I'd agree that it is risky for Irish Rail to be looking at night services, but it is quite frankly ludicrous that the last train past Maynooth leaves Connolly at 1905. You can't even get to Kilcock after that.

If you went the intermodal route - i.e. make Irish Rail return tickets and passes acceptable on Bus Éireann, there would be hard data as to how much demand there was for later services. This would cost nothing to implement aside from the odd forgone bus fare from taxsaver ticket holders.

This would probably result in sufficient demand to justify more bus services which could even lead to a point where there were enough people on buses to justify a later train.

I think I saw something on the Translink twitter that their tickets are intermodal after 1900.Quite possibly. NTA and BÉ had a huge row when the NTA bought them new buses and the NTA insisted they be put in NTA colours.

That's something for the NTA to decide - have you contacted them about it?

They dictate service levels now.

The communication of special services for the Bruce Springsten event has been a bit of a disaster. TFI(NTA) were either misadvised or screwed up or both. Irish Rail loaded up the journey planner three or four days ago on the apparent assumption that there is a captive market waiting for white smoke from the timetable department or alternately Irish Rail think that everybody including customers decide their plans at the last minute.

And surprise surprise the no demand mantra will be trotted out at the merest suggestion of additional services and we have the figures to prove that nobody used the services we didn't tell them about !

As for TFI anybody for today's imaginary 1435 from Dundalk lads ?

Totally agree, really poor compared to what they do normally for such big events. Somebody dropped the ball. They did however tweet last services tonight earlier.

I have suggested this to the NTA but they'll probably need to set up a six month study and consultation process to examine the possibility. I know that a while ago, they were looking at a 200 euro add-on to the Mullingar taxsaver fare as a pilot but it was never advertised and I don't think it applied to all buses. So I assume that they quietly dropped this due to "lack of demand".

It's just been introduced recently. Most tickets are now intermodal from 1830 onwards (within Northern Ireland).

They have actually released intercity services a whole 5 weeks before Beyonce on 9th July to Cork/Galway. All they need to do now is expand the offering...

The specials to Cork and Galway had really bad loads for whatever reason last night and if they can make money on the back of them there is no excuses for any other route. Just under 200 on a 6 or 7 Mark IV and under 95 on a 3 coach ICR.

It puts management's "no demand" excuse on other routes to bed when you take the above numbers into account.

I'm sure if they spend a few quid on promotion of service it would help.

what makes you think they made money? That's the basis of the rest of your post.

Because I don't see IE paying the NTA money to run a service which is loss making. If they don't make money then why not run more services? They have previously scrapped some late night Galway services because of even lower loading after some sporting events and if money wasn't the main aim then why not let pass holders on them?

The 2 Bruce Springsteen services were either sold out or had a handful of seats left and even operated with larger trains.

If you can't make money on 200 passngers travelling towards Cork (way more than the average load on a normal Dublin/Cork service) and 95 travelling on an ICR with minimal additional staffing costs then you won't be making money on near anything you care to run.

Having said that, Irish Rail are slow to publicise their special services and now tend to ignore many events - there were no special services from Waterford for the Munster hurling final in Limerick despite there being plenty of demand.

Yeah fair point, I think a min of 50 or 60 is what they require but there is no excuse in using "no demand" on other routes when less than 100 board a train to Galway. Waterford or Sligo could of matched or exceeded that.

I completely agree about the Munster Final, they could of filled a couple of ICR's on the South Tipp Line but it was never going to happen.