Dublin-Belfast Rail Passengers "plummet"

comcor · 18-10-2013, 11:18

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 · 18-10-2013, 11:32

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 · 18-10-2013, 12:24

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.

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18-10-2013, 11:18	#1
comcor Really Regular Poster Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Cork-Dublin, Cork Commuter and occasionally DART and Dublin-Wexford Posts: 855	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.

18-10-2013, 11:32	#2
James Howard Really Really Regluar Poster Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Sligo Line Posts: 1,115	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.

18-10-2013, 12:24	#3
Inniskeen Really Regular Poster Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 951	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.