Timetable discrepancies

[Padna]

Can anyone explain why the Irish Rail and Translink timetables are not in agreement for several of the Entreprise services?

For example, on the first service each weekday from Belfast to Dublin, Irish Rail (http://www.irishrail.ie/your_journey/printed_timetable_pdfs/2008/Dublin%20Belfast%2008.pdf) shows the intermediate station times as 0717 (Portadown), 0739 (Newry), 0757 (Dundalk) and 0820 (Drogheda). But Translink (http://www.translink.co.uk/present/ENT_5_O.asp) shows 0721 (Portadown), 0742 (Newry), 0800 (Dundalk) and 0821 (Drogheda).

There are several other differences as well (up to 5 minutes in some cases). I wonder which times are correct?

It doesn't inspire one's confidence in the service (and the prosepects for its badly needed future development) when the two companies involved can't even agree on the timetable.

[tigger1962]

can't comment on the translink times... looks like the ie times were just copied from previous years... mind you.. its a rare sight to for the enterprise to actually arrive in dundalk at 7.57.. its usually closer to 8.05!

[zag]

Any possibility one of them is listing the arrival time and the other is listing the departure time ? Although 1m in Drogheda sounds a bit optimistic.

z

[Padna]

According to Irish Rail their times at the intermediate stations are departure times. So the fact that their times are a few minutes earlier for this particular service doesn't make sense.

Translink doesn't specify whether their times are arrival or departure times. Using the journey planner on both websites indicates that arrival and departure times are the same - i.e. the trains are scheduled to stop for less than one minute.

The next train from Belfast (0800) arrives in Dublin at 0953 (Translink) / 0955 (Irish Rail). There shouldn't be any confusion between arrival and departure times at the terminus.

[Thomas Ralph]

Does it really matter that much given that you're supposed to arrive 15 minutes before your scheduled departure time (20 minutes at termini) anyway?

[Mark Gleeson]

Timetable is meant to be accurate, it doesn't matter about the time you personally are meant to be there at, no train is to leave ahead of published time

So Belfast Dublin

Belfast Central 10:30 10:30 10:30
Portadown Arr ??:?? ??:?? 10:58
Portadown Dep 10:58 11:01 11:00
Newry Arr ??:?? ??:?? 11:21
Newry Dep 11:21 11:22 11:23
Dundalk Arr ??:?? ??:?? 11:38
Dundalk Dep 11:38 11:40 11:40
Drogheda Arr ??:?? ??:?? 12:00
Drogheda Dep 12:00 12:01 12:02
Connolly Arr 12:40 12:35 12:35

Column 1 Irish Rail published timetable
Column 2 NIR published timetable
Column 3 Irish Rail staff timetable