New Irish Rail Intercity, Commuter and DART Timetable Public Consultation

I cannot understand this either. I made a submission mentioning this that a weekend service is sorely needed.

Which has a hilarious side effect - in August and September I put together a book format timetable of all Irish Rail lines. The DART Greystones/Bray/Connolly/Malahide[or]Howth lines, including all trains over them, take up 16 pages Mon-Fri. Saturdays fit on 9, simply because all of the Phoenix Park and Maynooth trains disappear from the pages, never mind the frequency drops. Sundays - 6 pages.

Such a shame they can't commit to this section of track. You could add stops at Phoenix Park and Cabra and make it a line worth operating regularly. Unfortunately, they omitted new stations on this section in the Dart+ application.

In the near term, Platform 7 in Connolly could be used as a regular terminus and turn back for services to Maynooth and Celbridge every 15 minutes (combined frequency) without any major disruption to other services which would use platforms 5 and 6 for the coastal Dart.

I know it's not 'that' simple but it should be easily doable in near term.

Anyone else hopeful that the apparent delay with the new timetable means that IÉ/NTA have actually taken a significant amount of the consultation on board and are making changes where possible? Otherwise one would assume, the proposed changes announced by them in September could have been implemented a lot quicker?

I heard about 2 weeks ago the timetable had been completed internally. I presume they then go to loading everything into the system, double checking everything and then final approval. I would imagine the "new" timetable and bookings will be available very soon.

I say "new" because it is probably for the most part the same as before with a few tweaks around the edges and still the same issues as I highlighted on this thread and to IÉ.

The backlash online about the quieter carriage was funny yesterday. Lots of slamming IÉ for lack of staff interaction on trains. Seems like some of the CSO's and hosts are very much enjoying chilling out in the back cab and doing one quick walk through the train once or twice during the journey. That has been my experience on some of my recent IC journeys.

Your lucky if you get one walk through with many. Its a shame as there are some really good CSOs but overall the CSOs based on current performance are not worth it. Prehaps the NTA needs to specify minimun dutites within the PSOs and monitor it themselves. Head of customer sevice in IE clearly to busy.

Bear minimun CSOs visable on platfroms, walk through at major stations which is typically 3 or 4 stops on all routes and announcements.

They were also due to be equiped with ticket equipment. Then again we also have 2 year old e ticket machines not been used.

Sometimes I wonder if covid excsues are still been used.

Good to see they're actively planning on adding in a 20:00 service from Connolly to Gorey in 2023, which "is being examined as an utmost priority with implementation at the earliest opportunity in 2023."

Would it not make more sense to have this service continue to Wexford? I assume the train would continue on to Wexford for stabling.

Ah right, I would have thought Wexford was the driver base, not Rosslare. Makes more sense now

It's great to see the changes Irish Rail are making to the timetable. The Nenagh line is my local line and even that line has seen improvements to the service for once.

We already knew it but the automation of the 13 remaining gate keeper crossings on the Nenagh line will have to be sorted for their to be any increase in services on the line.

The number of hours gate keepers can work is an issue apparently. Hopefully the funding can be found to carry out an automation project sooner rather than later. 2 of the 13 are already partially automated apparently so hopefully that will reduce costs required.

Trains will be back running on the line from Monday. After that, once the final welding is complete, the track renewal project should be fully complete prior to the introduction of the new timetable.

Dart+ West, Dart+ South West, Metrolink, BusConnects, Connecting Ireland, Cork Rail Network expansion, Limerick Rail Network planning.

Seriously?

Dublin / Waterford - THE "SERVICE" IS EVEN MORE ABYSMAL, I THOUGHT "LESSONS WOULD HAVE BEEN LEARNED" ABOUT OVERCROWDING DURING COVID!!! I WAS HOPING FOR TOO MUCH.

• Existing 07:00 hrs Waterford/Heuston will be advanced to 06:50 hrs and call additionally at Kilkenny. There will be no change to arrival time at Heuston. Great for Kilkenny commuters, not so good for everyone else, particularly those who get on after Kilkenny. I get on at Athy and most of the time seats booked by Athy passengers are already occupied. If this train is even more packed it means the corridors and aisles will be packed to pre-COVID levels and more.
• New 08:26 hrs Dublin to Carlow service, calling at Newbridge, Kildare, Athy and Carlow. This doesn't seem to be very well received but at least it will get people to later lectures in Carlow.
• New 10:15 hrs Carlow to Dublin service, calling at Athy, Kildare, Newbridge and Heuston. Not much use for commuters but good for people with early afternoon hospital appointments and might take some pressure off the 07:50 Waterford to Heuston service.

A morning service that starts in Carlow around 7:30am and gets into Heuston at around 8:30am would be helpful. It could stop in Athy and maybe another station on the way as well. If that morning service could start in Waterford it would be better still because the current service is not adequate. More people have to return to the office instead of working from home. Most students studying in Dublin commute because accommodation in Dublin is too expensive. The Waterford line has been woefully neglected for years. When will this change?