No more Weekender cards

[MOH]

God, I'm furious with this shower.

Weekender ID cards are no longer being issued. Weekender tickets will still be issued for those with current ID cards until those cards expire.

No doubt Irish Rail will try to claim that these are being phased out in favour of web fares, despite the fact that web fares don't apply when most people would be using Weekender cards; and that they're not available on all routes.

Of course, they can't even manage to do this properly. There's at least two places on the Irish Rail site where it explains how to go about getting a Weekender card. See if you can find them before someone reads this and corrects their mess-up.

[Mark Gleeson]

This was noticed a while back, there is a thread in the members area

http://www.railusers.ie/news/news.ph...2009&no=1.html

As usual its the typical routine of impose a change without realising the impact

[Mark Gleeson]

The two pages
http://www.irishrail.ie/your_ticket/...scriptions.asp
http://www.iarnrodeireann.ie/your_ticket/leisure.asp

[MOH]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

The two pages
http://www.irishrail.ie/your_ticket/...scriptions.asp
http://www.iarnrodeireann.ie/your_ticket/leisure.asp

Well done

For bonus points, now find the references on www.iarnrodeireann.ie

(BTW, there's a typo in the the link you gave, last sentence 'disparately' should read 'desparately')


I'll be getting the bus or driving to Carrick once my current Weekender runs out. Well done Irish Rail!

[Tadhg17]

Ya I noticed on the IE website somewhere last week that said these weekender cards are no longer been issued. I only got mine renewed in early December so it's still valid for this year. Even with the weekender card, a weekend return to trip to Ennis is now 51 Euros. Thats way too steep. Weekender trip to Galway is 33.50 Euros, Westport is 38 Euros. Why the hell are Limerick/Ennis to Dublin rail fares so steep compared to Westport and Galway? Galway is 2 hours 45mins/50mins and Westport is 3 hours 40 mins yet they are way cheaper. Ennis is 3 hours 10mins roughly to Dublin yet is a more expensive journey than to Westport which is a longer journey.

I get the train twice a month back to Ennis from Dublin. Now I'm gonna get the Bus to Ennis(27.50 Euros) 2/3 trips home until I get a car this summer. Sorry but I ain't paying those fares twice a month, talk about fleecing their customers.Their fare structure is a joke.

[Mark Gleeson]

I blame spellchecker

http://www.irishrail.ie/your_ticket/...cket_types.asp

[Thomas Ralph]

Originally Posted by Tadhg17

Why the hell are Limerick/Ennis to Dublin rail fares so steep compared to Westport and Galway?

(insert rant about express/economy fares)

My personal opinion and understanding (and this is without my committee hat on) is that the subsidies IÉ gets are higher for the single-track lines. Probably some economics in there too, i.e. charging what the market will bear.

[Mark Gleeson]

Ennis is charged at the full rate of the Dublin/Cork/Kerry/Limerick/Dundalk rate. Everything else is on a discounted rate of some kind which varies. Ennis is afforded a discount in the sense its the same fare as Dublin Limerick.

Dublin Limerick does get almost a train an hour if not better and its mostly double track which is the justification for the higher fare according to Irish Rail. Weekender discounts where never that significant on the secondary routes as discounted fares already applied. Now the obvious question is what if you go via Athenry?

Its all really a side effect of the fact the system can't combine fares from different routes, you should pay Cork rate per km to Limerick Junction then the regional rate per km to Ennis, Irish Rail just charge the highest rate regardless even if you only travel 10% of the journey on the expsenive routes

Advice here is to take advantage of the online fares, yes they aren't any help at peak hours but you should be able to beat the weekender fare if you choose off peak or one leg off peak, one on peak. There is a big change coming soon which should mean that you can get cheap fares any train any day but only if you book early

Of course this all should have been implemented (Sligo and Rosslare line as well etc) before the weekender card was pulled

The more cynical would think its Irish Rail freeing up memory on the ticket machines to cope with Midelton, the WRC and Pace

[chris]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

The more cynical would think its Irish Rail freeing up memory on the ticket machines to cope with Midelton, the WRC and Pace

What are those machines running, like windows NT 3.1?

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Irish Rail just charge the highest rate regardless even if you only travel 10% of the journey on the expsenive routes

But Dublin-Westport involves a double track section from Dublin to Portarlington.

The more cynical would think its Irish Rail freeing up memory on the ticket machines to cope with Midelton, the WRC and Pace

But surely those machines should be able to deal with thousands of destinations?

[Thomas Ralph]

It seems to me that any journey including travel between Portarlington and Templemore (or v/v) or Dundalk and Newry (or v/v) goes on the higher rates. But that's an individual speculation (and again is without my committee hat on).

[Donal Quinn]

had a chat about this when buying my ticket this weekend - innocently asking could i renew my weekender which is about to expire. He said they are not doing them anymore but that there would be a replacement card...

that's all i got - anyone heard anything else?