you have no choice to reserve a seat and pay if you book online.

dowlingm wrote: »

There should also be a "Standard Plus" option which entitles you to change ticket and reserve seat for a combined/smaller fee which is what people who normally travel First could get on regional routes and people on a budget pay on trunk routes.

To be honest, won't work due to the far cheaper and more flexible options available on the new direct luxury bus coach services. A standard reserved seat costs €80 to Cork, with a fee if you change it. The coach costs €22 with almost total flexibility with which time you travel.

To be honest IR will have to go the opposite way to compete. Get rid of both the online booking and seat reservation fees and become more flexible about changing tickets for standard class.

First class is a total waste of money, it can go two ways scrap it or improve it. To be honest I don't think their is little demand for an improved first class service in Ireland. Times are tight in Ireland and few companies are willing to pay out extra for their employees travel anymore.

Like the idea of travel points, Bus Eireann do something like that with BE Club.

dowlingm

foggy: Obviously some of the changes above would require equipment refits. However, it wouldn't all have to happen overnight. Furthermore, most of the suggestions would either only require operational/staffing changes or would affect station buildings. The 22Ks are built, yes, but IE seem to break a 1st class set every so often (22037, now 22033) so it's not like opportunities to yank one from service for a quick internal refit are non-existent. I've only been in Standard on a Mark 4 and it was a little while back but from what I recall Mark 4 seats don't line up with the windows - perhaps a refit in First would give an opportunity to give a more sympathetic internal layout. Given the less than strenuous utilisation of the Mark 4s I think it's possible to do a rolling refit, and I believe your assertion that loco haul is simply going away to be a figment of your ample imagination. The de Dietrichs are due for total refit anyway but NIR parsimony will likely get in the way of any great strides there.

bk: like foggy you seem to subscribe to the school of "I would never use it so no-one else ever would". IE obviously aren't so sure, hence the market segmentation tender. You also seem to have fallen victim to the disapproving finger wag of Angela Merkel that the Irish were enjoying themselves too much and deserve only porridge and sackcloth henceforth. While there are many businesses which likely cannot afford to pay for first class travel, there are still a few businesses in Ireland not completely flat on their face and a few individuals of sufficient net worth to want a bit of comfort in leisure travel (I have had a few as seatmates in VIA1). As I said in my previous post, some people aren't buying First class for price reasons but others aren't because the current offering simply isn't a good enough product (I wouldn't, if I lived and worked in Ireland at the moment). Many of those people will choose their comfortable car and eschew public transport completely, since even Aircoach can't offer door to door service if your door isn't Westmoreland St or Dublin Airport.

The notion that IE must become a bus on rails and nothing more is the same mantra that broke Aer Lingus as a brand. At a time when Irish people had more and more to spend, Aer Lingus panicked at the O'Leary PR machine and threw the baby out with the bathwater - a guy I know from London and travels frequently posted this on his 2,000 Twitter followers a couple of weeks ago: "Ireland's great but cold day in hell before #AerLingus sees yours truly again".

Aer Lingus Premier was a bit like IE Premier - it had a nice name but if you compared it to Business (never mind First) in other airlines it paled by comparison. Now even small regional airlines like Flybe are heading back in the opposite direction by segmenting fares and adding frills. The notion that terminal facilities aren't important is exploded by a carrier like Porter Airlines (based in Toronto) which has built a lucrative brand on quiet lounges with espresso machines and coffee rather than the banging and clattering of the main terminal.

You can call Aircoach "luxury coach" all you want, and it certainly beats the hell out of the buses of my youth, but for some a bus is a bus is a bus. You can also assert that Aircoach would serve places like Thurles, Mallow and Charleville if only they were given the routes but the reality is that the introduction of the express has led to a net cut in stopping service, so we'll have to see what happens in phase 2 to see if Aircoach really has a commitment to anything other than a city-city service. As I said before I think Aircoach deserves to have success and I may use it again (but not from Westmoreland St) but to go on a rampage and write off the entire intercity network on the strength of a private company whose parent is wobbly on its feet is, in my view, unwise.

Finally, for clarity, I listed what Standard *would* offer not what it offers now simply to point up the fact I believe there should be a very obvious distinction that First gets you more than a lick of paint and a nicer looking seat cover.

foggy_lad

I can't see it myself but my vision is possibly coloured by the incompetence and ineptitude evident in most areas of the IE operation usually spreading from Management down the line.

Passengers must be at the station 20 minutes before departure is all well and good but that time should be added to the overall journey time!

The facts are that IE have their age old terms and conditions which they will twist and turn at any opportunity to deny all responsibility for their own screw-ups.

they have a reservations system which they charge for but it does not work, they have brand new trains which have faulty power sockets as well as faulty smoke detectors in the toilets as well as other flaws with the passenger information displays not working either because they are broken or the staff are unable to use them properly.

Speed restrictions have been in place for years all the way through the richest period our country has ever experienced yet IE have completly failed to protect or enhance the infrastructure that they have been left in charge of, in fact they are now crying that they will need an extra 50million per year for god only knows how long to remove a few miles of these restrictions per year, they are like a money sponge only when they get squeezed nothing comes out!

Spending even more money on this awful company and giving its incompetent management and CIE any more money is likely to seriously annoy the Germans who are bankrolling us for the forseeable future!

Ireland has one line that could possibly sustain a first class service but let the folks in NIR pay for it if they want it! why should standard class passengers subsidise forst class services they don't use don't want and don't see any need for?