As with most lines

Things should of being improved more. Take the 17.35 down its realy only haveing 4 minutes dropped as it was always in Waterford arond 10 minutes early. 18.35 only seeing 2 mins cut it always arrived 5 minutes early in Waterford. 16.35 being moved 5 minutes but when at 16.35 it was in Waterford around 18.53 with 4 min stop in Kildare, 4 min in Athy, 3 extra in Kilkenny. (not waiting on other trains BTW)

I was under the impression some Limk-Dub services would be reintroduced to cut down on stops for Cork trains- though it would seem not!

It would be foolish to frame timetables where trains had to acheve absolute maximum performance in every section, ( no allowance for TSRs or the occasional need to use the wheelchair ramps) so I don't agree with the complaints about the Waterford line times. From my experience they are reasonably tight: remember that the advantage from 100mph v 80mph over a 10 to 12 mile section is not goimg to be very much.

Waterford -Dublin is 110 miles of which nearly 80 is on single track. Dublin-Belfast is 113 miles, virtually all double track. Many Waterford trains are timed at 2.10 or 2.15 for 6 or 7 stops; Belfast trains usually take 2.10 or 2.15for 4 or 5 stops. Given the size of the cities involved, I know which route needs to be shaken uop.

Some of the times I have posted currently have TSR in place ie Thomastown-Kilkenny and Kilkenny-Muine Bheag. TSR are most common between Kilkenny-Waterford and are very rare after Laivstwon North.

Even if they allow for extra time the 7-8 minutes stopped in Kilkenny is not acceptable.

Can't compare Belfast with Waterford mainly becasue of the congestion at either city.

What service do you travel on most as a few are tight but most are not.

www.tippfm.com tomorrow 10am Tipp Today with Seamus Martin I bet my hair on it Virginia O'Dowd will be on it moaning about the loss of the Dublin service. They are lucky they just didn't close the line.

Virginia won't be on, but there will be moaning

to be honest, some of the moaning would be justified. The morning commuter still leaves Nenagh rather than Roscrea but the evening train did not revert to a commuter friendly time for either town. Putting the line out of its misery would have been kinder to the area and to IE finances.

Can anyone see anything headline worthy here? It seems all nibbling at the edges stuff. I was hoping that people with access to the working timetable and so on could come up with at least one striking innovation.

Will we see a press release from IE announcing that now you can commuter from Carrick on Suir to Tipperary town... sort of... because that's the best they can think of?

Agreed - I commute from Ballybrophy to Park West and generally speaking Park West in the evenings is not great.

Us folks at Ballybrophy reckon Irish Rail should try running it the opposite way instead i.e. Ballybrophy to Limerick via Roscrea, etc etc.

Thats always been our view too, Limerick should be the focus, Nenagh Limerick might have a chance

Problem is the line form Nenagh to Ballybrophy is in seriously poor condition and I'd imagine the civil engineer will be the fall guy who calls a halt to service, neatly avoids the minister as safety will always override commercial and politics

The problem as I see it Mark is that nearly all the services are aimed towards Dublin, which I have no problem with in general. Vast majority of people commute towards there so fair enough.

However, look at Limerick, Cork as examples ( as I commute from Ballybrophy so I am biased ;) ) and there is not one service which would get me down to either place for around 8:00-8:30am in the morning. I would even be willing to drive to either Templemore-Thurles for option to get train to Cork or Templemore-Thurles-Roscrea for Limerick train.

Edit. Commuters from Ballybrophy-Templemore-Thurles are ideally placed to commute to Limerick, Cork & Dublin.

There was a morning and evening commuter option Nenagh Limerick

Very poorly subscribed to the point in the evening that the guard would head count at Birdhill and if no one aboard they would simply head back to Limerick avoiding the trek to Nenagh

Talking to one of the staff in Colbert last week. He was saying they are sure the Ballybrophy to Roscrea side of the line will be mothballed soon.

Could leave Nenagh in a similar position to Ennis as was before the Athenry line was reinstated.

I'm sure Irish Rails excuse for dropping it because of low demand.

I wonder does 25 minutes stopped at stations waiting for train corssings have anything to do with it. 10 in Muine Bheag, 5 in Carlow, 10 in Athy.

It puts an end to daily students using the services from Carlow to Kildare, Athy. 18.15 departure from Carlow was ideal.

If it was moved to 16.20 ex Waterford (17.30 ex Carlow) it would be of real benefit to people.

As posted above every servce will contuine to stop in stations for 3 or 4 minutes as IR have done nothing to address this.

18.05 on Sundays has being arriving in between 20.15-20.20 for the last year so where is the shorter journey times coming from. Notice how they allow an extra 5 minutes to make sure it arrives on time, not on any other Sunday service.

If the 09.10 was going in the other direction there would be plenty of demand but they pick an easy target to drop, good for bid if they cut over the west. Only good news for Waterford line is the DFS is to resume after being dropping in July.

I prodict a revised timetable will take affect by July 2013, Galway will not fill all the evening services in a million years, expect the 19.20 from Cork to go again. Cork schedule will not be able to run to 2h35m ever unless ICR take over.

I wonder how much of a handout CIE will get on Wednesday.

Didn't notice the extra 5 mins allowd.forthe 18.05. We left Newbridge at 19.58 tonight and were stopped on platform 2 at 20.19. The restriction outside Heuston was lifted last week.

the fact that they left the eveng departure from limerick as it is should tell you all you need to know. perhaps NRP will lobby on it, I will anyway.

There is a limerick railcar which does a commuter service in the morning from thurles. In theory it could be pulled back to BB or even Portlaoise. Not sure what the demand will be.

BTW, it is only in the last two weeks that Irish Rail have bothered to hand out posters to local shops here in Roscrea advertising the morning service and the prices. You couldnt make it up.

If started from BB or certainly PL then surely that train would deadhead from LTC rather than Limerick as I think the current one does, unless something changed? That would then have to be resolved since you have one fewer train overnighting in Limerick.

The logical extension of a dispatch-from-Portlaoise position would be to dispatch it from Heuston just ahead of the 0625 stopping service.

Heuston dep 0620
Portlaoise dep 0702
Ballybrophy dep 0717
Thurles arr 0735
Thurles dep 0740 (existing diagram as per 2013 draft)
L Jct dep 0807
Limerick arr 0835

Now you have a business service and a commuter service in one train.

Definitely one of those times you wish IE was FOIable to see who asked for that to happen.

Just noticed Clonmel will lose one service :O

Suppose I only did read Dublin-Cork/Limerick the other day.

At the moment

Limerick Junction - Waterford
08:55
13:55
18:50

Waterford - Limerick Junction
06:40
11:40
16:40

New Timetable if implemented

Limerick Junction - Waterford
09:45
18:50

Waterford - Limerick Junction
07:20
16:25

Starting to think they want this line to fail to cover losses on the WRC and Nenagh lines.

Follows a pattern of cutting midday trains, plus presumably a move to a single daily split shift. It's just a pity a bone wasn't thrown in the form of extending that shift pattern to Sunday to facilitate GAA and student travel.