Right well I had to take the bus home to Portlaoise last night and this resulted in 2 hours 10 minutes on the bus compared to 1 hour on the train. This morning I had to get up at 6.10am (compared to 40 minutes later when taking the train for another almost 2-hour bus journey. As long as this goes on I will be spending an extra hour on top of the two hours each way I spend a day commuting (I have to walk/cycle at both ends of journey). I have been informed that I can send in a photocopy of my annual ticket along with any bus tickets I have bought and get a full refund so I advise of course anyone in a similar position to do the same.
I have family arriving next week from NZ (where there has not been a rail strike almost in living memory - although there are very few trains to strike and the union membership is too low to be effective) who are coming to my wedding and they would be relying on the trains to make their journeys. I know it will leave not only a bad impression on people living here in Ireland but how many tourists are going to be affected over the days of these strikes too? All the routes affected are popular destinations for tourists for example. I mean sure they can take buses and some do because it is cheaper but many others will have their plans disrupted by this.
I also know someone who was delayed by the newish train at Broomebridge 'braking down' and was sitting exams. As far as I know they made it still but I am sure it gave them a bit of a scare.
Privatisation of rail has proved to be a bit of an 'out of the frying pan into the fire' scenario in other countries from the customer's point of view and I would put it as an unlikely outcome of this strike.
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