Introduction of connecting bus Stranraer station to Cairnryan ports

[pkkelly]

Do you live in Stranraer or anywhere near the Stranraer line?

I live in Belfast, and am a regular SailRail user.

 

[feline1]

There is a sign up on P4 at Ayr above the "doghouse" and I wouldn't say the staff are that unhelpful, but equally ths is not the US of A with some high school poppet dressed in a tartan skirt saying "Rail and Sail, sure just go right on out through the exit there and the bus is right in front of you. Have a nice day".

Not unhelpful, but very little of the simple positive things that could be done... for instance, the guard on the train at Ayr announcing that passengers for SailRail should alight here and go and stand in the carpark () or a sign or announcement at Glasgow Central for SailRail too as well as for the airport.

Having said that, think the sign on platform 4 at Ayr station is new, so I guess that's progress

 

[kylemore]

The whole point is that these inconveniences only started a couple of years ago, when some genius gave Stena planning permission to move a ferry port without any consideration of whether it was still integrated with the public transport network /facepalms

If they hadn't got permission Stena would have walked away from the North Channel.
Stranraer has draught restrictions which limited the vessels they could use. In addition the shorter passage time economises on bunkers and allows a regular interval service with two identical larger compatible vessels replacing three very different ones, two of which were life expired.
The rail connected traffic just wasn't important enough to outweigh these factors.

 

[Argosy]

If they hadn't got permission Stena would have walked away from the North Channel.
Stranraer has draught restrictions which limited the vessels they could use. In addition the shorter passage time economises on bunkers and allows a regular interval service with two identical larger compatible vessels replacing three very different ones, two of which were life expired.
The rail connected traffic just wasn't important enough to outweigh these factors.

Absolutely spot on. The issues were:

1. Time 30 mins From Stranraer to off Cairnryan @8-10kts to reduce wash x 5 return sailings = 5 hours saved

2. Draught restrictions. The Stranraer Channel 6m or so. At Loch Ryan Port the restrictions are much less.

3. Major terminal upgrade needed. Stranraer was a dog's breakfast to operate with poor access necessitating the dog leg back around Cairnryan Road Bridge.

4. HSS very expensive to run, thus convert to larger conventional ships.

Stena leaving Stranraer was probably not the issue. Conveying the small percentage of foot passengers was. And of course it now costs Stena the thin end of £100k extra to operate it.

 

[CallySleeper]

the whole thing is so badly, half-arsededly run.

Opinion based on your limited experience again?

There's no signs up saying "SAIL RAIL CONNECTION COACH THIS WAY >>"
no staff standing around to show anyone where to go, or what to get on.

There is at Ayr, also I think in Belfast. There is also plenty of staff who you could also ask, for example as you exit Ayr through the ticket barriers on the main concourse, or in the terminal at Cairnryan..

Do you live in Stranraer or anywhere near the Stranraer line?

Purely out of interest, do you?

Not unhelpful, but very little of the simple positive things that could be done... for instance, the guard on the train at Ayr announcing that passengers for SailRail should alight here and go and stand in the carpark () or a sign or announcement at Glasgow Central for SailRail too as well as for the airport.

Connecting services at Glasgow Central might already state something along these lines on the departures board, but I don't pay enough attention to remember. I know that they do advise similar for services connecting with island ferry services as well as Prestwick.

Stena leaving Stranraer was probably not the issue. Conveying the small percentage of foot passengers was. And of course it now costs Stena the thin end of £100k extra to operate it.

Stena had to leave Stranraer. I think that the costs of bussing rail pax to Ayr is probably all part and parcel of the overall costs of relocating. They would have known that bussing pax to Stranraer for rail connections probably wasn't sustainable, because of the overall longer journey time and irregularity of the rail service. You might as well make it a little bit better and convenient for those passengers who do choose that route and bus them to Ayr. As I say, they must have accepted this inevitability as part of the relocation (they can't just stop rail & sail traffic - even though it is a minority market)... yes, despite slight added inconvenience that passengers have to change at Ayr. But it's still a shorter route.

At the end of the day, passengers do and have voted with their feet and many now prefer straight through express coach services. But equally, the rise in vehicle and freight traffic since the relocation also speaks volumes.

 

[Argosy]

Purely out of interest, do you?

Yes. It is my local railway.

I think that the costs of bussing rail pax to Ayr is probably all part and parcel of the overall costs of relocating. They would have known that bussing pax to Stranraer for rail connections probably wasn't sustainable, because of the overall longer journey time and irregularity of the rail service. You might as well make it a little bit better and convenient for those passengers who do choose that route and bus them to Ayr. As I say, they must have accepted this inevitability as part of the relocation (they can't just stop rail & sail traffic - even though it is a minority market)... yes, despite slight added inconvenience that passengers have to change at Ayr. But it's still a shorter route.

At the end of the day, passengers do and have voted with their feet and many now prefer straight through express coach services. But equally, the rise in vehicle and freight traffic since the relocation also speaks volumes.

The biggest own goal ScotRail have scored. Girvan was discussed, but giving away 60% of your market with a particular product line has to be a classic. Had Stena moved to Ballantrae there would be no issue but 14 mins down the road is neither here nor there.

And for the real ironies, Stena's new terminal is built on the site of a former railway facility and in the 1870's the railway company threatened to move to Cairnryan when they couldn't get agreement with the Town Council over the pier at Stranraer!

 

[lyndhurst25]

I emailed ScotRail about this a few days ago and they said no, SailRail only covers you on the Ayr coach, and if you wanted to use rail to Stranraer and the No.350 bus, you'd have to pay extra.

The decision to remove the option of travelling by rail to Stranraer for SailRail passengers is something I can't fathom. What is the downside for ScotRail? Were the citizens of Stranraer sneakily using cheap SailRail tickets and then not actually getting on the ferry? Forking out an extra £10+ for an Ayr to Stranraer train ticket is surely going to put off people, who are unwilling or unable to use the Ayr coach, from using the whole SailRail scheme.

 

[feline1]

The decision to remove the option of travelling by rail to Stranraer for SailRail passengers is something I can't fathom. What is the downside for ScotRail? Were the citizens of Stranraer sneakily using cheap SailRail tickets and then not actually getting on the ferry? Forking out an extra £10+ for an Ayr to Stranraer train ticket is surely going to put off people, who are unwilling or unable to use the Ayr coach, from using the whole SailRail scheme.

Indeed, rail tickets are usually valid for "any reasonable route", and you cannot buy any *other* kind of rail ticket for between a station in Great Britain and one in Ireland (i.e. so it's not like they can say "well, you bought the special discount ticket, so you have to abide by the conditions" - it may be extremely good value, but it is not a "discount" because there is no alternative full-price fare that it is cheaper than...)

Meanwhile P&O have yet to reply to me asking them why they don't accept SailRail tickets.

 

[CallySleeper]

The decision to remove the option of travelling by rail to Stranraer for SailRail passengers is something I can't fathom. What is the downside for ScotRail? Were the citizens of Stranraer sneakily using cheap SailRail tickets and then not actually getting on the ferry? Forking out an extra £10+ for an Ayr to Stranraer train ticket is surely going to put off people, who are unwilling or unable to use the Ayr coach, from using the whole SailRail scheme.

Remind us again what ScotRail have to do with this?

It was Stena's decision to relocate to Cairnryan, and also Stena's decision to provide a coach-link to Ayr for rail paying passengers.

ScotRail obviously don't consider via Stranraer to be a reasonable route, quite possibly because a shorter, faster one is already provided, but also because the route via Stranraer would involve either public service bus or taxi. And there is no agreement between themselves and ScotRail/Stena to carry sail&rail passengers. The only transport providers who have been paid by Stena on contract to do this are the Troon-based coach company who provide the current link coach.

As a fare-paying passenger, I wouldn't expect to have to pay additional money to complete my journey over a "reasonable route". A great example of this is probably the maltese cross, so I don't have to pay additional tube or London bus fare to transfer from one terminal to another.

 

[tbtc]

As for the electrification to Girvan option that would lead to line closure south of Girvan. It is also not practicable

No it wouldn't; stop being so alarmist.

As I said before, nobody has dared close Breich (or Golf Street or other stations with pathetic passenger numbers) - nobody is going to close a station with senventyish passengers a day.

Lets not pretend that the removal of the ferry trade is going to close the whole line south of Girvan, eh.

People will just drive to Girvan! It is 45/50 minutes by road as apposed to 52/55 by rail, there will always be more services from Girvan

You're scoring a bit of an own-goal here, pointing out that the A77 is so much faster than getting the train (which means its even faster to get the coach from Ayr to Cairnryan than by taking the train to Stranraer and a coach back north again).

The real odd thing of course is that providing an express coach service between Scrabster and Inverness was vetoed in the Scottish Strategic Transport Projects review as "undermining the rail service" despite it taking nearly an hour quicker. Yet the same logic does not apply at Cairnryan where the road advantage is nothing like as great. Funny old world.

There are relatively fast coaches from Inverness to Scrabster - Stagecoach X99? But I suppose there's a bigger market for Inverness to Caithness than for Glasgow to Wigtownshire, since there's enough room for a commercial express coach too.

That's no fun! Like, if someone wants to travel by the old rail and sea route from London to Paris, even though the Eurostar has more or less destroyed that market, then it should still be possible to get a train to Dover Western Docks, walk across to a ferry, alight at Calais and walk straight on to Calais Maritime for a fast train to Paris

Do you want a wager on whether someone will be suggesting that we reopen Newhaven Harbour as our flagship international railway station?

No, what I'd *really* like the answer to be was "obviously as part of the integrated national transport plan, when we upgraded and moved the ferry port, we extended the rail line too and built a new station integrated into the port"

It'd be a railway line for around 3% of the ferry passengers, fairly insignificant; who's going to pay for that?

Stena obviously don't think its important enough to justify. And the alternative may have been walking away from the North Channel, as has been said.

More generally, when I make a rail journey, I don't want to get off the train, stand in a carpark in the rain and get on a bus

So not only are you trying to make out that Ayr could only have a single narrow-doored coach that takes half an hour to load whilst Stranraer would have several multi-doored luggage-friendly vehicles, but now you're telling me that people at Ayr would have to deal with rain?

Sun always shines in Stranraer, eh?

Interesting debate ,i can't help thinking a tiny fraction of the HS2 budget would restore the old military railway to Cairnryan

Yes, but almost any proposal could be paid for with a fraction of that budget.

I still think ferry traffic is never coming back south of Girvan so the sooner supporters of the line start coming up with positive plans for the line involving local journeys and tourism the better. Moaning about ferry traffic being lost isn't going to achieve anything.

Totally agreed

The whole point is that these inconveniences only started a couple of years ago, when some genius gave Stena planning permission to move a ferry port without any consideration of whether it was still integrated with the public transport network /facepalms

At least you understand that its all to do with Stena - not the railway's fault.

The ferry company did something to improve things for 97% of their trade - can't really blame them.

ths is not the US of A with some high school poppet dressed in a tartan skirt saying "Rail and Sail, sure just go right on out through the exit there and the bus is right in front of you. Have a nice day"

Not unhelpful, but very little of the simple positive things that could be done... for instance, the guard on the train at Ayr announcing that passengers for SailRail should alight here and go and stand in the carpark () or a sign or announcement at Glasgow Central for SailRail too as well as for the airport

Maybe says something about how few passengers there are making such a journey, I suppose.

If they hadn't got permission Stena would have walked away from the North Channel.
Stranraer has draught restrictions which limited the vessels they could use. In addition the shorter passage time economises on bunkers and allows a regular interval service with two identical larger compatible vessels replacing three very different ones, two of which were life expired.
The rail connected traffic just wasn't important enough to outweigh these factors.

Agreed

Stena had to leave Stranraer. I think that the costs of bussing rail pax to Ayr is probably all part and parcel of the overall costs of relocating. They would have known that bussing pax to Stranraer for rail connections probably wasn't sustainable, because of the overall longer journey time and irregularity of the rail service. You might as well make it a little bit better and convenient for those passengers who do choose that route and bus them to Ayr. As I say, they must have accepted this inevitability as part of the relocation (they can't just stop rail & sail traffic - even though it is a minority market)... yes, despite slight added inconvenience that passengers have to change at Ayr

Agreed

The decision to remove the option of travelling by rail to Stranraer for SailRail passengers is something I can't fathom. What is the downside for ScotRail? Were the citizens of Stranraer sneakily using cheap SailRail tickets and then not actually getting on the ferry? Forking out an extra £10+ for an Ayr to Stranraer train ticket is surely going to put off people, who are unwilling or unable to use the Ayr coach, from using the whole SailRail scheme.

If FSR are only getting revenue from the SailRail scheme to cover passengers as far as Ayr then why should they allow passengers to travel "free" from Ayr to Stranraer?

Remind us again what ScotRail have to do with this?

It was Stena's decision to relocate to Cairnryan, and also Stena's decision to provide a coach-link to Ayr for rail paying passengers

Agreed

 

[quarella]

Meanwhile P&O have yet to reply to me asking them why they don't accept SailRail tickets.

Why should they accept them? I can understand Stena Line accepting them from buying Sea Link. P&O are an independent company who have decided that as things stand there is no business case to accept Rail Sail. I have no idea how the fare is divided between the train companies, UK and Ireland and the ferry operator.

 

[lyndhurst25]

If FSR are only getting revenue from the SailRail scheme to cover passengers as far as Ayr then why should they allow passengers to travel "free" from Ayr to Stranraer?

To make the SailRail scheme more attractive to passengers, sell more tickets and consequently earn more money? Or are the trains between Ayr and Stranraer running full to capacity?

 

[CallySleeper]

To make the SailRail scheme more attractive to passengers, sell more tickets and consequently earn more money?

I feel like I'm repeating myself. Going from Ayr to Cairnryan via Stranraer would not, most likely make it more attractive to passengers.

 

[feline1]

Why should they accept them?.

Why should Irish Ferries accept them? Why should Arriva Trains Wales accept them? Why is the sky blue? :roll:

I think it's pretty reasonable question to ask a cross-Irish-Sea-ferry-operator why they don't participate in a scheme participated in by all the other cross-Irish-Sea-ferry-operators.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I feel like I'm repeating myself. Going from Ayr to Cairnryan via Stranraer would not, most likely make it more attractive to passengers.

Yes, you do keep repeating yourself, insisting that people wanting to travel by train shouldn't mind having to get off the train and on a bus,
when in reality, having to get off a train and onto the dreaded "rail replacement bus" is one of the most hated things known by any passenger.:roll:
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

To make the SailRail scheme more attractive to passengers, sell more tickets and consequently earn more money?

Hah.
One thing this thread demonstrates quite clearly, despite all the blether about "market forces", is that train operating companies are not run like proper capitalist businesses at all.
If they were, when noticing a demand for their product (e.g. full to bursting at Christmas), they'd try to retain those customers by improving the service offered to them, and trying to entice passengers to come use it at other times, having been wowed by the wonderful time they had at Christmas.

Instead it's clear that they're actually running things like a bunch of bureaucratic public sector loons who regard passengers as an inconvenience. The large demand for their product at Christmas is something that makes them tut and roll their eyes and imply customers are stupid for all wanting to use the thing. It's verging on being beyond parody.

 

[kylemore]

Meanwhile P&O have yet to reply to me asking them why they don't accept SailRail tickets.

Maybe because AS THEY SEE IT the question is irrelevent and has nothing to do with them and they can't be bothered spending management time composing a reply? And when they see the controversy that Stena's involved in for some piffling extra marginal income who can blame them?

Why should they accept them? I can understand Stena Line accepting them from buying Sea Link. P&O are an independent company who have decided that as things stand there is no business case to accept Rail Sail. I have no idea how the fare is divided between the train companies, UK and Ireland and the ferry operator.

Exactly - I believe at some point in the past through rail/fast ferry tickets were marketed on their seasonal Troon - Larne route with a shuttle bus from Troon Station to the ferry terminal. The results could not have been good enough to justify retention. However there is nothing to stop you booking rail and ferry seperately and making your own way between Troon station and terminal- they're certainly closer together than Stranraer station and Cairnryan! And as for lack of through tickets - so what - Scotrail don't offer through tickets to Malaga or Alicante but 1000s still manage to make the connection at Prestwick Airport Station/Prestwick Airport!

I feel like I'm repeating myself. Going from Ayr to Cairnryan via Stranraer would not, most likely make it more attractive to passengers.

Yes I get that feeling too

 

[feline1]

Maybe because AS THEY SEE IT the question is irrelevent and has nothing to do with them and they can't be bothered spending management time composing a reply?

What a bizarre attitude. Are you sure you're not part of some kind of obscure cross between Yes Minister and a Carry On film parodying early 1970s bureaucracy?
How can the question "why doesn't your company participate in the same scheme as several of your competitors?" not have "something to do with them"?

Exactly - I believe at some point in the past through rail/fast ferry tickets were marketed on their seasonal Troon - Larne route with a shuttle bus from Troon Station to the ferry terminal.

why not, if the the fare was priced accordingly so it still made a profit?

. However there is nothing to stop you booking rail and ferry seperately and making your own way between Troon station and terminal- they're certainly closer together than Stranraer station and Cairnryan!

The fare costs about £100 more, that's what's stopping me.:roll:

 

[Altnabreac]

Why should Irish Ferries accept them? Why should Arriva Trains Wales accept them? Why is the sky blue? :roll:

I think it's pretty reasonable question to ask a cross-Irish-Sea-ferry-operator why they don't participate in a scheme participated in by all the other cross-Irish-Sea-ferry-operators.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Yes, you do keep repeating yourself, insisting that people wanting to travel by train shouldn't mind having to get off the train and on a bus,
when in reality, having to get off a train and onto the dreaded "rail replacement bus" is one of the most hated things known by any passenger.:roll:

I think we all agree that it was better when you could get the train all the way. The question now is whether enough people want a longer overall journey in exchange for a shorter bus journey. Stena don't think so and I'm inclined to agree. It's less the bus journey than the flexibility of Ayr. 4 trains an hour versus 6 a day is always going to offer more flexibility at times of disruption. Missing the train at Stranraer due to a slightly delayed ferry used to leave you completely stuck for hours so its a welcome change not to have to worry about that.

 

[bkhtele]

I choose to travel by Rail & ferry as I enjoy the journey experience.
I would enjoy it more if some of the irritants were minimised that have already been discussed in this thread.
I believe that the quick wins are:
1. Make the tickets easier to buy/sell especially from points outside London
2. Minimise avoidable delays and unnecessary hanging around
3. Improve signage so that customers know were to go for the key connections.

Ideally it would be great if P&O joined the Sail Rail scheme in Scotland as it would give more connections for those traveling from further afield. It would also be good to be able to take the train to Stranraer plus bus.

A little promotion of Sail rail tickets would mean more people will use the service.

There is more potential demand for travel from Edinburgh/Glasgow to/from Belfast by rail & ferry if the experience was better.
However the trains to Ayr, the Stena Ferries & the Stena Ferry terminals have never been better!

 

[kylemore]

What a bizarre attitude.

What is Bizarre about a Business deciding that a product is not going to return enough profit for them to get involved?

Businesses do it all the time!

 

[feline1]

What is Bizarre about a Business deciding that a product is not going to return enough profit for them to get involved?

Businesses do it all the time!

I was talking about *your* attitude (that it was a daft question to ask and ridiculous to expect a reply) not P&O's.
If P&O Customer Services sent me a quick email saying "Dear feline1, thank you for your interest. We have found that it was not cost effective for us to participate in this scheme" that would be disappointing for me, but perfectly understandable.

 

[Hadders]

Indeed, rail tickets are usually valid for "any reasonable route"

Reasonable routes went out around 20 years ago when the railway was privatised. It's now "Any Permitted"

Why should they accept them? I can understand Stena Line accepting them from buying Sea Link. P&O are an independent company who have decided that as things stand there is no business case to accept Rail Sail. I have no idea how the fare is divided between the train companies, UK and Ireland and the ferry operator.

I suspect this is a historical arrangement that goes back to when Sealink were part of British Rail. I don't think P&O Irish Sea have any links back to British Rail.

I suspect Stena would get rid of SailRail if they could as it's probably an inconvenience to them.

If they were, when noticing a demand for their product (e.g. full to bursting at Christmas), they'd try to retain those customers by improving the service offered to them, and trying to entice passengers to come use it at other times, having been wowed by the wonderful time they had at Christmas.

I have some sympathy with this argument however a company will match capacity to the normal level of demand however it's unrealistic to have excess capacity lying idle that is only used once of twice a year, on the off chance that another form of transport may be disrupted.

 

[feline1]

I have some sympathy with this argument however a company will match capacity to the normal level of demand however it's unrealistic to have excess capacity lying idle that is only used once of twice a year, on the off chance that another form of transport may be disrupted.

The "normal level of demand" follows a seasonal pattern

 

[kylemore]

I was talking about *your* attitude (that it was a daft question to ask and ridiculous to expect a reply) not P&O's.
If P&O Customer Services sent me a quick email saying "Dear feline1, thank you for your interest. We have found that it was not cost effective for us to participate in this scheme" that would be disappointing for me, but perfectly understandable.

Well maybe it's a tad "Robust" but thats just me!

I'm trying to put myself in P&O's shoes - They are involved in a cut throat struggle with Stena for the Commercial Traffic - to an extent even the car traffic is seen as marginal as their use of RoPax vessels on the route would indicate.

Not only that but in the wider Irish Sea sense they are both suffering severe competition from SEATRUCK whose business model excludes everything except Trucks and unaccompanied Trailers and are therefore able to offer very competitive commercial rates which both P&O and Stena are really stuggling to meet.

Therefore I feel it's not unreasonable for P&O management to spend their limited time (and I'm sure their shareholders would agree) in trying to ensure they survive and to maintain their competitive position as regards the vital commercial traffic rather than on getting involved in "railsail" which would only split with Stena an already extremely marginal traffic.

But yes maybe they should have spared 5 mins to email you.

 

[feline1]

P&O do accept foot passengers on that route,
so it does not seem unreasonable that they should sell them tickets or answer their emails...

 

[bangor-toad]

Hah.
One thing this thread demonstrates quite clearly, despite all the blether about "market forces", is that train operating companies are not run like proper capitalist businesses at all.
If they were, when noticing a demand for their product (e.g. full to bursting at Christmas), they'd try to retain those customers by improving the service offered to them, and trying to entice passengers to come use it at other times, having been wowed by the wonderful time they had at Christmas.

Hi there,
I disagree - the TOC's are responding to market forces and simply not bothering about a small and uninteresting market. The TOC's and ferry companies are going to cater for the bigger markets and won't bother with the smaller ones if it doesn't make them enough money. That's the principle the UK's worked on for many years now...


I feel I can comment as I live in Northern Ireland and travel over to Scotland and England quite often. I've tried all the possible ways to travel and know which are easiest and which are just a pain.

An interesting comparison is to look at the various prices charged for travel. I've picked two locations I go to often: (For a random midweek trip in mid-May)

Foot passenger (On Stena, Belfast - Cairnryan) £40 (r/t)
This has lots of disadvantages such as how to get to the Stena terminal in Belfast (about a £10 taxi ride) and then being left in Cairnryan! P&O from Larne can be better if the sailing is near a train time but it's still an hour from Belfast to Larne.

Rail Sail: £58 (r/t) to Glasgow
Rail Sail: £104 (r/t) to London
This also has lots of disadvantages such as how to get to the Stena terminal in Belfast but you can at least get anywhere in the mainland once you're there. The bus ride to Ayr makes no real difference if it's part of a much longer trip to say London.

Coach: £46 (r/t) to Glasgow
Coach: £59 (r/t) to London
From Belfast city centre to where you want to go. Nice and easy for Scotland but rather nasty for London! For Glasgow it's cheaper than Sail-Rail and far less messing about.

Plane: £58 (r/t on Flybe) to Glasgow
Plane: £111 (r/t on BA) to Heathrow
Plus whatever's required to and from the airports.

My car: £79 each way plus petrol


I'd say that the cost of a ticket as a foot passenger just isn't worth it unless you happen to want to go to Cairnryan. Otherwise you may as well just get the coach to Glasgow or fly to London. Or take my car if I've got Mrs Toad, baby toad and the dog. This is the market at work - I make my own price / benefit decisions, as do each of us, and the suppliers make their choices as to what they want to compete on.

I should just say that I have done the Sail-Rail thing on several occasions to and from London. I like the train and if I've got the time I'll do it. It doesn't save me any money but I like the trip as a day out.

The ferries have advantage (well the only way ) in getting my car backwards and forwards. Otherwise I may as well not bother with travelling as a foot passenger on a ferry. The Cairnryan/Ayr bus isn't what diminishes the foot passenger trade - it's the competitive options available.

And this comes after investment by the ferry companies in new ferries, new facilities and also massive improvements in the Ayr railway service. Travel as a foot passenger on Rail-Sail is a minority market and it does seem remarkably well catered for and organised given the miniscule demand for it. People fundamentally want to get where they're going as quickly as they can. For Northern Ireland this almost always equates to "fly" unless you are bringing a car / van / truck with you. Personally I'm amazed that the Rail-Sail tickets still exist as they are such good value which can so easily be abused to cover far more expensive anytime tickets within the UK...

Mr Toad.



The future of the Stranraer

 

[kylemore]

I don't think P&O Irish Sea have any links back to British Rail.

There is a tenuous link not so much with BR than with the old BTC through British Road Services and it's holdings in ASN.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

P&O do accept foot passengers on that route,
so it does not seem unreasonable that they should sell them tickets or answer their emails...

Yes but do you acknowledge that in the cut-throat struggle for commercial traffic - the traffic for which the route exists - they might have an excuse for not worrying too much about getting involved in RailSail?

 

[feline1]

Yes but do you acknowledge that in the cut-throat struggle for commercial traffic - the traffic for which the route exists - they might have an excuse for not worrying too much about getting involved in RailSail?

You make it sound like they're all dressed in pirate costumes, cowering under their desks frantically trying to save their business from hostile emails jumping out of their computer from Stena, weeping in fear and desperately wondering how they will ever survive, especially if they have to take at least 2 hours per day for teabreaks.

I rather hoped they might be a bit more competent at basic admin than that. I mean I'd be relying on these people to sail me across the sea without drowning me. I'd prefer if they weren't blithering idiots.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
To further add to the confusion, the Cairnryan - Belfast route is no longer shown or mentioned on www.sailrail.co.uk, with no explanation for the change. How extremely helpful

 

[bangor-toad]

Not only that but in the wider Irish Sea sense they are both suffering severe competition from SEATRUCK whose business model excludes everything except Trucks and unaccompanied Trailers and are therefore able to offer very competitive commercial rates which both P&O and Stena are really stuggling to meet.

Hi there,
Seatruck aren't quite so exclusive.

You can book yourself and your car onto the ferry. You can only book by calling them and it's £100 each way for a car, 2 people and you get a cabin and some stereotypical truck driver food.

I've used them and it was a very different experience. If you're by yourself it's great and when the first words you hear on board are "Good morning. Would you like a fry up?" it makes you happy after an early morning start!


Mind you, having seen the sheer efficiency of how the freight operates I do agree with what kylemore says above.

Mr Toad.

 

[higthomas]

To further add to the confusion, the Cairnryan - Belfast route is no longer shown or mentioned on www.sailrail.co.uk, with no explanation for the change. How extremely helpful

This seems to me to be simply because that link is redirecting to http://www.arrivatrainswales.co.uk/SailRail/ and hence only showing the Welsh routes. If you look at http://www.stenaline.co.uk/ferries-to-ireland/rail-sail they still mention it.

The fact that this redirection is happening, just adds to the faliure to advertise this sceme. I suspect that it is happening because none of the operators really like it, and would probably much prefer either no foot passengers, or only those buying seperate full priced tickets for each leg of the journey. Maybe they are hoping to kill it off eventually, or is that just scaremongering?

 

[craigybagel]

You can walk up to the station on the day of travel and buy an anytime ticket all the way from Brighton to Belfast for £52 single, a bargain (on a normal anytime single you can't even get as far north as Northampton for that price). What more do you want?!

Stena has found the quickest and most efficient way of transporting passengers from the rail network to the Belfast ferry. It's a system that copes with the passenger loads 99% of time, which is better than can be said for most public transport in thiss country. Again, what more do you want?!