Disability Travel Pass and the DART

Daemos

I was going to post this in the existing free travel thread, but it's a bit long-winded and I didn't want to derail - no pun intended - the conversation

I'm travelling to Dublin this weekend with people who have travel passes, and am confused about what the procedure is

I emailed IR a while ago asking a few questions, and along with other inquiries they answered, they said that:

you would need to be at the booking office approx. 30min prior to departure to retrieve the tickets

At first I thought that meant that the tickets wouldn't activate until 30 minutes after you got them, but surely that can't be right? Where does this mythical 30 minutes come from, because surely they'd work straight away?

Since then, I also discovered this on the IR website:

You must be in possession of your free travel pass when travelling on board all Iarnród Éireann services and you must present your free travel pass at the ticket office to receive a ticket to travel on all services except the DART

Now what exactly does "except the DART" refer to, because I thought this was the exact procedure I had to follow? What is different about using the DART because I see no mention of what this exception is supposed to be?

Finally, I also asked if we could get the tickets hours in advance for use when we needed them, but didn't get a solid answer on this one, unless that's the 30 minutes that was referred to earlier. Does anyone know whether there's a time limit or anything?

Thanks in advance

Jamie2k9

Bring the passes with you, tickets can be purchased on the day of travel at any time ie I could get them at 07.00 and travel at 15.00 that afternoon.

The 30 minute thing is advise people to arrive 30 minutes before departing to purchase tickets and board train etc.

Cookie_Monster

thirty mins is pointless in reference to the DART as its generally more frequent than that anyway, hence the exception.
Generally there will be a little bit of a delay as station staff will need to get the metal ramp organised and find out where you are getting off, contact the other station and let them know to expect you to prepare their ramp as well.

foggy_lad

You just arrive at the station and get a ticket from the booking office before your train is due. For dart journeys a ticket is not required. You just show the travel pass at the ticket office and the gate will be opened for ye.. If the ticket office is closed or unmanned the gates are always left open/unlocked. When getting off the dart in connolly pearse or other manned stations you just again show the free pass at the gate when exiting.

If travelling on intercity services and if you have reserved seats you should arrive early to print off your seat reservations in the nbooking office or at the ticket machines and board the train.

Daemos

That's great, thanks all for the clarification

And C_M, that won't be a problem, they have disabilities but none use a wheelchair

Cookie_Monster

Daemos wrote: »

And C_M, that won't be a problem, they have disabilities but none use a wheelchair

I didn't specifically mean in your case, but I would imagine that is part of the reason they ask for you to be there in advance if it were to be required, it's easier to maintain the catch-all explanation they have rather than break it down further.