Thurles-Clonmel via Limerick Junction
 

Thinking of ways to get to Clonmel later today only option really is i got to drive there. By rail its €33 i think and a really bad timetable.

I really don't get how it would cost me more from Thurles-Clonmel than Thurles-Limerick given the very poor service (just 3 trains there 3 trains back, a day) and less distance it is

I would imagine a commuter service direct from Thurles-Tipperary Town-Cahir-Clonmel would be very popular given the amount of people who travel by bus/car between the towns. I think 3 trains to Waterford 3 trains to Limerick Junction a day for a town the size of Clonmel is madness, a town that size should have a comprehensive train service like Thurles and Portlaoise.

Intercity trains should be used on that line too connecting Thurles Templemore etc to Plunkett Waterford. Seems crazy they aint implemented a service like this. A number of people in Thurles get on buses to Clonmel and then on to Waterford too so they wont exactly be stuck for customers. Apart from Dublin-Cork it seems every other line which has potential to make money in this country the service is a joke.

I don't know if a direct service could be justified, when more connections at Limerick Junction could deliver a much enhanced service more easily. The layout of Limerick Junction also makes running from the Dublin line to the Waterford line a time-wasting pain in the butt.

But that fare is utterly insane. It can only be 50km maximum between the two towns.

Sounds about right. I sometimes take Longford to Edgeworthstown as my pass only gets me to Edgeworthstown and this costs €7.70 for about 14 km.

There are several people who occasionally take the train from Edgeworthstown to Mullingar where there is never a ticket collector present who I have never seen buying a ticket. On the other hand, I am stupid enough to actually pay the €6.70 (I get a euro off for my annual pass) when travelling from Longford.

They really should look at some of the fares between rural towns on Intercity lines. In most cases, once you are going more than 20km, it is cheaper to buy a day return to Dublin if you aren't going early in the morning. There is a chance that I might take the kids on a spin to Mullingar or Boyle on a weekend but not if it is going to cost 50 quid for a journey that costs 20 in a car.

I don't know the correct fare, but I suspect that isn't correct Limerick Junction-Waterford has a special fares matrix to reflect the poor service.

It may be useful to phone the station in Limerick Junction 062-51824 or Clonmel 052-21982.

I called Thurles train station. It's €29.40 return. I'm pretty sure it was €33 at the machine last week, unless it went down in price which i doubt it did. probably the ticket machine hasn't got a correct price for it. I will check it tomorrow on the machine. On Irishrail.ie it's €22.20 one way regardless if you book it for 2 weeks time or tomorrow. So €44.40 + €3 booking fee cause i don't use a laser card i use Mastercard, wow i can get to Dublin €1.40 cheaper in the booking office.

That's another thing. Iarnród Éireann have to pay a merchant fee of between 1.5 and 3% of the total cost of the transaction. Say i buy a €20 ticket that's roughly about 31c at the highest percentage rate to the Bank/Visa/MasterCard yet where does this €1 charge come in?

Same place the Ryanair €12 return fee comes from, I imagine.

The actual distance is 76km and that is why the fare is as high as it is

The fare if you start from Clonmel is considerably less

The current service pattern is about getting to and from Dublin which it does quite well for the limited service and it beats the first bus to Dublin by an hour. Equally you can get from Dublin to Clonmel and back and have a near full day there.

A new fare structure is coming which will balance things up.

Given the nature of the route the best option is to provide a train every two hours from Waterford to Limerick/Galway with connections at Waterford and Limerick Junction

Tipperary operates as two counties so there isn't a serious flow north/south. It is possible to leave Clonmel at 7:30 and be in Thurles for 8:48

76km by rail. So in effect you are double punishing people by adding both time and money when the railway line isn't direct.

I'm actually surprised there isn't a special fare between the two towns as a legacy of when there was a direct railway line between them. It can only have closed in the 60s.

In hindsight, it may have been more desirable to have kept the Thurles-Clonmel link rather than Limerick Junction-Clonmel one. It would have provided the possibility of Dublin direct or at least with a better connection than at present. Clonmel-Dublin is actually poorly served by all forms of public transport.

There is a special set of fares in place if you start from Clonmel

It is only fair that you pay for the actual distance, that brings consistency to the fare structure

Why on earth would such a thing (from half a century ago) justify a legacy fare? Simplifying the fare structure is what's needed, not bizarre and customer-unfriendly variances.

Irish Rail lack that kind of imagination

Well, a fare from Tralee to Limerick isn't calculated by the full railway distance.

I'm not saying it would justify it, I'm saying it's the sort of thing that would happen in CIE.

The bus timetable from Cork to Crosshaven is still based on the rail timetable of the Cork, Blackrock and Passage Railway that closed in 1932. It also explains why Cork's bus commuter tickets cover far further to the South-East of the city than any other direction.

That's the North Kerry line thing right? Exactly the kind of nonsense I'm talking about and makes rational journeys more expensive for everyone else.
Is there really enough people to justify that? I can't even get Thurles or Templemore to appear in a Bus Eireann search!

I checked it yes it is €33 on the ticket machine despite been just over €29 at the booking office. I took the 10:21 train to Limerick Junction-Limerick today. They actually used a 6 car ICR 22000 for the Dublin/Cork. I guess they withdrew one the MK4s for repairs. Still a rip off though Clonmel is only 7.50 on the bus and a much faster journey. Coming back on the 16:33 Limerick junction to Thurles the train moved about 4 metres and cut out then moved another few metres cut out again. Wonder what caused that?

Wasn't that the line at Gooldscross Junction-Cashel. It was closed during the 60s and in typical CIE fashion was completely removed.

There is quite alot traffic though in Thurles especially between 8am-8pm. Most going through for South Tipperary and it's chaos in the town sometimes taking up to a 45 minutes to get from Drish to Tipp institute on the Nenagh road, on match days it's even longer you have to go the regional/back roads to get to the other sides of town. If someone parks on a yellow line and it causes grid lock in the square. They were suppose to build a bypass next year but it's put off until funding can be provided. And in 2014 both North and South Tipperary will operate as a single county so they might have to fix their fares then i guess. Is that line in good condition though? There was two bridge collapses in the 1950s and in 2003 in Cahir so i guess it has a very low speed limit.

www.shamrockbuses.com there is two seperate routes one that goes Thurles-Clonmel at 11:15 and 17:45 and goes through Holycross, Cashel and New Inn. other goes Thurles-Clonmel at 8:00 and 15:00 through Two-mile Borris Killenaule and Fethard. A bus for Templemore leaves Thurles at 8:55 14:55 and 19:00 but the trains are much more frequent and only slightly more expensive at €5.10. Bus Éireann route 008 passes near Thurles you get off at the Horse & Jockey though and have to walk the n62. To be honest people here like using the train it's expensive but a really excellent reliable service. Bus Éireann were here years ago route 008 came into the town even and another route to Athlone and they never got any customers in the volume as the trains get.

Funnily enough I got the Dublin-Clonmel service to go to the races this summer and it was quite convoluted to get the best fare. I think I got Dublin-LJ but had asked in Heuston for a separate LJ-Clonmel ticket, which wasn't mad expensive.
The line itself was clearly not in a great state and the likes of Clonmel, Tipperary and Tipperary stations all looked pretty decrepit. Still, it was part of the charm I suppose and the Cahir viaduct was pretty memorable.
I have often wondered would it make sense to reopen the Clonmel-Thurles line. Possibly do a Dublin-Clonmel service with changes at Thurles for other towns? Thurles-Clonmel through Limerick Junction wouldn't encourage many people to use it, particularly when you have to railcar so much of it.

Only very small parts of the Thurles-Clonmel line still exists as majority of it was ripped up in the 1970s. This line should never have closed down but it was the 1960s when CIE was replacing everything with a bus. Relaying it would cost millions

That is a shame.

Not really. A new railway or a re-opening of a long closed railway tends to cost a multiple of upgrading an existing railway.

If you wanted to build an 80-100mph railway from Clonmel to Thurles (26 miles), for the same price you could upgrade the vast majority of Waterford to Limerick (77 miles) for the same price, delivering a full intercity service to Clonmel, connecting at Limerick Junction and Waterford.

Building Clonmel-Thurles would cut 40 minutes off the Clonmel train journey, it would do nothing to improve Clonmel-Waterford or Clonmel-Limerick. The only places big enough to be served would be Clonmel and maybe Fethard. The matter of timetable slots for the trains would be important and there would be no guarantee of direct services - look at Tralee (one direct return train a day to Dublin) or Ballina (no direct services), although Ennis is slightly better in that there is a choice of routes, but sometimes two connections to be made. Then Cashel would want its line re-opened. You can't easily do a Clonmel-Cashel-Thurles line as the ground levels change too much.

Rebuilding Waterford-Limerick to 80-100mph railway would cut the full journey time from 2h-2h15 (sometimes 4h30 in practice, depending on connections) to 1h-1h15 and deliver a time saving on Clonmel-Limerick Junction of 0h20 and a similar saving on Clonmel-Waterford. It would deliver a modest time saving for Limerick-Limerick Junction.

However, if you have a spare €100-200m or more lying around, let them know. :)

At a time when there is a serious threat to existing lines serving Nenagh, Roscrea, Clonmel and other towns, we should concentrate our efforts to ensure that IE don't take the lazy way out, which is more closures. This might mean opening up some threatned lines to new operators: the CIE unions won't like it, but that's no reason for running away from the problem.

I get a bit tired of people fantasising about re-opening lines which have long been obliterated. People should get real.