Clontarf to Drogheda

Glaceon

TL;DR version: If I’m travelling by train from Clontarf Road to Drogheda, do I have to change up the line or can I go back to Connolly?

Long version: I live in Drogheda and work at EastPoint. I always got the 6:49 Bus Éireann 101x as far as the Point and got the EastPoint shuttle to the office. It would get me in for 8am no bother. I’d then finish at 4:30 and get either a 100x or 101x at around 5:05 or so, depending on which one turns up first. It worked fine until last week when EastPoint changed the timetable of the shuttle. Since then I’m all over the place. Some days I’m fine, on others I’m 15 minutes late for work, and today I missed my bus home. It just doesn’t suit anymore. So I’m trying to find a way of doing this by train to Clontarf Road instead. The morning train is fine so no problem there. But the online journey planner only shows options for going up the line on the way back, changing at Howth Junction or Malahide. But this would get me home later than if I went back to Connolly and got the Drogheda train there. So if I can go back to Connolly and then go up, it would work out at about the same arrival time into Drogheda than I had before. This commute is hard enough as it is, adding any more time to it would put me in unsustainable territory.

TranslatorPS

If you purchase a Drogheda-Clontarf Road fare (or the reverse), by all intents and purposes that should only cover the 49.2 km between the two stations, no more, no less.

Convienently enough, however, fares to Clontarf Road are the same as to Connolly (51.1 km), as Drogheda ends up in the same fare zone from both, at least according to the fare calculator at railusers.ie.

The problem is if you get a ticket checker between Connolly and Clontarf Road, they might and will question what you're doing outside of a Drogheda-Clontarf Road ticket (or indeed south of Malahide or whatever is the first diesel suburban stop out north if you get checked and are found with a ticket starting from a station the train skips). You'd be fine if you had a Drogheda-Connolly ticket, and while it would definitely raise eyebrows with a single on the DART leg, you should be quite fine if you hold a weekly or monthly.

If your intent is to do this on a weekly (€76.50)/monthly (€264) ticket, then I don't see why you'd get grief over it if you got a ticket for Drogheda-Connolly - you should be allowed to travel to and from any station on a ticket as long as it is within the route stated by that ticket. Should this hold true (I've never tested this in Ireland), there'd be no basis for questioning it - all of your journeys are within the fare paid.

magicbastarder

if you don't leave the rail system, does it matter that the OP has gone back to connolly to get the train to drogheda?

TranslatorPS

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118867567#Comment_118867567

If the OP has a ticket from Clontarf Road only and gets checked between Clontarf Road and Connolly, it does. Fare-wise it's the same, but I'd still expect the RPU to give out about it because they're found without a valid ticket for the section of the network they're on. The ticket gates won't care, but an actual human checker - and they do exist - will ;)