Station Opening Hours.

[hhf8]

coming from balbriggan, The station never seems to be open in the evenings. When i go down at 7 its closed and on Sundays its like they close up at 3ish, going for a 6.30 train and nobody to get a ticket from. Then I found this on the IE Site

Balbriggan Station
Staff Hours: 06.00-20.15 Mon-Sat; 08.00-19.00 Sun

So is the station on flextime or daylight savings for the winter?

[Mark Gleeson]

Blackrock, Seapoint, Booterstown, Lansdowne etc suffer from this as well

Its not in the charter but its in the offical memorandum of agreement with the DoT all stations will display clearly there hours of business.

Only station I've ever seen do that is Thurles

[hhf8]

so the times on the IE site are wrong?, or are they just shutting shop early?

[bigjim]

Originally Posted by hhf8

so the times on the IE site are wrong?, or are they just shutting shop early?

I use Seapoint and there was a period before Christmas where the station would be closed aroun 6pm on a fair few occasions, I got the impression that there was one guy who works at the station who couldnt be arsed staying. Same guy is always watching DVDs or playing on his PS2 in full view of customers, and it takes a knock on the window to get his attention, not exactly professional.

[Mark Gleeson]

So you met Mr PS2, I've hada trouble with him in the past, laptop and portable dvd player as well. No uniform either

Other two guys are sound

What is really strange is a senior IE manager uses the station surprised this has gone on so long unnoticed by authority

It was consistently closed after 6pm Sat and Sun, was open last week though

[hhf8]

sounds like fun to me!

well balbriggan was open last night at 7.00,maybe it was for late night shopping

[Mark Gleeson]

Well the mystery of Blackrock has been solved

Its opening hours on weekend are now 10am to 7:30pm there is a notice outside the station. It also tells you to use the call button on the platform if you are a mobility impaired passenger

Now I don't get this the ramp is locked in the station, DART coaches don't carry a ramp so how does it work??

Of course no notice on the website which tells me the station is open till 11:00 pm 7 days a week

[bigjim]

Seapoint closed at 19.30 today, the shutters were up, nobody in the office (lights off) with a handwritten notice in the window saying someone would be back in 20 mins. Bit of a joke tbh.

[Mark Gleeson]

At least the old notice was written properly the new one is a scrawl

But we have a TVM now

[Colm Donoghue]

Originally Posted by hhf8

so the times on the IE site are wrong?, or are they just shutting shop early?

I think you'ld have to assume that if a company publishes information to the whole world, that overrides a locally handwritten notice except in extreme cases....

[mojotwice]

the reason alot of dart halts (especialy the quiter ones) are constantly closed is because when the depots are short staffed the men are told to fill the depot job and just leave the halt empty.

[Mark Gleeson]

Be a hiring freeze currently.

In some cases the staff seem to be bunking off early, the opening hours bear no resemblance to the official ones, but then again Irish Rail never published the opening hours.

[weehamster]

I think there is a firing freeze going on as well.
I would use my phone to video the closed station and show the notice for opening time, show the closed office and show time on the platform as well. Build up a few viedos and then send 3 copies, one to RTE, one to a paper and the 3rd to Irish Rail.

[Mark Gleeson]

Thats the kind of evidence we need more of

My favourite is the fact in Seapoint the TVM is locked up behind the shutters when they close up, for a company claiming to be stuck for cash they really are making it as hard as possible on themselves to take your money off you

[Thomas Ralph]

Same thing happens in Sandymount. The TVM on the southbound side is inside the booking office building so you could understand that one being closed but the northbound one is always shuttered when the station is unattended.

[philip]

Clonsilla is now left open even when unmanned so you can get to the TVM and through the barriers after hours (the way it should be). Not sure if all Maynooth line stations are like this now. This was last Friday evening, 22.20 train into town.

[ThomasJ]

Yep noticed that tonight.Coolmine also seems to be the same. Not sure about the ticket office think quays open unmanned. but there are now two tvms on the citybound platform.

[Donal Quinn]

sallins on sunday was unmanned and no sign of a TVM
no ticket checker in heuston either ...