Flightshaming to London from Dublin

Corca Baiscinn

Interesting thread, agree with posters who responded to op by pointing out that in mainland Europe, not flying is made easier by existence of long-distance trans border train travel including some night trains. Getting off our island with some degree of comfort and without it taking forever is trickier.
As a child we had aunts living in UK and we used to go over and back on holidays. As posters have pointed out air travel in the "old days" cost an arm and a leg so boat and train it was. Like posters have said though it was seamless. step from train to boat at Dun L or Rosslare and vice versa at the other side. Did the trip recently again after a gap of many years and while ferry was much more comfortable train part was not. The near demise of foot passengers has meant the demise of that seamless service. Was very taken aback at no train beside boat in Holyhead, instead,bus to terminal and longish wait for train. At least train was direct and comfortable. Return journey though meant change of train and last half of trip was on a local grossly overcrowded service that stopped at every hamlet in Wales. It was no longer a "boat-train" with Holyhead just the last stop on a local service. Again boat was fine. long wait in Euston too due to some signalling issue and nowhere to sit. (In Connolly you can share with the pigeons)

With rail privatisation in UK and so few foot passengers can't see any likely improvement. Felt sorrier for the local Welsh passengers than I did for myself as the packed train was one they had to endure regularly. Disappointing as great connections to mainland Europe via Eurostar but getting to London or more so back from there not appealing.

Has anyone done the trip via Rosslare and Pembroke instead or do train connections make it impossible now too? Was wondering if that train any better. Thanks for thread OP

Chris_5339762

Sam Russell wrote: »

Heathrow is one of the most expensive airports to fly into.

Not so much to fly into I don't find... you can get it for about €50 with Aer Lingus if you're lucky, but to fly back to Ireland, yes that is very expensive.

Peregrinus

Sam Russell wrote: »

Heathrow is one of the most expensive airports to fly into.

But it's not difficult to fly into; there are more seats/day on the DUB/LHR route than on any of the alternatives serving London.

And, while it's more expensive than other options, it's still mostly cheaper than boat+train, which is the relevant comparison for the purposes of this thread.

Markcheese

We don't do long distance coach very well , i took a overnight coach trip in Argentina years ago , "semi cama" basically business class on a coach ,( it was quarter the price of the plane ) ,
Got on at 8 pm ,got off at 7 am no hassle, meal served ,drinks service ..slept comfortably the whole way ...
I know the Irish sea is in the way on the way to London ...

dfx-

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Not so much to fly into I don't find... you can get it for about €50 with Aer Lingus if you're lucky, but to fly back to Ireland, yes that is very expensive.

Or you can fly to BHX and come from/be in Euston in an hour for €25.99 flight and £17.99 train and return. Travel from Heathrow wouldn't be far off the same.

The idea of trains or coaches for regular travel to the UK is a relic of the 50s even with all climate considerations. Flying is the only option.

galwayllm

I'd fly the 10mins to work if i could... Haha.
Let them off.

cnocbui

dfx- wrote: »

Or you can fly to BHX and come from/be in Euston in an hour for €25.99 flight and £17.99 train and return. Travel from Heathrow wouldn't be far off the same.

The idea of trains or coaches for regular travel to the UK is a relic of the 50s even with all climate considerations. Flying is the only option.

Don't be silly, returning to an iron-age existence is the only option, for some.

Johnny Sausage

dfx- wrote: »

Or you can fly to BHX and come from/be in Euston in an hour for €25.99 flight and £17.99 train and return. Travel from Heathrow wouldn't be far off the same.

The idea of trains or coaches for regular travel to the UK is a relic of the 50s even with all climate considerations. Flying is the only option.

flights can even be got for 9.99 to BHX if booked in advance, often use it as a cheaper alternative to LPL when going back over

El Tarangu

Flight shaming is about to be kicked up a gear!

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10926538/boris-johnson-bridge-scotland-northern-ireland-union/

Johnny Sausage

El Tarangu wrote: »

Flight shaming is about to be kicked up a gear!

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10926538/boris-johnson-bridge-scotland-northern-ireland-union/

ah jaysis that would be a long long trip to drive from Dublin to London

El Tarangu

Johnny Sausage wrote: »

ah jaysis that would be a long long trip to drive from Dublin to London

I checked - 7 hours drive from Portpatrick to London :eek:

Though it might make sense for freight (and Boris may not actually be serious about building it, anyway)

Sam Russell

El Tarangu wrote: »

Flight shaming is about to be kicked up a gear!

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10926538/boris-johnson-bridge-scotland-northern-ireland-union/

Johnson must not realise that NI is not on the same gauge railway as Scotland? There is a deck on the bridge for a train.

I wonder if they will change the bogies on the artificial island?

cdaly_

You just change trains. Having a rail link is about a public transport option rather than private car only.

And sure you could just run a UK gauge line from the bridge into Belfast Central and they can all change there. Piddling extra effort compared to building the bridge itself...

KevRossi

So I took the ferry and train over and back to Liverpool last week on Tuesday and Wednesday. Did it a few times last summer and autumn to London, so here's a few thoughts:

My biggest question is the timing of the ferries, they leave every 6 hours from either end, but two of them leave almost together, any reason why they can't leave in a 3 hour tact instead?

Ferries leave Dublin at 20:30, get to Holyhead at 00.00 and you need to wait until 4:48 for the first train to London (which is a direct service).

So why not have a boat leaving Dublin around 00:00, which makes it easy for anyone from the country to take a late train or bus to Dublin, get on a coach in Heuston, Busaras/Connolly, get off the same bus at the depot in Holyhead at around 04:00 and get the first train to London, getting there at 08:30.

Makes it easier all round, there were about 10-12 people on the boat and train, used to be packed, making it more comfortable will make it more popular.

That same ferry would leave Holyhead later, but get to Dublin for 08:30. meaning you can get a late train from Euston at 21:50. It's a case of building it and they will come.

It would involve a small bit of work, including a warm, draught free lounge in Holyhead - the place is like a wind tunnel.

Corca Baiscinn wrote: »

Has anyone done the trip via Rosslare and Pembroke instead or do train connections make it impossible now too? Was wondering if that train any better. Thanks for thread OP

A bigger shlt show than Holyhead, last train leaves Rosslare as the boat arrives, insane that they don't do anything about it.

cdaly_

KevRossi wrote: »

A bigger shlt show than Holyhead, last train leaves Rosslare as the boat arrives, insane that they don't do anything about it.

Had that last summer. Boat from France touches quayside 25 min before train departs. I was on a bike and first off the boat and caught it with 10 min to spare. You'd miss it if you were a foot passenger being bused off the boat...

Corca Baiscinn

KevRossi wrote: »

My biggest question is the timing of the ferries, they leave every 6 hours from either end, but two of them leave almost together, any reason why they can't leave in a 3 hour tact instead?

Ferries leave Dublin at 20:30, get to Holyhead at 00.00 and you need to wait until 4:48 for the first train to London (which is a direct service).

So why not have a boat leaving Dublin around 00:00, which makes it easy for anyone from the country to take a late train or bus to Dublin, get on a coach in Heuston, Busaras/Connolly, get off the same bus at the depot in Holyhead at around 04:00 and get the first train to London, getting there at 08:30.

Makes it easier all round, there were about 10-12 people on the boat and train, used to be packed, making it more comfortable will make it more popular.

That same ferry would leave Holyhead later, but get to Dublin for 08:30. meaning you can get a late train from Euston at 21:50. It's a case of building it and they will come.

It would involve a small bit of work, including a warm, draught free lounge in Holyhead - the place is like a wind tunnel. .

It does seem daft they leave at pretty much the same time, is it anything to do with tides? Actually can't be as tide time would vary. So it arrives HH midnight & turns around quickly so freight traffic arrives in Dub in time to head off around the country?
Don't think anything will change to suit foot/train/coach passengers as main activity of the ferries is freight + cars in summer. Night we came back into Dub on Stena we could see the trucks driving off the IF boat which had just docked. Phenomenal numbers and presume it's same day after day after day. Drivers could be heading to warehouses in any part of the country I imagine.
But +4 hours waiting for the train, no thanks!
Thanks for info though! Now I know what NOT to book!

Vic_08

KevRossi wrote: »

So I took the ferry and train over and back to Liverpool last week on Tuesday and Wednesday. Did it a few times last summer and autumn to London, so here's a few thoughts:

My biggest question is the timing of the ferries, they leave every 6 hours from either end, but two of them leave almost together, any reason why they can't leave in a 3 hour tact instead?

Ferries leave Dublin at 20:30, get to Holyhead at 00.00 and you need to wait until 4:48 for the first train to London (which is a direct service).

So why not have a boat leaving Dublin around 00:00, which makes it easy for anyone from the country to take a late train or bus to Dublin, get on a coach in Heuston, Busaras/Connolly, get off the same bus at the depot in Holyhead at around 04:00 and get the first train to London, getting there at 08:30.

Makes it easier all round, there were about 10-12 people on the boat and train, used to be packed, making it more comfortable will make it more popular.

That same ferry would leave Holyhead later, but get to Dublin for 08:30. meaning you can get a late train from Euston at 21:50. It's a case of building it and they will come.

It would involve a small bit of work, including a warm, draught free lounge in Holyhead - the place is like a wind tunnel.

Freight is the main source of revenue for the ferry companies, cars are secondary and foot passengers an afterthought at best. The two operators are in competition, the one that changed their timetable would lose out as the current times are what best suits the majority of freight customers.

Besides Irish Ferries do not take foot passengers on all their sailings so there would still be gaps.

If you want to understand the shift from passengers to freight just look at the ships, in the 80s the ships in use were 6-12000 tons and carried 1500-2000 passengers, the current ships are 40-50000 tons and carry 600-1800 people.

These ships could be converted to carry thousands more people but their purpose is to move trucks and unaccompanied trailers, lots of them.

http://www.ferry-site.dk/ferry.php?id=7915228&lang=en
http://www.ferry-site.dk/ferry.php?id=7507019&lang=en
http://www.ferry-site.dk/ferry.php?id=9807293&lang=en
http://www.ferry-site.dk/ferry.php?id=9214991&lang=en

There is little interest in improving the sail-rail product from either ship or rail companies. The revenue it generates for both is marginal at best, it is barely more than a sailing only foot passenger fare and cheaper than many rail only fares to/from North Wales.

It is a niche product and unless something cataclysmic happens to short haul air travel it will remain so.

As far as the foot passenger numbers go, I would say if anything they are growing a bit, they vary massively though, I have had everything from a taxi load to hundreds per sailing.

KevRossi wrote: »

A bigger shlt show than Holyhead, last train leaves Rosslare as the boat arrives, insane that they don't do anything about it.

While that is true, Irish Ferries Pembroke-Rosslare route is not and has never been a rail connected service. The rail station in Pembroke is a good walk away and no sail-rail tickets are offered on that route.

The Stena service from Fishguard is the sail-rail route and both sailings have onward trains from Rosslare, at least on weekdays. 04.00 arrival to 05.35 train M-F, 07.20 Sat, 09.40 Sun and 16.25 arrival to 17.30 train M-F, 17.55 Sat, 18.05 Sun.

The other direction is a different story, unsurprisingly there is no train early enough into Rosslare for the 08.00 ferry and while there is for the 18.10 ferry the connection at Fishguard only goes as far as Swansea, any travel further East requires nearly 4 hours overnight there. This is mainly due to Stena changing their sailing times so the ferry departs Rosslare a few hours earlier than the old overnight connection.


While the Irish Sea routes are less than perfect for foot passengers in comparison to the English channel it is not so bad.

Dover - Calais, the busiest ferry route in Europe is now awful for non-vehicle passengers. The rail stations at both ports are ancient history and there is no public transport at either port, no regular bus and no ferry shuttle bus to the towns or rail stations on either side. Taxi or a long walk dodging trucks is the only option. Of the two main ferry operators only one, P&O take foot passengers at all and only on daytime sailings, late evening and overnight sailings are vehicle only. Combined rail-ship fares are also long gone on the route. The rail companies were keen to push all traffic to Eurostar and despite being desperate to court freight and car traffic from Eurotunnel none of the ferry companies have made any effort to make the route attractive to foot passengers.

KevRossi

^ Thanks for the comprehensive insight Vic_08, nice to get the view from someone in the industry (which it sounds like you are).

Agreed that it needs a big change for anything to happen, as long as flying is a lot better bang for buck I think foot passengers will be bottom of the heap.

I cycled through Calais twice last summer coming back and once through Cherbourg, I saw what you said, how it's all geared up for cars and trucks and foot passengers are probably just an inconvenience at this point. I can understand the emphasis on Eurostar, just with a bike it's handier to take the trains and boat from London for several reasons. The boat across the English Channel is still one of my favourite trips anywhere in the world, on a sunny day it's hard to beat.

markpb

Vic_08 wrote: »

Besides Irish Ferries do not take foot passengers on all their sailings so there would still be gaps.

What's the reason for that? Is it commercial or because those ships don't have passenger gangways?

KevRossi

markpb wrote: »

What's the reason for that? Is it commercial or because those ships don't have passenger gangways?

No ships on the Irish Sea routes have gangways AFAIK, you're taken onto the boat with a bus and you are dropped off on the car deck in my experience over the past few years.

Brian CivilEng

KevRossi wrote: »

No ships on the Irish Sea routes have gangways AFAIK, you're taken onto the boat with a bus and you are dropped off on the car deck in my experience over the past few years.

The Ulysses still has a gangway. But I think you are right about all the other regular ferries.

Irish Ferries use the Epsilon on some routes, and don't take foot passengers at all on that ship.

Vic_08

markpb wrote: »

What's the reason for that? Is it commercial or because those ships don't have passenger gangways?

The ship they use on the second rotation is Epsilon which has a lower capacity, it is also a stern only loader which may be an issue with taking a shuttle bus back off after dropping off passengers.

Neither make it impossible to take foot passengers, the Stena Merey and Stena Lagan that currently sail on Liverpool - Belfast are very similar design sister ships and those sailings do take foot passengers.

Irish Ferries just seem to have a policy not to take any on Epsilon, not even when it is the next sailing for disrupted passengers, which happens when the afternoon swift fast ferry is cancelled, cars get put on Epsilon, foot passengers are expected to wait for the evening sailing with over 4 hours overnight wait for a train in Holyhead.

When other ships have been covering that turn they have taken foot passengers but only on the two day sailings not the night ones, I don't know why. As the similar timed Stena sailings do take foot passengers it is not a big issue (except for displaced IF passengers) particularly as the new Stena Estrid will be on that turn and would be my preference anyway.

KevRossi wrote: »

No ships on the Irish Sea routes have gangways AFAIK, you're taken onto the boat with a bus and you are dropped off on the car deck in my experience over the past few years.

Passenger gangways are not a feature of ferries in general, all that the ship has is a doorway or exit point on an open deck. If provided gangways are part of the port infrastructure. Only the primary berth at Dublin terminal 1 that Irish Ferries use has one, which is relatively modern and is adjustable so can connect with a range of docking locations. The side berth at T1 that IF use for some Swift sailings and Epsilion, T2 that Stena use and both berths at Holyhead do not have gangways.

snotboogie

smelly sock wrote: »

Employers should cop on and put policies in place to use VC's rather than pointless needless travel.

I am currently running a global project entirely remotely, it's a ****ing nightmare. People pay far more attention face to face and give you more time after meeting face to face. The intangibles of human interaction matter, communication is much easier in person, especially when complex topics are being discussed and multiple people are giving inputs.

goingnowhere

Stena used to use gangways at both Rosslare and Fishguard, there seems to have been an issue with the Fishguard arrangement so is now a bus

Last ship to have a proper experience was the HSS

Gekko

I do Dublin-London and back once or twice a month by plane and if there was a sleeper bus or train plus ferry package I’d at least consider it

It’d want to be the standard of business class on a plane though. Comfort and timings would be the key.

Peregrinus

Gekko wrote: »

I do Dublin-London and back once or twice a month by plane and if there was a sleeper bus or train plus ferry package I’d at least consider it

It’d want to be the standard of business class on a plane though. Comfort and timings would be the key.

Back in the day, if I had to go to London on business, I would take the boat from Dun Laoghaire and then a sleeper on the Irish Mail. (I'm showing my age here, I know.) After a night's sleep and a 7:00 am cup of tea served by the steward I'd get breakfast, and then stroll into the London office in fine form at about 8:40, demanding to know why the other participants in the meeting weren't here yet. By contrast, colleagues who got up at 4:30 am in order to make an early flight when they needed to go to meetings in London were generally pretty shattered.

So, yeah, it was good. But, even then, doing in that style was as expensive as flying, maybe more so. Now the boat/train journey is a much poorer experience (and this is unlikely to change) while the air journey is much cheaper.

KevRossi

I think that the options are fairly limited when leaving from Ireland, we lose a lot of time just doing the first 120 Km to Holyhead, with boarding and waiting on a train at the other end, you can calculate 5.5 hours for this leg and about 9 hours to London. That's another 470Km from Holyhead.

Other comparisons:
Berlin to Paris - 8 hours - 1,050 Km
Amsterdam - Munich - 9 hours - 850 Km
Barcelona - Seville - 6 hours - 1140 Km
Rome - Zurich - 7 hours - 900 Km

These all have connections, they're not through trains, but it shows the amount of ground you can cover in half a day, and this doesn't include night trains.

If you want to go Dublin - Paris or Brussels then you're looking at 13-14 hours with connections.

In this time you could do Brussels - Rome, Berlin - San Sebastian or similar.

I think we are saddled in Ireland with train and boat being far less convenient and probably more expensive, than the plane for the foreseeable future. I'll take the train and boat when I've got time, or if I'm on the bike, but the plane will win for convenience most times.

SeanW

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

well you should try and think about your actions and the effects they have on the planet, we all should. You wont though, like most people, and that is why we are f*cked as a species.

The thing is, a lot of people who tell others "you should think about the effect of your choices on the planet/the human race" are in literally no position to do so.

Most of the mainstream environmental movement advocates against the use of nuclear electricity. This is despite that nuclear power is literally the easiest way to totally decarbonise an electricity grid. At this moment in time, France is emitting 36g/kwh for the energy that it produces and uses, most of which is nuclear. In contrast "woke" countries like Ireland and Germany all have figures many multiples of this.

The reason is that while Ireland and Germany have both spent vast sums of money on weather based "renewables" (which are anything but, they're horrible for the environment in reality) these power plant types only produce power during favourable weather conditions. As a consequence, CO2/KWH stats can only be lowered rather than cut heavily, and at an extraordinary economic and ecological costs.

Yet the same kind of people that are promoting this garbage are the same ones telling us "you should be ashamed of your choices" should be the first to look in the mirror.

As to why this might be happening, many of us have suspected for some time that mainstream environmental activism is merely a cover for something much more sinister. That suspicion was strengthened with Alexandria Ocasio Cortezs' "Green New Deal" which was basically just Communism with Green Kool-Aid. Proof has come from the illustrious Saint Greta of Stockholm, when she wrote for Project Syndicate that Climate Change was more a symptom than a problem.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/climate-strikes-un-conference-madrid-by-greta-thunberg-et-al-2019-11

Greta Thunberg wrote:

That action must be powerful and wide-ranging. After all, the climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all. Our political leaders can no longer shirk their responsibilities.

Emphasis mine.

At the very least, we know that a large amount of the thinking behind climate change alarmism is geared around a utopian ideal of forcing people to "live ecologically" often in line with feminist, socialist and "anti-colonial" ideals.

Those people should be called upon to make ideological sacrifices - for example, by supporting nuclear energy to replace fossil fuels - before they are allowed to tell us "consider your choices". How about YOU consider YOUR choices BEFORE you ask me to do the same? Until the mainstream environmental left is willing to do that, they can go take a long walk off a short pier as far as I am concerned.

cnocbui

Nice try, but you can't talk sense to greenies.

trellheim

Interesting set of responses if you filter out the extremes.

Railway ferries is pie-in-the-sky I think .

Electric trains - the line to Holyhead is not electrified - you need to get to Chester for that so it has its own diesel footprint.

If there was a sleeper train that ran to and from Holyhead that would be ideal for work but without aviation fuel tax then it would not be in the least competitive as that is a massive distortion .


In my view anything that might avoid Dublin airport is worth considering if its even half useful