Could the train once again be the King of the Dublin/Cork route?

Richard Logue wrote: »

I'm not so sure foggy. There have been fare promotions across the IC network before and I am certain there will be again.

We know the passenger numbers went up when the fares were lower, but the one area that IE don't seem to capitalise on is non stop trains to the key destinations Cork, Galway, Belfast and Dublin.

Back in the 70s there were some non stop trains from Dublin to Cork and Belfast and vice versa, maybe there should be some more, timed to ensure that business travellers get to these cities before 9am?

Ok as far as promotions go they are not enough, Fares need to be walk up fares s they are on the buses and to compete Dublin City Centre-Cork (including the luas/bus add-on) needs to be under €40 return, Galway needs to be under €30 return, Waterford €20 and Carlow €12 return, When a new operator starts non-stop buses to Limerick fares to Limerick will need to be dropped also.

Non-stop trains won't work unless you can persuade all the travellers going the full distance to travel on one or two trains per day or maybe two trains can be sent, one a stopping service and one non-stop. looking at the buses to Cork and Galway there is demand at very unusual times which will never be catered for by IE due to the extra costs involved. but there is also sustained demand throughout the day rather than just the peak time buses.

If IE shift to serving non-stop passengers they will lose most of their passengers who are not going end to end but are travelling shorter distances along the route and when these people/areas are not being served there is less fares/ less passengers and less reason for the railway.

Non stop peak time trains are a good idea but not at the expense of the bread and butter services and as we all know two trains can't run side by side on single track.

Grandeeod wrote: »

Oh dear! Maybe I've been reading this forum too long. Maybe I have read the original P11 website and forum for too long also! The whole "before 9am" thing was discussed to death as far back as 2003. It was actually derided then in an era of massive investment. Now that the **** has splattered onto the fan, I find it amusing that valid opinion in the early noughties is now being rolled out again.

You are right of course, but I tend to get a little pissed off, when I read it again 10 years later. Many of the solutions required to develop our rail network, were proposed by P11, but abandoned by its current guise. I've no affiliation except for following developments, but I have to say that a lot of the content on their original site has more meaning now than it did then. I've come to the party a little late, but really do appreciate what they tried to do. I am only saying this because in the present situation, their originality back then seems more relevant than ever. As a moderate observer I have no problem paying them the credit they deserve.

I assume there is a problem with the whole P11 thing on this site, just from years of reading. I don't have any time for the current RUI incarnation. My opinions on this forum have evolved from the P11 juggernaut, that caught my attention years ago with its straight to the point and from the hip opinion.

Perhaps if they had maintained some momentum they would be ideally placed to represent the network now in the face of financial restraints and a period of uncertainty.

Maybe I spent too long out of Ireland and have lost the ability to "get" certain posting styles on Boards, but I do struggle with the idea that anyone could be "pissed off" that there was a discussion on another internet forum over ten years ago, and that was the end of the matter.

I recall P11 as an attempt to square modern railway practice with objections to the railway as such from the likes of TCD's Sean Barrett - who if he had been listened to, and he did have a lot of support in the Sindo and elsewhere - would have destroyed Dublin by maintaining low density sprawl in the greater Dublin area, the old four houses to the acre densities, and removing the railways altogether in favour of the Eastern Bypass. Los Angeles would have had nothing on us. Kevin Myers used to pontificate in the Times and the Indo about crack brained schemes such as turning the intercity network into roads, forgetting about the relative footprint of a mainly single track network in relation to the land grab necessary for any road.

I am sure plenty of farmers, road hauliers and private bus owners salivated at the prospect of getting all this gravy from the dismantling of the rail network and probably still do.

Where I am coming from is fairly simple - I want the railway to continue to play a role in transit in this country. Hand in hand with that in terms of planning greater densities need to be done in urban areas up and down the country, and combat the issue of rural sprawl. We will have a huge problem in a few years time when we will have an army of isolated eighty-somethings in mansions in bogs up and down the country unable to drive anymore.

Big Bad An Taisce may not be so big and bad - they aren't messing about when they talk about unsustainable development - but one of the national characteristics of this place is short term personal gain at the expense of the greater good. We don't seem to do Society any better than Margaret Thatcher did. But perhaps too many vested interests are threatened if we attempted to do joined up urban/rural planning and related transport planning for the best fit for private cars and public transport.

Not all the rail network will be sustainable - the North and South Tipperary lines are increasingly marginal unless in the unlikely event the locals decide to use them, and the lousy planning of the WRC - where in my view the biggest farce was not having an urban regeneration policy hand in hand with provision of new stations in order to have a sustainable customer base for the line - but to even suggest that we can throw any more of the railway away is perverse. The existence of the railway only affects those who want to make a bit more money on its absence.