Route's story
 

There's a lovely piece in today's Irish Times about the Limerick / Waterford line. Charming but also sad; reminds me of the poorly-used network we currently have and how rail is thought of almost as a residual service.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...246310684.html

Strangely though it doesn't mention the most obvious drawback, which is that the service terminates at Limerick Junction.

I'd bet if it continued on to Limerick it would pick a decent number of people who want to travel Tipperary/Cahir/Clonmel/Waterford-Limerick.

There is a reasonable number of Limerick Junction-Limerick shuttle services so I don't think this is a huge problem.

I just checked for tomorrow

For services to Limerick, the lay overs are 29 minutes, 18 minutes, 21 minutes and 13 minutes

For services from Limerick, the lay overs are 25 minutes, 23 minutes, 20 minutes and 22 minutes.

For a journey like Tipperary-Limerick, which is only 25 miles and when the direct bus only takes 40 minutes, I can't see too many rail users.

All fair points Comcor but I had twigged this at all from the article. Must have been too early in the morning for me.

The real problem is the lack of a Sunday service, a large portion of the intercity business is Friday and Sunday evenings and it ain't fun on the bus from Clonmel to Dublin I'll tell you the train would be faster if it ran. If I'm not mistaken there used to be a Clonmel - Waterford - Dublin train on Sundays in the 1980's

There is no local awareness of the service

This is probably the one thing I cant stand most about Irish Rail, their inability to communicate their services fully. Seriously, is Irish Rail run by people who are telepathic? Do they think that the rest of the country too has this unique ability and therefore base their services around this idea. :mad:

I've got relations in south Tipp and they live minutes from a station, never use the train. Why since they don't know it actually runs.

There is certainly a weekend market, Galway - Limerick - Waterford axis is full of 3rd level institutes of various type, but no train service

Communication & Marketing
 

Absolutely, it all comes down to effective communication and marketing. . I'm stating the obvious but it's the only way to attract customers to this line. Lower the prices and COMMUNICATE this to the people of Ireland.

Too much marketing on other routes if you ask me.

A Sunday service is badly needed. I had to visit a relative in Clonmel a few weeks ago. I had to take the bus which took 4 hours and it certainly wasn't pleasant. Had there been a train service I definitely would have taken that option.

I could have been working down in Clonmel for 6 months. If I were travelling by rail, I would have had to make 3 changes. The first change I would have had to have made would be at Connolly for the Luas/90 Bus to Heuston Station. Then Heuston would have been the second change to Limerick Junction. I would have been changing here for another train to Clonmel. That would have come to a total of 4 different modes of transport, three of which were taken in the Dublin area (what a joke!). A large part of this is down to the disuse of the Phoenix Park.

Cities such as Waterford, Limerick and Clonmel are all too spread out. Becuase of this, a lot people end up living nowhere near their respective stations. In these particular cases, there needs to be a frequent and most importantly reliable feeder bus service to each of these stations from outskirts of their towns. At the moment, the co-ordination of public transport between these cities and their suburbs is appaulling. Poor co-ordination in this respect can seriously damage the viability of these services as it says a lot about the people who run them.

Furthermore, it wouldn't be a bad idea extending a few more Waterford-Limerick services to Rossalre Europort thereby connecting the people of these towns directly (being the operative word) with ferrys to the UK and the Continent. Hence, if I were going to Clonmel, I would only have to change once(if i were getting the 8:00 "Intercity" from Dalkey to Rosslare Europrt) or twice (if I were changing in Bray). As well as this Rosslare would have another option of rail travel to Dublin (albiet a tad more indirect) via Waterford or Limerick Juntion. Therefore, the benefits would be three fold.

Actually to get from Dalkey to Clonmel by train (on the same day at least) requires going via Heuston, as the last service each day from Rosslare Strand to Waterford is at 0711.

I noticed that the Gorey or Rosslare annually figures do not appear on that article.

Does anybody know these figures.. ????

I presume from that its not in the top 9 but above the bottom two. Would be interesting to see figures

I cant belive maynooth has breached the 4 million mark about to hit 5. The northern line is doing extremely well.

It will be interesting to see this years and next years figures with the impact the recession is having on the travelling public.

Most recent numbers I have are from 2005

Approx 300k Dublin Wicklow
Approx 350k Dublin Rosslare

Also missing is the DART comes in at around 23 million which would match up with the 44 million carried if the entire Rosslare route carried 700k

For reference before the DART arrived the entire network didn't even break 12 million a year

23 million is an extraordinary number. I presume though that when you break down the various sections of the line coupled with people making connections from the maynooth and northern line it makes sense.

Actually it doesn't make much sense since the list is selective

Dublin Mayo is at least 600k
Dublin Sligo is pushing close to 1 million
Dublin Waterford is over 1.2 million

The DART is closer to 19-20 million which matches past numbers

I can never understand the numbers

Are passengers to Thurles included in the Cork, Limerick or Kerry numbers?
Are passengers to Athlone in the Galway or Mayo numbers?

I'd assume that they could be travelling on trains to any of the destinations, but by allocating them to any one, it can make certain routes look more profitable than others.

I hope track maintenance costs etc. are allocated in the same way as passengers!

I am saying if some if not all of the Waterford-Limerick Trains were extended to Rosslare Europort. However, the big question is would the benefits outweigh the costs?

Cork if the originate from any station on the Cork route, Thurles - Limerick is a Limerick journey

Dublin Athlone is counted as Galway

Is Malahide DART or Northern line is a big question, the Northern line number looks a bit big