[27+29/5/2016] Services before and after Bruce Springsteen concert

[Thomas J Stamp]

the cork/galway lates are on the main page, but they remind you that you have to book the next day for returns.

maybe because the others are local trains they aren't bookable and so they haven't put them up on the planner?

[James Howard]

The Longford / Sligo thing is probably because numbers fall off so dramatically beyond Longford and a bus would probably easily manage the load.

In this like so many things, it would make a real difference to the Sligo service, if Bus Eireann and Irish Rail services were integrated so that you could use the return part of a rail ticket on a bus. This would basically cost nothing and would make the service significantly better.

For bonus points, they could have the later busses stop somewhat near the railway stations so people didn't have to walk a mile in the pouring rain in the middle of the night to get their cars from the carpark.

[Jamie2k9]

The Longford / Sligo thing is probably because numbers fall off so dramatically beyond Longford and a bus would probably easily manage the load.

In this like so many things, it would make a real difference to the Sligo service, if Bus Eireann and Irish Rail services were integrated so that you could use the return part of a rail ticket on a bus. This would basically cost nothing and would make the service significantly better.

For bonus points, they could have the later busses stop somewhat near the railway stations so people didn't have to walk a mile in the pouring rain in the middle of the night to get their cars from the carpark.

Numbers may fall however that's not the reason they are not operating. The issue here is the half baked special services which Irish Rail operate.

Services scheduled less than 3 weeks before concert, you know when 90% of people have decided to book hotels almost immediately they secure tickets. So they expect people to not make plans until they decide to maybe provide a service.

If they were to provide a service on any route other than regular Cork/Galway they would not advertise it as people at this stage do not expect them to provide such services on other routes so why would they even bother checking.

I don't buy "no demand" for a second, there is always demand if people know about it. I will accept there will be some events where this is correct but for a concert in Croke Park there is demand.

Translink announced additional rail/bus services on 22nd February for this weekend.

So can we all see the problem here, one company is prepared and accommodating to customers while the other is well lazy and unprepared to make such services work.

Beyonce and Rihanna will be the test to see if anything happens and this two gigs specifically should be a lot more appealing to train users prehaps more so than this weekends given they would attract a lot more younger people. Translink announced there special services on 22nd Feb and 5th Feb respectively.

If they even worked with ticketmaster to advertise such services during sale of tickets it would help a lot or even if possible get locations where most tickets have been sold etc.

I really fail to see what's changed since they were prepared to run services to Sligo and Waterford for 5 days before the GB gigs were cancelled and Sligo/Waterford who added at very short notice well after the usual Cork/Galway etc. At the time there was no advertising of them but the schedules were:

23:50 Dublin Connolly - Sligo 02.50
00:20 Dublin Heuston - Waterford 02.30
00:30 Dublin Heuston - Galway 02.50
00:40 Dublin Heuston - Cork 03.15
00:40 Dublin Heuston - Limerick 02.45

[Inniskeen]

Jamie,

You have hit the nail on the head, the Belfast specials are bookable for months in advance, the Irish Rail arrangements appear to be made up at the last minute. Queries on twitter a few days ago (in respect of local services around Dublin) were producing the response "we are finalising arrangements".

One suspects that trains like the 1435 from Dundalk on Sunday will have almost zero patronage as almost nobody knows about it - this and most of the other trains listed in previous posts above were not in the journey planner a few days ago and are not advertised at stations.

[James Howard]

Could it perhaps be because the manager responsible for organising them would rather not do any work and leaves it to the last minute so as to be able to say nobody uses the specials and so there is no need to run them.

The reluctance to run late-night specials is probably related to the historical need to keep dozens of people on for a couple of extra hours to man signals and open level-crossing gates.

[Mark Gleeson]

There is also an unhelpful clause in the PSO contract which requires IE to pay the NTA a cut when PSO funded trains are used for commercial purposes.

[Mark Gleeson]

There is also an unhelpful clause in the PSO contract which requires IE to pay the NTA a cut when PSO funded trains are used for commercial purposes.

[James Howard]

Is that such a bad thing? It's not terribly fair for a private bus operator providing the equivalent service to have to compete against a public operator with the vehicle being provided for free.