Connolly Station, 3rd April 2010
I bought my ticket here and the ticket buying process was straightfoward. Although the person serving me did disappear for about two minutes for some reason during the transaction.
I asked if there was a timetable to accompany the ticket and she said no and pointed to the information desk.
They didn't have timetables either, he said they were being reprinted and seemed genuinely sorry. When he saw my ticket he mentioned that a timetable would have been perfect for me, and then pointed at the individual timetable stand. Ho hum. Not the end of the world.
0830 Dublin Heuston to Galway, 4th April 2010
Dublin Heuston was a much more pleasant station than I recall from my last trip there (I was going to Millstreet) - I remember then it was incredibly noisy and dark - but then I wasn't there on a Sunday morning in Easter!
Boarding started at about 0810hrs, there was quite a queue at Heuston with no one using the barriers. At first I thought the barriers were only for a certain kind of ticket, so I queued, which was weird for someone like me who has been conditioned into using barriers in the UK. I was a bit bemused by the queue of people handing their tickets to the ticket checker, who inserted it into the reader and then handed it back. At this point I walked over to the barriers and was through straightaway.
I was impressed that my ticket worked the barriers - the number of times in the UK that certain tickets are rejected by the barriers is quite annoying, so glad this wasn't an issue here.
The train was two x three car 22 sets, standard class throughout. I found the seats comfortable throughout the journey, although I did have a bay of four to myself. And the plug sockets were great as I was able to charge my phone and camera during the trip.
Another major plus point was that the seats align with the big windows throughout the train. Something that has escaped the designers notice for many recent trainbuilds in the UK.
A trolley service went up and down a few times, tickets were checked and I settled back with a coffee.
There were repeated automatic messages asking passengers not to sit in pre-reserved seats, and to their credit I noticed the passengers checking this.
I did find the first few stations from Dublin (Adamstown etc. ) to be very bleak looking affairs. The more traditional stations on the line seemed to have lifts and footbridges foisted on them: I know that the installation of lifts at stations is a legal requirement but I got the feeling that there was no sense of integrating this with the existing heritage of the stations. Most of the stations I travelled to today felt very stark in their design.
At some point past Clara the information system had a minor breakdown. And messages would appear like "This is the train for... 20.7kms" or something similar. At Athlone the information system announced that passengers for Galway should stay in the first three coaches, as the train splits for Westport.
There then followed a broken announcement from the driver (?) which I think was saying to ignore that automatic message, but it came out as
"Passenger... train... 'scommon and .... Port change at Ath....". Seriously. Finally someone came through the train asking if anyone needed Westport and advising them to change at Athlone. So, potentially some confusion caused by a malfunctioning computer, but dealt with by a real person double checking with the passengers.
The rest of the journey was uneventful.
Had about an hour in Galway before commencing my next train... to Limerick.