Great Railway Journeys on CIE

Stephen15

Del.Monte wrote: »

Mine went to Wellingtonbridge - has done every year since they closed it.

I have to say I'm more of a Campile man me self

Del.Monte

Paddy O'Gorman is on the Rosslare Express on the Sean O'Rourke Show RTE1 this morning.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Del.Monte

Another day, another train trip albeit a very short one.

Enniscorthy/Wexford/Enniscorthy.

11.40 ex. Enniscorthy

A beautiful sunny morning for a trip along arguably the most beautiful section of the whole Dublin/Rosslare Harbour route. A handful of passengers on in Enniscorthy and a larger handful off.



The fare - an incredible €11.95 for a Day Return - the bus is only €8 but completely unreliable when you have to be somewhere at a set time. Add in the delights of standing about at the "Bus Stop Shop" and the train wins hands down. CIE make NO attempt to market the train and many in the town would be hard pushed to tell you where the station is. The train is not exactly crowded in the Down direction at 11.40 - so why not try and fill it up by offering or undercutting Bus Eireann and Wexford Bus.

Back on the 13.20 ex.Wexford - plenty of custom. Scenery still beautiful my attention turned back to the state of the ICR which, like several that I have been on recently, could benefit from a deep clean.

More thrilling stories when I go 'trekking' before Christmas.

Stephen15

I was thinking that if the Rosslare line was to be closed after Gorey it wouldn't be a bad idea to extend the Dart as far as Gorey. Run a Dart to Gorey hourly if a 10 minute frequency was to be you could even have it skip out certain stations.

end of the road

Stephen15 wrote: »

I was thinking that if the Rosslare line was to be closed after Gorey it wouldn't be a bad idea to extend the Dart as far as Gorey. Run a Dart to Gorey hourly if a 10 minute frequency was to be you could even have it skip out certain stations.

if south of Gorey were to shut they would just continue with the service as currently offered until they could shut south of greystones which they would do at the first possible opportunity. they're will never be a dart to Gorey i'm afraid.

Stephen15

end of the road wrote: »

if south of Gorey were to shut they would just continue with the service as currently offered until they could shut south of greystones which they would do at the first possible opportunity. they're will never be a dart to Gorey i'm afraid.

Tbh if they were going shut southe of Gorey then they may shut south of Greystones. I know it's never going to happen even a Dart service as far as Arklow wouldn't be an awful idea either.

end of the road

Stephen15 wrote: »

Tbh if they were going shut southe of Gorey then they may shut south of Greystones. I know it's never going to happen even a Dart service as far as Arklow wouldn't be an awful idea either.

oh don't get me wrong i would be jumping for joy if the line was electrified at least to arklow but it's just not going to happen. i have often thought myself that when they do go to shut it they will just go for the lot and i wouldn't rule it out but i think more likely they would do it in parts. rosslare wexford, wexford Gorey, Gorey greystones.

Del.Monte

Del.Monte wrote: »

Paddy O'Gorman is on the Rosslare Express on the Sean O'Rourke Show RTE1 this morning.

According to Sean O'Rourke this item didn't happen but will be on this morning...don't hold your breath.

thomond2006

Del.Monte wrote: »

Another day, another train trip albeit a very short one.

Enniscorthy/Wexford/Enniscorthy.

11.40 ex. Enniscorthy

A beautiful sunny morning for a trip along arguably the most beautiful section of the whole Dublin/Rosslare Harbour route. A handful of passengers on in Enniscorthy and a larger handful off.



The fare - an incredible €11.95 for a Day Return - the bus is only €8 but completely unreliable when you have to be somewhere at a set time. Add in the delights of standing about at the "Bus Stop Shop" and the train wins hands down. CIE make NO attempt to market the train and many in the town would be hard pushed to tell you where the station is. The train is not exactly crowded in the Down direction at 11.40 - so why not try and fill it up by offering or undercutting Bus Eireann and Wexford Bus.

Back on the 13.20 ex.Wexford - plenty of custom. Scenery still beautiful my attention turned back to the state of the ICR which, like several that I have been on recently, could benefit from a deep clean.

More thrilling stories when I go 'trekking' before Christmas.

Short hops on intercity have crazy fares. It's like they are priced to prevent short hops. Limerick Junction to Thurles is €15 day return and the journey time is 20 minutes. It's madness.

Del.Monte

Paddy O'Gorman's has just been on and was a typical RTE piece which allowed him to ramble off into subjects such as community relations in NI, 1798 and watching GAA games through a hedge. :rolleyes:

Paddy, of course, travelled on the morning Down train from Connolly and was surprised to find it full of OAPs - what did he expect on that particular train? Same on the return working i.e. not at a time when a younger demographic (working people) would have been on the train. Also, research conducted in November is pointless as the whole tourist market is not taken into account.

That said, all those he interviewed brought home the point that all these OAPs roaming aimlessly about the country (according to some) are spending money in all those places that they visit. This line won't close - this time - and Ballybrophy/Limerick will probably offered up as the sacrificial lamb in return for a few more million increase in the subsidy.

h.gricer

All this talk about closing Gorey to Rosslare, it's all a game with smoke and mirrors, they always add a little more than what they actually want.
I don't think they'll close Gorey to Wexford, they have been preparing Wexford to be a terminus, they want to definitely close Wexford to Rosslare for a lot of reasons, eliminate the 5mph along Wexford Quay and not having to worry about coastal erosion near Kilrane, so they'll say ''we'll keep Gorey to Wexford and close Wexford to Rosslare'' and that will be the compromise, it's all a game at the end of the day.
Regards
h.gricer

end of the road

the thing is that ultimately both of those issues either
1. exist elsewhere in terms of coastal erosion,
or
2. are a non issue in terms of the 5mph along wexford quay.
granted they would be used as an excuse to close south of wexford which they will succeed in before moving on to south of gorey which i will never be convinced they won't get to shut and rip up eventually.

Del.Monte

The 5mph limit on the quays is routinely wheeled out by CIE, and their fanboys, as a reason to close this section and is laughable in the overall timings on the route.

tabbey

Del.Monte wrote: »

The 5mph limit on the quays is routinely wheeled out by CIE, and their fanboys, as a reason to close this section and is laughable in the overall timings on the route.

Since the quay was widened, there is no reason why the rail line could not be segregated from pedestrians and road vehicles. Rail speed limit could then be raised to at least 20 mph or 30 km/h.

Del.Monte

tabbey wrote: »

Since the quay was widened, there is no reason why the rail line could not be segregated from pedestrians and road vehicles. Rail speed limit could then be raised to at least 20 mph or 30 km/h.

But it doesn't need to be.

end of the road

Del.Monte wrote: »

But it doesn't need to be.

it would be worth pushing for it to be done though. well in an ideal world anyway.

Del.Monte

Caught the 11.42 Enniscorthy/Wexford this morning - an ICR set and quite a few waiting for the train.

€11.95 for my adult day return as against €27.70 for an Enniscorthy/Connolly day return represents shocking value for the short journey. The unreliable bus service is only €8.00! Why are local journey passengers subsidising long distance passengers? Would it not make sense to market local journeys at cheap rates to increase revenue?



Above: plenty of traffic on offer at Wexford for the lunchtime Up working from Wexford - not that many of them were OAPs - contrary to what some on here would have you believe.

Isambard

Limerick to Galway would be cheaper!

Quackster

Isambard wrote: »

Limerick to Galway would be cheaper!

Booked Limerick/Galway last December for only €15 return. Wanted to see what it was actually like for myself.

But sure the line flooded and ended up taking the super-efficient non-stop Bus Eireann service instead. :rolleyes:

man98

Used the line from Wexford to Dublin yesterday. There was a good crowd on the train from Wexford (0720 service); the carriage was quite full by Arklow. Delayed at Greystones to wait for the delayed DART service. Returned on the 1838 service. DARTs were all delayed. The commuter service running before us was 15 minutes late although we only left 2 minutes late. Due to the DART's delay we were caught at 4 red signals between Connolly and Dun Laoghaire. The train was running around 15 - 20 minutes late through Wicklow though it was only 10 late by the time I arrived in Wexford. I saw the reliability stats for the DART last month - a 73% on-time service. IÉ need to shake up the timetable in response to the PPT opening - a large proportion of peak trains out of Connolly were heavily delayed yesterday and I have heard very similar stories over the last few weeks since the PPT's opening to passenger traffic.

On a side note, I was talking to someone I knew on the platform in Connolly - he told me he arrived for the lunchtime to service to Rosslare; saw that it was a 29k so he left and decided to take the evening service instead as it's almost guaranteed to be the ICR.

tabbey

man98 wrote: »

Returned on the 1838 service. DARTs were all delayed. The commuter service running before us was 15 minutes late although we only left 2 minutes late. Due to the DART's delay we were caught at 4 red signals between Connolly and Dun Laoghaire. The train was running around 15 - 20 minutes late through Wicklow though it was only 10 late by the time I arrived in Wexford. I saw the reliability stats for the DART last month - a 73% on-time service

If it arrived at it's destination only ten minutes late, Irish Rail will claim it as a punctual train.

To most of us, it is late, but we don't publish the punctuality statistics!

Fred Swanson

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Grandeeod

More padding than a Wonderbra!

man98

tabbey wrote: »

If it arrived at it's destination only ten minutes late, Irish Rail will claim it as a punctual train.

To most of us, it is late, but we don't publish the punctuality statistics!

The fact that it takes longer than a bus or car in the first place is all that matters for most passengers to be frank.

Del.Monte

Continuing with my exciting tales of rail journeys - temporarily restricted to the Dublin/Rosslare line.

Sunday 12th Feb. Enniscorthy/Bray by the 14.20 ex.Rosslare - uneventful. Onward from Bray to Connolly on a DART with no heating...

Faced with time to kill in Connolly, and having experienced the cold of the main course the previous weekend, I opted to try "Madigan's" uninviting looking hostelry. The concourse was almost warmer and the place has the atmosphere and decor of a morgue. Still, a pint of Hop House 13 and a bag of stale crisps filled half an hour and I headed back to Platform 5 at 18.00 expecting to board the 18.30 for Rosslare as I had done the previous weekend. Sadly, consistency is not one of CIE's strong points and the small number of passengers were kept waiting to board until 18.18 despite the set being at the platform with lights on and engines roaring away since at least 18.00!

Just to rub salt in the wounds the caring, bilingual welcoming pa system on the 22000s was in overdrive before we even left Connolly. CIE myth and reality. An uneventful journey home in a heat-less carriage.

end of the road

Del.Monte wrote: »

Continuing with my exciting tales of rail journeys - temporarily restricted to the Dublin/Rosslare line.

Sunday 12th Feb. Enniscorthy/Bray by the 14.20 ex.Rosslare - uneventful. Onward from Bray to Connolly on a DART with no heating...

train failure i presume. any idea what happened?

Del.Monte wrote: »

Faced with time to kill in Connolly, and having experienced the cold of the main course the previous weekend, I opted to try "Madigan's" uninviting looking hostelry. The concourse was almost warmer and the place has the atmosphere and decor of a morgue.

ah, no change there then with Madigan's. still though, the drink was fine any time i went in there so i let the atmosphere and decor go.

Del.Monte wrote: »

Still, a pint of Hop House 13 and a bag of stale crisps filled half an hour and I headed back to Platform 5 at 18.00 expecting to board the 18.30 for Rosslare as I had done the previous weekend. Sadly, consistency is not one of CIE's strong points and the small number of passengers were kept waiting to board until 18.18 despite the set being at the platform with lights on and engines roaring away since at least 18.00!

Just to rub salt in the wounds the caring, bilingual welcoming pa system on the 22000s was in overdrive before we even left Connolly. CIE myth and reality. An uneventful journey home in a heat-less carriage.

CIE don't do heat on the rosslare line. until summer time when the train is like an oven with the heating on full blast. you seemed to have got away without having to endure 2900 rattle traps though which is some bit of good, all be it not enough to outweigh quite frankly a rubbish sounding day out

Fred Swanson

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end of the road

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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same here. it isn't the most inviting of places though, but it does what it is expected to do, serve drink.

Del.Monte

end of the road wrote: »

same here. it isn't the most inviting of places though, but it does what it is expected to do, serve drink.

It serves drink, but badly run as the old buffet was, it was a family friendly place in which people could have a meal or a cup of tea.