Waterford train to Dublin question

With regards to the seat direction, as far as I can see A23 looks to be facing against the direction of travel leaving Waterford, however you should note that once the train arrives in Kilkenny the train is reversed, so from Kilkenny to Dublin you will be facing the correct direction. * Sometimes the train carriages are reversed in the station in Waterford; Usually Coach A is the one nearest the door however I'd say 25% of the time it's actually Coach F and Coach A is all the way down at the other end of the platform. I'm not sure if that will affect the direction of your seat further, sorry!

Usually the train is pretty empty leaving Waterford so you can probably just sit in a spare seat facing the correct way leaving Waterford and then move to your own seat once you get to Kilkenny. Unfortunately it will be the opposite story leaving Dublin; the train will leave full and then empty out as you get closer to Waterford (again unfortunately there's no guarantee what order Coaches A to F will be in Heuston station; usually Coach A is nearest the waiting area but not always).

With regards to the Return or Single tickets, that depends on whether you will be using a printed ticket from the ticket machine or a QR code ticket on your phone. The printed ticket is only editable until the time you print it out, so if you print out a return ticket in the morning in Waterford, then you're stuck with coming back at 3.10pm. Therefore you're probably better off with getting 2 single tickets, however please note you will need to edit the booking back to Waterford manually on the website at least 60 minutes before departure, otherwise you will be stuck with the 3.10pm departure.

If you use the QR Code on your phone, then you can edit either a Single or Return ticket (as it just changes the code on your phone - obviously you can't do that with a ticket that's been printed), again this will have to be done on the Irish Rail website and will need to be updated at least 60 minutes before departure. Hope that all makes sense!

I have made three recent 7am journeys on train to Dublin with booked seats and booked car parking. Parking was nearly full when I arrived at 6.30 and train was "less full", rather than "nearly empty". Its a great service. Beats the car by a mile.