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Ireland: Wexford, Gort, Clonmel and Nenagh lines in limbo

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Calthrop

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Hornet -- thanks again -- have taken a look through the timetables. Services on many lines, are already so meagre ! -- I had no idea -- have not been closely following rail doings in the Republic in recent times. I figure out that I could cover the lines which are in trouble, and a few other bits, Dublin-to-Dublin in two (quite packed) days.
 
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matt_world2004

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Wexford have a staffed ticket office from 5:30am -9:30pm which is crazy considering there are only four trains per day.
 

Calthrop

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Dublin to Athenry to Limerick to Ballybrophy should be an easy round. The other two lines have no direct connection.

My master-plan (subject, no doubt, to umpteen modifications) has to combine travel over most-desired sections in daylight; and hopefully, just one night somehow on trains / sleeping rough (budget not allowing "civilised" accomm.).

backontrack -- afraid your links don't seem to work for me.
 

nanstallon

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Why even keep Gorey? Is it just to say there's still a station somewhere in county Wexford perhaps. I can't believe services could not be recast to run a slightly better service as far as the county town of Wexford, also serving Enniscorthy and avoiding the slow run along the quayside in Wexford, making a quick turnback there and forming an interchange with buses running across the country to Waterford. Clearly Rosslare is a dead duck now with its inconvenient and possibly dangerous walk across the lorry park through the soft Irish drizzle replacing the former purpose built covered interchange and a lack of well timed connections with the ferry.

Rosslare may well be a dead duck, as you say. These days, few people use trains to access ships, such as Rosslare to Fishguard. They either fly, or take their cars onto a ro-ro ferry. When they relegated the trains at Europort to a rather skanky little platform far from the ferry terminal, I felt the writing was writ large upon the wall. But closure of the railway to Rosslare would not kill the ferry to Fishguard; my experience is that the railway is an irrelevance these days. On the Welsh side, boat trains are now just two car Sprinters. Although as a railway enthusiast I use the train on both sides, I sense that I am just an eccentric and that few others share my eccentricity!

John
 

Flying Snail

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My master-plan (subject, no doubt, to umpteen modifications) has to combine travel over most-desired sections in daylight; and hopefully, just one night somehow on trains / sleeping rough (budget not allowing "civilised" accomm.)

There are no overnight trains in Ireland, nothing much past midnight and even then only commuter service arrivals in suburbs.

I would strongly advise against rough sleeping in Ireland, with the exception of Dublin Airport there are no transport hubs with anything close to secure areas to stay overnight.

Some of the coach operators have night services but 4 hours is about the longest journey time you would get.

If you are also looking at Northern Ireland as well there is an 01.30 Derry-Dublin coach arr 05.30. Similar services to Dublin are available from Cork, Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Ballina, Tralee, Wexford, Waterford.

translink.co.uk
buseireann.ie
citylink.ie
gobus.ie
aircoach.ie
dublincoach.ie

Beds in dorms in hostels can be had for €10-15 upwards depending on location and time of year, they often include breakfast.

www.anoige.ie

http://www.hostelworld.com/



There are some bus/coach routes that may be useful to connect isolated lines; Rosslare-Waterford, Sligo-Ballina, Sligo-Derry.

buseireann.ie

the 370 Rosslare-Waterford route that doesn't go via Wexford is the replacement for the rail service and it crosses the closed line in a number of places.
 
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Hornet

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My master-plan (subject, no doubt, to umpteen modifications) has to combine travel over most-desired sections in daylight; and hopefully, just one night somehow on trains / sleeping rough (budget not allowing "civilised" accomm.).

backontrack -- afraid your links don't seem to work for me.

As Flying Snail says, Dublin Airport is open 24 hours, with an all night shop. T1 Upper Mezzanine is the best place to hang out. Can be quite busy with people waiting up to get the first flights out in the morning. Last regular bus from Dublin City Centre to the Airport in the Evening is at 23:30 (16 from O'Connell Street).
 

Hornet

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Dublin to Athenry to Limerick to Ballybrophy should be an easy round. The other two lines have no direct connection.

Then Dublin Heuston D 08:00 Limerick Junction A 09:33 D 09:45 Waterford A 11:26 Waterford Bus Station D 12:55 Wexford A 14:15 (Bus Eireann Service 40) Wexford D 16:04 Rosslare Harbour A 16:26 D 17:55 Dublin Connolly A 20:44
 

Calthrop

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Many thanks to all, for assorted advice. Reckon I should be able to work something out which would tick all boxes.
 

Eire Sprinter

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Why even keep Gorey? Is it just to say there's still a station somewhere in county Wexford perhaps. I can't believe services could not be recast to run a slightly better service as far as the county town of Wexford, also serving Enniscorthy and avoiding the slow run along the quayside in Wexford, making a quick turnback there and forming an interchange with buses running across the country to Waterford. Clearly Rosslare is a dead duck now with its inconvenient and possibly dangerous walk across the lorry park through the soft Irish drizzle replacing the former purpose built covered interchange and a lack of well timed connections with the ferry.

The interchange with buses is a good idea (in fact several bus routes already stop outside O’Hanrahan station in Wexford) but when the Rosslare-Waterford line was being suspended it was promised by Bus Éireann that the replacement bus would serve Plunkett Station in Waterford but that failed to materialise despite the existence of a bus bay at the station. While some of the route 370 buses don’t coincide with a train some do. E.g. the 13.45 ex Rosslare reaches the city around 16.00 so would offer a connection into the 16.25 Limerick Junction. So in other words I’d have little confidence of any interchange whether at Gorey or Wexford actually working effectively.

Not sure where the information regarding the walk across the lorry park/vehicle check-in area at Rosslare Europort comes from because there’s a very clearly signposted footpath from the terminal building to the station platform. In the open air but on the level and doesn't entail going anywhere near vehicle areas though it does safely skirt the car park.

Since the Rosslare – Fishguard sailing times changed towards the end of May three out of four sailings are rail connected and the sailings to France are fairly well connected too. I've seen sailings from France put double digits of waiting passengers on the platform and there is usage of Rosslare-Fishguard daily too.

There are no express buses from Rosslare to Dublin since September 2012. The train though infrequent is fine and actually cheaper. Anyone wishing to use the bus to Dublin can still do so by taking the Waterford bus or the Local Link into Wexford and changing there onto a Dublin-bound bus.

Some bus timetables are also a work of fiction and it is my experience from using various routes throughout the country from time to time that ten or more minutes late is commonplace with no apparent traffic or passenger numbers cause. In contrast I can’t remember the last time I took a train which was this amount of time late.

Wexford have a staffed ticket office from 5:30am -9:30pm which is crazy considering there are only four trains per day.
While there are staff around in practice the ticket office is only open at train times. There is also a ticket vending machine in the waiting room which can be accessed throughout the day.
 
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MarkyT

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Not sure where the information regarding the walk across the lorry park/vehicle check-in area at Rosslare Europort comes from because there’s a very clearly signposted footpath from the terminal building to the station platform. In the open air but on the level and doesn't entail going anywhere near vehicle areas though it does safely skirt the car park.

Apologies for that. As I said before I have not visited since the platform moved and was basing my frustrated assumption on very poor aerial imagery, no 'Streetview' of the areas inside the port, and no published site plan I could find online. Assuming the official route skirts the car park it looks like the platfrom could be more like 500m away from the terminal. Is this correct?

Since the Rosslare – Fishguard sailing times changed towards the end of May three out of four sailings are rail connected and the sailings to France are fairly well connected too. I've seen sailings from France put double digits of waiting passengers on the platform and there is usage of Rosslare-Fishguard daily too.

There are no express buses from Rosslare to Dublin since September 2012. The train though infrequent is fine and actually cheaper. Anyone wishing to use the bus to Dublin can still do so by taking the Waterford bus or the Local Link into Wexford and changing there onto a Dublin-bound bus.

Thanks for those local observations. It may be that rail is holding up in terms of utility on this route, but it does seem there is a faction in IE or the Government that is determined to kill of these secondary routes for whatever underlying motivations they have. As someone said upthread, I can't see how it costs so much to run these by now very basic railways. I fear that if and when they go they still won't stem the corporate losses to the extent they believe as costs are likely to be dominated by 'head office' type expenses that can't be reduced commensurately as the resources are shared with other routes and services, in much the same way that Beeching cuts did not improve BRs financial position by as much as was envisaged. Also any investment finance for recent reconstruction of facilities such as the new platform and tracks at Rosslare will still have to be paid for by somebody. A bit of an own goal for the taxpayer if they write off the debt for the railway only for it to be added to national debt. Reminds me of Greece where I read the entire Peleponese metre gauge system was relaid only to be shut down immediately when their financial crisis kicked in.

I also do not understand why the Irish government does not look at alternative operators on marginal routes to get better value, maybe on a tendered franchise or concession basis. They don't seem to think they are bound by EU directives followed by other mainland members in respect of tendering for publicly subsidised heavy rail services. Perhaps they'd prefer to shut it all down rather than take on the unions!
 
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matt_world2004

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While there are staff around in practice the ticket office is only open at train times. There is also a ticket vending machine in the waiting room which can be accessed throughout the day.
Does a train station with 6tpd really need any staff at all? A frequency that low would be unstaffed in Britain.
 

jopsuk

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I imagine that closure would also end the ferry service itself.

Wouldn't have thought so, surely despite the less than ideal road connections the main business of the ferry is freight (lorries), in common with most Irish Sea, English Channel and North Sea routes, with car-based tourist & business secondary, foot third.
 

nanstallon

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Does a train station with 6tpd really need any staff at all? A frequency that low would be unstaffed in Britain.

Difficult one, this. Yes, Wexford station would in a UK context be unstaffed. But when you look at the miserable state of so many UK stations that serve quite big towns, perhaps Irish Rail are right and we in UK are wrong. I travel around Ireland quite a lot, and in general I find their stations much nicer than British ones where a scorched earth policy has prevailed for many years. The ethos of public service seems stronger in Ireland, even if this does mean the unions are a bit more powerful than they should be.

And if some services lose money, they should not be sacrificed on the altar of panic austerity measures. We all know that in Britain the Beeching slaughter did not significantly cut the overall deficit. OK, there was a lot of dead wood in 1963 that did have to go but when you see how successful re-openings have been, you realise that a lot of lines were unnecessarily closed. The Irish system today has already been pruned to the bone, Dr Andrews having done a similar job to that done by Dr Beeching across the water.
 

Calthrop

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I'm doing as per plan mentioned earlier in this thread: departing for Dublin tomorrow (Sun). night. Have found possible, a tour a bit longer than initially seen: look at being able to cover nearly all lines with passenger services, south of and including the Dublin -- Galway line; and taking in the four imminently-threatened stretches of line. Everything will be completely new to me except Dublin and immediate environs, and the rail section Dublin -- Greystones.

Thanks again to all who offered info and advice. When back home, wil do a report.
 

NLC1072

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I'm doing as per plan mentioned earlier in this thread: departing for Dublin tomorrow (Sun). night. Have found possible, a tour a bit longer than initially seen: look at being able to cover nearly all lines with passenger services, south of and including the Dublin -- Galway line; and taking in the four imminently-threatened stretches of line. Everything will be completely new to me except Dublin and immediate environs, and the rail section Dublin -- Greystones.

Thanks again to all who offered info and advice. When back home, wil do a report.

How did the trip get on? If I'd of seen this earlier I'd of offered you a bed to sleep on!
 

harri2626

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I recently used the Ballybrophy to Limerick via Nenagh line as a farewell trip in view of it being perennially on borrowed time. However, to my surprise and delight, I noted relaid track and what I'm sure was a brand new semaphore signal at Birdhill. Is this a good sign or is the route to be cut back?
 
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