Irish rail fleet and infrastructure plans

Keep in mind the Belfast service increased frequency to an hourly service last year, so that was a doubling in capacity. I’ve seen some docs from Irish Rail talk about future increase to a 30 minute service to Belfast, so that would be another doubling in capacity in the future.

I’m a Corkonian who lives in Dublin, I use to regularly take the train, but now I’ve switched to the Citylink coach and actually find it vastly more comfortable then the train!

Much quieter and smoother ride, dimmed lighting, no stupid noisy announcements, people tend not to talk and obviously not walking around, reclining seats. I can actually sleep on the coach, I could never sleep on the train. I much prefer it.

Obviously the train has some advantages like larger tables and wider seats and the ability to walk around and maybe get food.

I feel like IR has gotten their intercity service all wrong, it feels more like a commuter service than a comfortable intercity service. Far too bright lighting, like what you expect from an office, very noisy and annoying announcements at every stop, seats don’t recline, noisy and bumpy rides, etc.

Far inferior to the intercity services I’ve experienced in the likes of Italy and Portugal, speed aside. There they tend to use low lighting, minimum announcements, comfy leather reclining seats, etc.

I’m hoping IR correct this mistake with these new trains, but we will see.

BTW another point on this, no the purpose of improving train journey times is not to compete with coaches, it is to attract motorists out of cars.

While Irish Rail may consider coaches competitors, from a government policy perspective it would be a complete failure if they invested hundreds of millions or even billions in rail only for it to take passengers from coaches rather then cars.

From a government perspective, they are both public transport and have a vastly lower environmental impact then cars, so it is a much of a muchness which one people use. If anything the government would prefer people on coaches as it doesn’t cost them any money to run them as they are privately operated.

If we spend billions on rail, it has to be to get people out of cars. Otherwise we have other things we can spend the money on.

The money has already been spent on the roads, they exist and are being used. It costs the government nothing to have coaches operate on those existing roads.

It costs the government large amounts of money to invest in rail. €700 million for just 8 new trains to Belfast, while it costs the government zero for the coaches operating the Dublin Express service to Belfast.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much in favour in investing in rail, but it needs to attract people out of cars, if all it achieves for billions of investment is attracting existing public transport users out of coaches, then that is deeply stupid and an utter failure.

I’d say that is just poor reporting by the journalist mixing up the Cork line with Belfast

The goal for Belfast is 90 minutes. The goal for Cork is 2 hours per the All Ireland Rail Review.

I don’t think 90 minutes to Cork would be possible. Perhaps a single non stop service per day, but not for the regular trains that have multiple stops.

30 minutes frequency has long been a goal for Cork, I’ve seen mention of 30 minutes frequency for Belfast too, but I’m not sure if that is national policy yet.

Yes, I’ve been very lucky and impressed with the trains I took in Italy and Portugal.

The reason I express this opinion is in the hope that IR take it on board when they buy new trains.

Some of the differences wouldn’t even cost anything extra. It is just as easy to do low dim lighting as it is to do very bright white ugly office type lighting. Or to reduce the volume and length of the constant stupid announcements.

It more about the “atmosphere” they are going for then anything else.

Things like leather seats and reclining cost more, but if a coach can have a reclining seat, I don’t see why expensive new trains can’t.

Hopefully the new trains will be specified to be less bumpy and perhaps better sound isolation. I’m hopeful on this the Swiss tend to be good with that sort of thing.

I’m not hating on rail here, I’m expressing these opinions in the hope they can do better. If they can create a nicer experience with the new trains, keep prices competitive and reduce journey times, then perhaps they can win lots of people out of cars.

If Cork to Dublin goes to a 30 minute frequency, then that would be a great opportunity to implement some of the ideas above.

Perhaps the train on the hour could be limited stop, with the one on the half hour a stopping service. Or it might be easier in terms of scheduling to split up the intermediate stops between the service on the hour, versus half hour.

Yes, but trains tend to have more space then coaches (or airplanes). The train I was on it basically pushed your feet out under the table. It didn't look like it took more space then the Mark 4.