Two new trains stuck together and my caffeine addiction...
 

When I get an early train from Limerick to Dublin, I normally have a bit of a need for some coffee (however awful it is).

The new trains on the Limerick Dublin route are two 3-coach railcars stuck together.

Of course the trolley can't travel between the two halves, so if I sleepily get on the wrong set, I don't get any coffee until Thurles (where they hump the trolley off one half and hump it on to the other half).

This makes me a bit cranky. So my question: is the long term plan to regularly stitch two 3-coach railcars together, or are they just doing that for testing purposes until a new timetable hits?

I'd say thats annoying alright.
They should have ordered more 6-car sets, then they wouldn't have to stitch two 3-car sets together. It dosen't look right either

My thoughts exactly, too many 3 car sets and too few 6s. I've thought that since the start. Better get used to it :(

The 6-car sets will be targeted at peak loadings, 3-car sets at off-peak loadings. Dual 3-cars sets would hopefully be restricted to Friday /Sunday evening peak loadings.

Ideally we would see split services - for example leaving Heuston as a 6 car with the front 3 going to Carlow and 3 to Athlone - to improve utilisation of slots and platforms at major termini. Whether IE would ever do such a thing is another matter.

That fails the Irish travel intelligence test, sadly.

When I travel from Toronto to Kingston for work, my usual train is a combination of a locohauled Montreal train and a locohauled Ottawa train (not sure which is in front - I get off before it matters).

This makes sense because it is a single deck long range train which is then occupying one platform at Toronto Union and not also a second one which is instead occupied by a GO Transit train with up to 12 bilevel cars with about 150 seats each.

I can imagine complications on the return (this is Ireland :(), if one half ends up waiting for the other, it is blocking the mainline.

Fair point Victor but they wouldn't necessarily have to wait, it would just be less efficient at the terminus to have two arrivals - a 25% movement reduction from 2 in 2 out to only 2 in 1 out.

Excuse my ignorance, but in this situation are both drivers timetabled to stay with the train even after it has joined? Otherwise I guess you wouldn't have the option for a delayed half to continue to the terminus.

The split/join option has been discussed, may or may not happen

Dublin Athlone as a 9 coach split, 6 Galway 3 Westport. There are drivers based in Athlone so there won't be staff idle

Cheeky solution to get the safety people out of the way is to do the split at the old station in Athlone

If it's any consolation it's not just in Ireland!

A regular occurance here, sometimes with 2 x 4/5 car trains.