Irish rail have a customer charter that refunds fares based upon lateness.

To combat their own customer charter they timetable trains to take longer so that they always arrive on time….no refunds due…simples.

It always amazes me how we appear to have the slowest trains and trams compared to our continental brethren. And despite all the investment travel time dublin to cork is apparently as slow or slower than 100 years ago…progress Irish style.

Slower trains & trams means more units @ drivers required for given routes. I wonder could semi state unions have any hand in this?

Slashing times is great Irish Rail, now how about slashing your fares, still far too expensive in this day and age.

They would want to do something about the Drogheda to Pearse route. An hour and five minutes to do thirty miles. Less than thirty mile an hour average… and the line uses new trains and tracks, crazy stuff

Millions spent on the Docklands station as Connolly was said to be stretched to capacity. Within less than a year of opening the multi million station …. trains are going into Connolly bar 4 in morning and 4 in evening. A great waste of money.

Wow, report commissioned by Irish Rail recommends more investment in railways. Who’d of thought that? :)
Irish Rail have been given billions in the last decade, but though mismanagement and an astronomical wage bill they have achieved little relative to their spend. They built a Noddy track from Limerick to Galway for 8 passengers a day.

Irish Rail need to get competitive by slashing their fares and reducing their wage bill. Not an extra penny until they show some business nuance

In the late 70s I regularly travelled the 300 miles from Newcastle to London. It took 3 hours. Edinburgh is a further 100 miles from London. Add an hour for that leg. Average speed in 1979 – 100 mph. Paris – London can now be done in 2 and quarter hours on Eurostar. That’s the same time as Dublin – Enniscorthy.

The current journey time from Rosslare to Dublin is just under 3 hours. Distance 100 miles. Average speed – 35mph. Even in the 1920s the Flying Scotsman was quicker than that.

In the tiger years the govt decided to spend billions on motorways. They’re certainly a joy to drive on. They’re mostly deserted. Some of them are so under-used, the State is subsidising toll operators. Others (M9) were projected to be under-used, so there are no tolls.

Finally there is talk of up-grading the rail lines to carry faster trains. Electrification remains a dream…

I don’t care if you bring the cork Dublin route down to 2 hours, I’m not paying €75 for the pleasure. Cheaper and quicker to drive.
I wish Ryanair would reopen the cork Dublin route though, badly missed

They need to review the prices for commuter towns like Kilcock and Enfield and price it similar to Maynooth that way I’d leave the car at home! It’s not worth it with returns costing, the difference of €10 between two stops is too much!

A new report?
I could have told you that.
Anyone could have told you investment in the lines would speed up travel times. Money wasting prats.

Can you lot be quite, if Leo finds out people like to drive and it’s quicker and cheaper as the good mister he is, he’ll come up with a few ways to put a stop to that. Like divert the Dublin to Galway road through limerick and place about 5 different tolls on the road just for the craic

1 hour 45 minutes from Galway to Dublin would be good, at the moment it’s faster to drive then get the train so no incentive to use the train. They could probable get it to 1 hour 30 is they had limited stops for a few runs a day.

The Irish tax payer gave over €700m to CIE in 2010, they still lost millions. Resulting in a business that lost 3/4 of a billion euro in a year, remembering they are a monopoly, it’s just crazy.

I was disappointed that CIE wasn’t included in yesterdays gov sell off.

Every tax payer should read the many Shane Ross articles on the lack of transparency at CIE and corruption.

Martin..Agree 100% with you. 1hr 5 mins to do 30miles on a very busy commuter track between Drogheda and Pearse is ridiculous. You would drive it twice in that length of time.
Another thing I cannot undertstand is why do some commuter trains stop at any stations before Malahide (Portmarnock, Clongriffin, Howth Jnctn). The Dart goes to all these stations. Malahide should be the first stop for that commuter train. Very few people get on are off at these stations anyway.

They do need to invest money in it. But the Cork to Dublin line is not priority. They need to improve the rail service to Kerry and Limerick. The line to
Kerry is a single track, as major tourist hub it would make sense to improve this. There is also the issue that to get the train to Galway from Cork or Kerry you have to go to Dublin. That is absolutely ridiculous. A train line from Cork to Waterford also needs to be added. Doing this would link up the rail service nationally.

Is Limerick not included? It is the third largest city in Ireland.

Yes dismantling the railways was the greatest act of social vandalism ever commited by the Irish state , Cork is a prime example , in 1922 Cork had an electric tram network and a comprehensive suburban and intercity rail network , there was virtually no part of the county you could not reach by rail , today after 90 years of “progress” we have no trams , 1 intercity line and 2 suburban lines (one of which was closed for 30 years and reopened at massive cost).
But who could forget CIE’s famous statement in 1959 that “Trains are obsolete and in 10 years no-one will want to use them”