Irish Rail website revamp

thomond2006

http://www.irishrail.ie/

What do we think? It was overdue a facelift.

New fare info: http://www.irishrail.ie/news/managemybooking

Low Fare: The cheapest option, customers will be able to travel on the service booked only to get the best fares. Customers can change name and seat selection online in advance.
Semi Flexible: This offers some flexibility. Customers can switch to the train just before or after their booked service without any charge. In addition, they can change to other services online in advance, or cancel their booking entirely, by paying a 20% fee, a significant reduction from the current manual system.
Fully Flexible: Customers can make time changes or cancellations online up to 90 minutes before departure for no charge. Customers can also switch to any other train on their route on the day of travel for no charge.
CityGold / Premier Class: These services and ticket options will remain available on the Dublin/Cork and Dublin/Belfast routes available.
Low Fare and Semi Flexible customers can also change to other trains not covered by their ticket type at the station on the same day of travel for a €15 surcharge.

Del.Monte

A bit cleaner looking and that's it.

Five hours and fifty seven minutes to go from Enniscorthy to Waterford - fantastic.

Comprehensive freight services - provided you only want to go between Ballina/Dublin/Waterford.

Rail Gourmet seems to have morphed into 'our' Rail Gourmet team - when did it become part of CIE again?

Bring on the strike and let's be rid of them.

bobbyss

The website says you can collect your ticket from .. wherever. But I am assuming you can print off your own ticket if you want? I would much prefer to go to a station with everything done and not have to probably queue for it?

cython

bobbyss wrote: »

The website says you can collect your ticket from .. wherever. But I am assuming you can print off your own ticket if you want? I would much prefer to go to a station with everything done and not have to probably queue for it?

Given that the barriers in stations (where they are installed, at least) are reliant on the magnetic stripe on tickets, and that this technology is not readily available on the consumer side, I doubt you can print your ticket at home, and hence the need to collect them from the ticket desk or a machine at the station.

n97 mini

What they refer to as semi-flexible they then call medium-flexible when booking. The first sounds ok, the second doesn't.

phater phagan

The journey on Saturday from Killarney to Heuston station which used to take about three and a half hours will now take four hours and forty minutes. Boy, that's some achievement! Bonuses for the management now I imagine.

LXFlyer

phater phagan wrote: »

The journey on Saturday from Killarney to Heuston station which used to take about three and a half hours will now take four hours and forty minutes. Boy, that's some achievement! Bonuses for the management now I imagine.

There is engineering work on the line this weekend with bus transfers.
http://www.irishrail.ie/news/lineimprovementworks

Uberbeamerman

Cheaper to get an adult ticket than a student for some journeys...

"An unknown error occurred during the creation of the booking, please try again or contact the system administrator"

They made a bad website worse

Quackster

Took me half a dozen attempts earlier to book a ticket before I reached a successful conclusion without some random error popping up. And from the tweet machine it's clear I wasn't the only one having problems either. Hopefully the overnight maintenance gets the gremlins sorted.

The cheapest price on my route has dropped somewhat and is now available on every service more than 72 hours in advance but it remains to be seen how quickly that will book out on the busier services.

XPS_Zero

Something has bugged me about IE's website for years as someone who travels to the north a lot

You can enter Belfast or Newry into the search and order a ticket but not any of the other NI stations, even though their ticket office machines can issue a ticket FROM anywhere on the island of Ireland TO anywhere on the island of Ireland, if the office machines can give me a ticket covering my entire journey from my local DART station to Derry say, I don't see any reason why I can't beat the que by buying that same ticket online and using a code to print it in the machines in my local station.
So I decided to see if it will at least cover my local station to the end of the Enterprise route as that's very very basic, since it's an Irish Rail route....

This option is not available online, but might be available at the booking office

Successive Irish governments rant on and on about all Ireland this and that and claim to want reunification but can't seem to get even tiny little elements like this right of treating Ireland as one entity, how the hell are they going to actually GOVERN it as a single country one day.

Now it can map me a journey, tell me the times and transfers etc....but can't order me a damn ticket?? WHY?? There is no reason to

It gets even more farcical...so I thought ok they are not properly linked up with Translinks system maybe (even though Translinks app can easily show you times from say Connoly to Derry, and Irish Rails can't do the the same), so at least if the booking systems improved I can get a ticket from my local Irish Rail station to an Intercity Irish Rail station.....NOPE!

This option is not available online, but might be available ail t the booking office

When your national rail network wont' even let you book a f---g ticket between two of it's own stations, forcing you to buy two separate tickets, that's pretty mediocre and entirely what I've come to expect from semi state companies. Hello lads in SIPTU and SIPTU members....pay attention! It's incompetence like that which makes us want to use the Luas model and have private companies manage transport services day to day. Maybe if you could get BASIC elements right like the ability to book a ticket for a single journey between two of your own god damn stations right there would be less support for "de race te de bottom".


Apart from a slightly different design of the place where you put your information in all the various sections of the site appear to be the exact same. I don't see any real difference.

This isn't a new website, it's a slightly redesigned front page.

Nomis21

I notice on the Galway line that it is not possible to book day return tickets but period return tickets are now the same price as day returns were last week. Only fully flexible tickets are available.

Seems like there is a big reduction in period return prices and single tickets everywhere on the network by booking online.

XPS_Zero

Nomis21 wrote: »

I notice on the Galway line that it is not possible to book day return tickets but period return tickets are now the same price as day returns were last week. Only fully flexible tickets are available.

Do you mean they automatically issue open returns?
I thought they always charged more for those.

Nomis21

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Do you mean they automatically issue open returns?
I thought they always charged more for those.

Well many lines only seem to have fully flexible tickets for sale

Del.Monte

In fairness we've come along way from the CIE timetables of the 1970s - in four languages (Irish/French/German and English) and which featured Annascaul alongside Antwerp.





Sadly, CIE just don't get the concept that less is more. Even the current timetables - when you can get one - could be massively tidied up by the dropping of the 'Tod Andrews' token Irish.

LXFlyer

@ XPS Zero:

The notice here (http://www.irishrail.ie/news/managemybooking) states the following:

Further features planned in the coming months include:
Cross-route booking: Enabling customers to book online journeys including connections across all Intercity routes.

Hopefully that may well include NI.

I'd imagine this first (frankly very poor) rollout was all about getting the basic booking engine with new fare types live for the direct routes first.

NikoTopps

the price are a bit cheaper now.For example the student one cost before from Waterford-Heuston 18,10€&now it cost 17,98€

Nice of Iarnród Éireann to save student on that route 12 eurocent!!

Miaireland

After three attempts today I finally got to book tickets without random errors. Hope they sort it out.

Jamie2k9

NikoTopps wrote: »

the price are a bit cheaper now.For example the student one cost before from Waterford-Heuston 18,10€&now it cost 17,98€

Nice of Iarnród Éireann to save student on that route 12 eurocent!!

Student fare 22 euro return, previously online was structured as 17.99 single but in reality students will still option for on the day purchase because it offers full flexibly (30 days return)

Hilly Bill

bobbyss wrote: »

The website says you can collect your ticket from .. wherever. But I am assuming you can print off your own ticket if you want? I would much prefer to go to a station with everything done and not have to probably queue for it?

You will be able to in the next phase and able to show the ticket on your phone.

Hilly Bill

Miaireland wrote: »

After three attempts today I finally got to book tickets without random errors. Hope they sort it out.

When you go and collect your ticket, your number is at the bottom of the confirmation page. The big number at the top is missing your pin which is with it at the bottom.

Hilly Bill

You dont have to have an account to buy tickets either, you can sign in as a guest. You can also pay for up to 30 tickets instead of the previous 6 or so.

Mr rebel

I'm horrified...a semi regular commute I take on the Cork - Kerry line has suddenly increased from €6.99 to almost €12.00! That is a huge sudden increase and it seems locked in to their system as I've tried many dates well into the future and still get that flat €12 rate which is "fully flexible" with no option to purchase any other type.
I'm raging

wench

So the fares haven't gotten any cheaper, they just strip away any flexibility and sell it as optional extras now. Lovely.

The option to change train for €10 seems to be completely gone, so if there is any chance I may not make a train, I now have to hedge my bets and pay extra up front or face paying a full single fare.

Quackster

wench wrote: »

So the fares haven't gotten any cheaper, they just strip away any flexibility and sell it as optional extras now. Lovely.

The option to change train for €10 seems to be completely gone, so if there is any chance I may not make a train, I now have to hedge my bets and pay extra up front or face paying a full single fare.

The option to change train at the station is still there for non-flexible tickets but has increased from €10 to €15.

wench

Quackster wrote: »

The option to change train at the station is still there for non-flexible tickets but has increased from €10 to €15.

Thanks for the info.
Is that on the website anywhere? Not mentioning it on the booking screens or T&Cs is quite misleading.

thomond2006

My usual Limerick - Heuston fare has gone down by €1. Colbert to Heuston is still cheaper than Limerick Junction to Heuston!

howiya

Does the following likely mean trains are sold out?

This option is not available online, but might be available at the booking office

Nomis21

howiya wrote: »

Does the following likely mean trains are sold out?

This option is not available online, but might be available at the booking office

No it can't mean that because on some days all train departures from the same station are marked 'not available online'.

Mr rebel

thomond2006 wrote: »

My usual Limerick - Heuston fare has gone down by €1. Colbert to Heuston is still cheaper than Limerick Junction to Heuston!

All the price increases are hitting those that use the intermediate stations on a particular route rather than the final destination on a line.

Quackster

wench wrote: »

Thanks for the info.
Is that on the website anywhere? Not mentioning it on the booking screens or T&Cs is quite misleading.

That's a good question. It was on the website yesterday but seems to have mysteriously disappeared today.

Quackster

webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.irishrail.ie/news/managemybooking

Spot the missing paragraph from the live version!