€3 "upgrade" to reserve a seat
 

I was just looking at this. It is the same charge (€3) to reserve your seat on a train from Dublin to Tullamore, as it is from Dublin to Galway. Is it the same for the whole country?

I welcome the fact that it can be done, but for an annual ticket holder, €3 every time for such a short journey is not really worth it.

There is no difference in price between the upgrade to first class either. Do I get the impression that Irish Rail don't like complicated maths?:D

I know it's only €3 but it's not something I'd ever use.

Maybe they're hoping to get a bit of extra revenue from regular users at very busy times like bank holidays/cork jazz festival?

Why should it be any different? Surely there is the same amount of work in programming the system / dealing with the hassle of forgetting to programme the system whatever the journey length?

A flat fee is the industry standard approach where reservations are optional, in fact on a Mk4 train it costs Irish Rail just the credit card transaction fee to issue the reservation, the rest is electronic

The €3 per journey applies only if the reservation is obtained after the purchase of a normal ticket, the inabilty to reserve a seat with a prepurchased ticket was a issue to a lot of people, it also bypasses the issue with Social Welfare tickets which can't be booked online due to the terms of the contract the CIE group has

If you buy the ticket online and reserve a seat you pay the normal fare, you have no choice but to reserve a seat online

All I can say is reservations are not worth the hassle, its not like the train staff will inforce them.