Dublin-Belfast Rail Passengers "plummet"

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by Jamie2k9

That may be the case but its like saying that Cork can support an hourly service when it can't. Take all Limerick and Kerry passengers away + passengers who would use stops that all 3 services if operating use and there is no way an hourly service could be justified.

But those stops are there, so it can be supported.

Originally Posted by ACustomer

Inniskeen: your numbers raise an interesting point. The Sligo route, which had numbers falling by 8.5% has had its service reduced in the recent timetable revision. The Galway route (down by 36%) has had an increase in services.

Can anyone explain?

One of the problems with the Sligo route was the lack of suitable passing places from Maynooth to Mullingar, which caused a lot of problems to evening services if a train was out of place. Removing one of the evening services to Dublin solved that.

There is of course, the matter of whether the previous service level was appropriate on each line - Sligo might have been over-served relative to Galway.

[rigel kent]

If a train could go from Cork to Belfast Northern Ireland shopping excursions would more than make up the shortfall all it would take is an upgrade to the tunnel under the phoenix park .

[Inniskeen]

No upgrade would be required to run such a service - an ICR would do the job nicely. Don't believe there is any interest though, certainly not from Irish Rail or the NTA. Can't imagine a flood of shoppers in current conditions but there should be sufficient business/tourist traffic for at least a token service of perhaps two trains a day in each direction.

Don't hold your breathe though !

[Mark Gleeson]

Who wants a 5 hour journey? Its been tried and failed before. Not exactly going to work for a day trip at 80 euro a head return

Can't fly from Cork to Belfast either, was tried failed
Can't fly from Cork to Dublin, tried Ryanair gave up after Irish Rail slashed prices

The demand is not there and history will tell you the demand has nearly always been from the Northern side not the South

[comcor]

The only way it will happen is if Irish Rail can get their hands on some EU cash to make it happen.

As others have said, you would need to take at least an hour off that journey time to make it attractive.

[James Howard]

5 hours isn't an especially long rail journey but Irish Rail's standard of catering wouldn't cut it on that length of journey. Given that it would have to reverse in Dublin, you might as well just have one or two trains a day run through to Connolly and time them so as to enable a connection.

Of course the platform arrangements at Connolly don't exactly suit this nor is there enough space currently to do it without transferring a lot more commuter traffic to Docklands. This is hardly sensible to inconvenience a captive market of thousands of commuters for the sake of 20 or 30 people a day who might want to travel from Cork to Belfast and most of whom will be doing on a free pass anyway.

[Inniskeen]

There are bags of spare platform capacity at Connolly - the terminal platforms are not heavily used.

I don't accept that a few trains in either direction from Connolly towards Drumcondra couldn't be accommodated without impacting on other services.

A service could be provided from Belfast to Cork supplementing the existing timetable (there are huge holes in the service on the Belfast route) and generating modest additional and potentially high revenue business. Prospects of anything happening in the near future are virtually nil as the various bodies concerned (particularly in the Republic) have zero interest in developing intercity traffic on the Belfast line as it is seen as a potential obstacle to DART expansion.

[Eddie]

If my memory serves me correctly...

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Can't fly from Cork to Belfast either, was tried failed

It was a Belfast to Cork flight with just a handful of passengers on board that had an unfortunate incident a couple of years back at Cork airport.

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Can't fly from Cork to Dublin, tried Ryanair gave up after Irish Rail slashed prices

Aer Arran operated the service before Ryanair and people probably flew who were on business in the days when faced with the alternative of a 4+ hour journey each way by road.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Originally Posted by rigel kent

If a train could go from Cork to Belfast Northern Ireland shopping excursions would more than make up the shortfall all it would take is an upgrade to the tunnel under the phoenix park .

thats mad. i have done the trip from tipp to belfast a few times and any possible marginal savings on purchases would be wiped out by the costs of the ticket. it is also far cheaper to drive to Belfast and back. plus, you wont be able to do a massive amount of shopping anyway considering the physical limitations of carting stuff about unless it is high end stuff, which is all cheaper online anyway.