THE TEA TROLLEY has returned to trains, sort of.

Onboard catering services will be available on a “sporadic” basis on the Cork to Dublin line this week – for the first time in three years – in preparation for a full return of services to the route in the coming weeks, Irish Rail has said today.

However, the transport operator has not confirmed an exact date as to when full services will resume – on the Cork to Dublin line or beyond.

☕️ With on-board catering resuming on the Cork to Dublin route later this month, please note there will be catering services available on a limited number of services on the Cork to Dublin route this week, operating for staff training purposes #ComingSoon pic.twitter.com/VM5V0yr2OW

— Iarnród Éireann (@IrishRail) April 11, 2023

Irish Rail spokesperson Barry Kenny told The Journal that commuters can expect to see services fully up and running on Cork to Dublin services by late May “at the latest”.

He said that this week is being used to train staff , and that not every train will have catering services on board.

Scheduled services are set to operate on “a couple of trains a day” from later this month, expanding to all Cork to Dublin trains within four weeks.

Kenny said: “We’ll confirm probably towards the end of this week when the official start date is. 

“It will look at some of the busier services and then we’ll build that as the recruitment continues”.

Asked when other routes can expect to see a return of catering services, Kenny said that Irish Rail is undertaking “a full tender process for the national network” but that its implementation will be “quite some time away”.

He said that 50% of Irish Rail customers will have access to services once they are up and running on the Cork to Dublin line, due to services travelling to and from Kerry and Limerick connecting with Cork services at Mallow and Limerick Junction respectively.

The trolley service was withdrawn as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020.

It has been spotted in action today, including by a member of The Journal staff.

Carriage Food Services, who currently also provide catering services on board the Dublin to Belfast Enterprise service under a separate contract, will provide the service.

According to Kenny, “everything that was a popular product from the trolley will be back”, including tea, coffee, sandwiches, soft drinks, snacks and water.

Alcohol will not be for sale and all transactions will be through card only.

Irish Rail are also set to pilot vending machines on selected trains in the coming months.

The operator said that it is working with a provider, but could not offer a timeframe as to when the pilot will take place.

“We don’t intend for it to replace the trolley service but we will be piloting it on a number of trains just to understand whether it is something that customers will support and will use,” Kenny said.

“Obviously a vending machine won’t have hot drinks on a moving train. It would be other things like cold drinks, bars, snacks and things like that.”