Irish Rail Dublin/Waterford

RT91

I was a commuter with Irish Rail in Cork area before I moved abroad and felt the service was near perfect. Returned this week and travelled Cork/Dublin and the journey was prefect. Even filled out a survey. Fast forward 24 hours and the appalling service on my Dublin/Waterford trip.

New festival happening which is attracting around 20,000 and what I can only describe lack of planning compounded by the ridiculous new ticketing policy. Trains heavily loaded all day with passengers unable to board 15.10. I booked 16.15 and there was no reservations working so had to strand hour and half. Make things worse sudden line congestion caused delays up to 30 minutes. Other people in our group on 16.40 almost missed last shuttle bus because of delays. Not a shred of extra capacity added unlike Galway races. No staff assisting passengers with booking and no restrictions or priority given to passengers with actual reservations for specific services.

Will be returning on Monday but yet again reduced service and all services sold out between 08.00-18.00, no ticketing restrictions put in place and will unlikely get a seat again.

There was a other visitors on the service and most couldn't beleive what was happening.
Twitter suggests same problems today as well

So a few Qs:
1. Reservations not displaying why?
2. Did Irish Rail not know about such an event. Poor forum if so.
3. Why were standard ticketing restrictions not put in place and why were they not monitoring online traffic?
4. They are well aware what happened yesterday and today and have no plan for tomorrow and Monday
5. My refund do I need to prove I was forced to stand?

Emme

OP Welcome to the Waterford line. Some of us have to use it to commute to work and it is grim compared to other lines.

RT91 wrote: »

So a few Qs:
1. Reservations not displaying why?

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't but all in all Irish Rail don't care. What they want is trains so crammed that all seats are full, all spaces between carriages are full and all aisles are full.

RT91 wrote: »

2. Did Irish Rail not know about such an event. Poor forum if so.

What difference does it make to them? They are not going to bother putting on extra capacity anyway. All in all Irish Rail don't care. What they want is trains so crammed that all seats are full, all spaces between carriages are full and all aisles are full.

RT91 wrote: »

3. Why were standard ticketing restrictions not put in place and why were they not monitoring online traffic?

All in all Irish Rail don't care. What they want is trains so crammed that all seats are full, all spaces between carriages are full and all aisles are full.

RT91 wrote: »

4. They are well aware what happened yesterday and today and have no plan for tomorrow and Monday

All in all Irish Rail don't care. What they want is trains so crammed that all seats are full, all spaces between carriages are full and all aisles are full.

RT91 wrote: »

5. My refund do I need to prove I was forced to stand?

Refund from Irish Rail? :D:D:D:D:D:D:D

I sincerely hope you don't have to use the Waterford line again. Other train lines can be equally bad. Since more people had to move out of Dublin to find somewhere affordable to live the trains have got much more packed. And then you have the OAPs who want to squeeze every trip possible out of their FTPs and for every other passenger to squeeze themselves into tight spaces while they sit in their free seats and knit, gossip, play cards and drink tea.

goingnowhere

Yes the OP is entitled to a full refund as they had booked but left standing.
Platform length issues at both Waterford and Kilkenny restrict train operations so adding extra coaches is not possible assuming spares are available which are not.

Jamie2k9

The Friday afternoon delays are nothing new but were likely worse last week due to two speed restrictions in Co Kilkenny. As they completely ignored it in the last timetable change proves they are not particularly bothered about it when the change is simple.

Yes the OP is entitled to a full refund as they had booked but left standing.
Platform length issues at both Waterford and Kilkenny restrict train operations so adding extra coaches is not possible assuming spares are available which are not.

Only Kilkenny can't take a 7 car, they have ran 07.10 as a 7 car before when they increased the 16.15 to 4 car one week.

They have from time to time increased the 15.10 to 6 car as well but suspect of all things they could have increased the 16.15 last weekend had a manager directed them to do so. The 19.00 to Cork could have been changed in a worst case scenario.

Very least ticket restrictions should have been in place.

91wx763

goingnowhere wrote: »

Yes the OP is entitled to a full refund as they had booked but left standing.
Platform length issues at both Waterford and Kilkenny restrict train operations so adding extra coaches is not possible assuming spares are available which are not.

Platform length issues since the "temporary" changes to layout when the rock fell down...........

Jamie2k9

91wx763 wrote: »

Platform length issues since the "temporary" changes to layout when the rock fell down...........

No Kilkenny cannot take anything longer than a 6 car, all other stations can do 7.

end of the road

Emme wrote: »

And then you have the OAPs who want to squeeze every trip possible out of their FTPs and for every other passenger to squeeze themselves into tight spaces while they sit in their free seats and knit, gossip, play cards and drink tea.

where. i presume this is more exaggeration? blame the ftp holders and pensioners, who are actually a tiny proportion of users anyway, for the fact irish rail can't manage capacity properly, or for the fact people didn't turn up early enough to try and get a seat or book a seat online if they know they are traveling.