Worst Station of the Year 2009
 

While Irish Rail continue on the fruitless excercise of finding the best station, what passengers want is the worst stations to be identified and fixed

So, select from the poll option. If your favorite is not there let us know so we can add it in. There can be only 10 options.

Pearse was last years runaway winner, followed by Howth Junc and Connolly. Normally we exclude Broombridge, but why should we regardless of location every station should meet basic standards.

This year we lost the old favorites of Clondalkin and Cherry Orchard and saw Connolly get a make over of sorts, while poor Pearse is still a mess

I would say presentation wise there is no question it is Broombridge but no my preference would be to not wait long in a kip rather than have to spend upto an hour in the middle of nowhere or a massive walk!

Location-wise: Hazelhatch- Has anyone tried to walk from Celbridge village to Hazelhatch. Not bad on a fine day but when there is rain....

Blackrock: I have to make a feeder bus connection and everytime I get the DART to make the connection its late arrives at blackrock have to run the length, run into people who have all the time in the world and because of the length of the footbridge and the exit validation I always miss the bus! with a 30-minute wait on the next.

Howth Junction also goes into the category of about 20-minutes to get out of it

Rosslare Europort: Location wise and identity-crisis wise because its not in well.... Rosslare Europort!

I would not go with pearse or connolly because i think both have dramatically improved over last year connolly recently is unrecognisable

Phoenix park: Because its not in well.... Phoenix Park!

Just to name a few!

My decision is .... Rosslare because its no longer in the europort and its impact on tourists etc... Hazelhatch would have been my second

Worst condition: Broombridge obviously

Worst track set-up: Killarney

Worst location: Portmarnock, Shankill, Rush and Lusk, Sallins and Naas, Limerick/Manulla Junction.

Can we throw in Hazelhatch or has the 4-tracking program fixed everything that is wrong with these stations.

Hazelhatch is grand since it was done up, proper station building, waiting room, lights, lifts and so on

Gotta be Boombridge without a doubt - for years passing by it on the Sligo train I didn't even realise it was a station in service, of course these days I see the station name signs. In Irish it of course Drochead na Scuab ... Drochead na Scobe sounds more like it!

Rosslare "Europort" must be a close second - WTF were Irish Rail thinking? They had the alignment/right of way and should have demanded it be maintained!

Connolly ... whew ... I'm actually impressed! There's enough toilets now, not that dark bloody broken down cupboard they had before, and they've replaced the passenger seating area by bringing that isolated bit of road by the side indoors and putting seats there!

Of course it would have made more sense to bring the Luas up there instead of demolishing the old ramp, and forget about those ticket barriers (especially since you can't roll them out citywide, see paragraph 1), but what they did is a close 2nd best.

I really didn't think Irish Rail could do it!

From my limited experience, HJ&D is a terrible station. The ticket office always seems to be closed, there never seems to be any staff, it's not obvious which platform you should use, the TV showing arrival times and platforms is always broken and it's not obvious how to get out of it.

They still can't manage to get the 17A to start and terminate in the car park, preferring instead to keep it hidden and considering how often passengers are dumped there when something goes wrong, there is no area map and no directions where to go to get a bus.

Also it's a dump and feels like a prison but I wouldn't mind that so much.

Pity the trains don't run on time, however.

The station is grand facilites wise- including the car park :eek: . given that the station is almost a half hour walk from celbridge walk and given that there is no decent feeder bus services, something that was one of RUIs policy when pay and display I have to disagree and say the station is only grand if you have a CAR!

Thats not great in my mind!

Also at least you have a frequent bus service not far from the station at Broombridge, what happens if you arrive at Haxelhatch to fimd trains are cancelled? or Rosslare for that matter, (you have to walk back to the port then!)

on a side note......
 

According to the Irish Rail website:

Hazelhatch station
http://www.irishrail.ie/your_journey/your_station.asp?letter=H&action=showdetail&statio n_id=70
I suppose it is correct but it would be helpful if they said only at peak times

And Howth Junction and Donaghmede
http://www.irishrail.ie/your_journey/your_station.asp?letter=H&action=showdetail&statio n_id=73
:rolleyes:

Droichead na Scobe - love it!

Apparently Broome was one of the directors of the company that built the Royal Canal. Is Scuab really the irish translation for Mr Broome?

older viewers will recall my fun times with the bus service (occasionally consisting of the contractors wife in her car) in the hatch. I hope that is not still the norm.

as for aerDART, well..... we all know what happened there. its nice to see IE fondly remember them though.

boombridge is too easy, it should be Pearse.

Broombridge is the clear winner, it doesn't even have a presentation.

If we're voting for the most OTT station, Cherry Orchard and Clondalkin vie for that neck and neck. From it's construction, you'd swear it was built to accommodate 15,000 people in transit at any one time, unlike the 5 or 6 that use it to get on and off.

http://eiretrains.com has pictures of the stations if you need a reminder!