Sail & Rail

[Traincustomer]

Disappointed to hear of this unsatisfactory experience. It may be worth dropping Irish Ferries a line or e-mail.

[James Howard]

I already did and sent them a list of specific issues. No point in just moaning on the internet about poor service. Companies need to know and then it is up to them whether or not they use the information. So far, 7 days later, I've not had anything back aside from acknowledgement of receipt.

The train journey from Oxford was quite nice. The first two trains (Oxford to Birmingham New Street and BNS to Crewe) were very comfortable - almost deserted, but Crewe to Holyhead was a packed Virgin Super Voyager. I'll not moan about Irish Rail so much any more as a 22K is far more comfortable even if they are a little lacking in onboard facilities. To be honest, I'd probably even prefer a 29K to the Virgin train which I though was very cramped.

[comcor]

My turn for a Sail-Rail question...

I'm going to need to get from Cardiff to Wexford shortly, although I think I can get collected from Rosslare, so I won't be tied to being on the overnight ferry.

I have a couple of questions

• On the Arriva Trains Wales website, the date I want is just beyond the threshold. Unlike Irish Rail, this doesn't seem to go one day at a time, but instead jumps several weeks in one go. It moved yesterday to just short of the date I want. Does anyone know how long I'll be waiting until they move it again?
• Regarding reservations, it says "Yes. Reservations are compulsory on Stena Line and Irish Ferries services and on all Advance train journeys. A place will be booked on the ferry for you at time of purchase. Failure to obtain a reservation may result in you not being allowed to board the vessel." This is a bit confusing to me. Is booking the ticket online enough to have the reservation or is there another step?
• If I choose to pick up the tickets from the vending machine in Cardiff Central Station, do I just get a single rail-like ticket that specifies Cardiff to Rosslare via Fishguard? Is that enough to present myself for check-in on the boat?

[Traincustomer]

1. I know what you mean but never really thought about it. From time to time I have seen notices on the ATW website along the lines of Advance tickets until xx (date) now on sale. (The current note on the website is “Advance tickets now available up until 3 April 2015”).

These notices seem to appear every now and again. I have reviewed e-mails updates I receive but can’t determine the pattern – sometimes it seems there’s a month between them – other times a week or just days. Possibly the best way to get a definitive answer is an e-mail to ATW’s Customer Services or, if possible, a message on Twitter.

2. Booking the ticket online is enough to have the reservation. When the tickets are collected the machine prints off a number of coupons one of which is the mandatory reservation coupon for the ferry which will specify Fishguard to Rosslare and the sailing date & time of the ferry.

3. That’s it. When I travelled this route towards the end of last year on an advance single and collected my tickets from the machine it generated three “coupons”: (i) a seat reservation for the train as far as Swansea; (ii)the reservation coupon for the ferry described above; (iii) the ticket per se specifying the name of the starting station and the destination (i.e. Rosslare Hr) route Fishguard Stena.

Show the Cardiff – Rosslare Hr ticket and ferry reservation coupon to check-in personnel at Fishguard. Usually they take the ticket per se and issue the ferry boarding card in its place.

The ticket & reservation coupons are printed on standard rail ticket stock.

A difference in Wales/England/Scotland is that when collecting tickets the card used to purchase the tickets must be inserted into the ticket machine. Personally I don’t like this and prefer Iarnród Éireann’s ticket collection procedure.

That's my understanding of it all anyway.

[Traincustomer]

Essentially immaterial from a SailRail perspective but in recent weeks the sailing times of the night crossings have changed slightly to:

21.15 ex Rosslare arriving Fishguard 00.30 (previously 21.00)
02.30 ex Fishguard arriving Rosslare 06.30 (previously 02.45 arr 06.15)

[comcor]

Thanks for that.

The tickets have gone on sale now, so booked

That change in the overnight ferry, makes the connection to the 370 bus that replaced the South Wexford rail line a bit tight, but I'd hope Bus Eireann will look at that. Only problem is that it acts as a commuter service into Waterford too, so there's limited scope for making it later. I'm not sure how many use it to get from Rosslare to destinations before New Ross anyway.

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by comcor

Thanks for that.

The tickets have gone on sale now, so booked

That change in the overnight ferry, makes the connection to the 370 bus that replaced the South Wexford rail line a bit tight, but I'd hope Bus Eireann will look at that. Only problem is that it acts as a commuter service into Waterford too, so there's limited scope for making it later. I'm not sure how many use it to get from Rosslare to destinations before New Ross anyway.

I'd say probably none.

The 370 service is purely a commuter service into Waterford. Any notion that it is a connection from the ferry, or that there are foot passengers for remote parts of South Wexford is pie in the sky, being blunt about it. Any foot passengers can however still use the 07:00 route 40 service to Waterford with connections to Cork and Limerick.