But the staff have a quite separate timetable, A4 sized.

At least 1 copy has been sold

Assuming that customers are paying at least the marginal cost (essentially the cost of printing and distribution) of the timetable, selling them is a good idea.

Irish Rail always stated that the timetabled was charged for to cover production costs.

How about sticking a PDF on their site?

After several more attempts, I found another station with a copy of the timetable. I got to see the back page which states 'Internal Company Use Only'

What is strange is there already is a staff timetable, so why bother producing two?
Attachment 1094

No station I've visited had the pocket timetables bar Connolly but even Connolly was short on most routes.

Mallow - Cork - Cobh - Midleton 09/10 timetable
 

Arrived home (in Mallow) on Friday, the 2009/10 Mallow - Cork - Cobh - Midleton pocket size timetable had arrived with the post.

At Kent Station on Saturday they were handing out the same timetable.

Arrived at my parents house (in Midleton) on Saturday and they were after getting the same timetable in the post as well.

Is the book version available? I'm confused after reading all the board message :confused:

The book is being sold, it depends on where you are and who is behind the counter

Will see if they will sell me one tomorrow morning @ Kent Station.

Reports from the field of lots of cold and unhappy passengers, lots of people standing who normally got a seat and so on.

Irish Rail as always denied there even was a reduction in peak hour service in this mornings metro after our press release

http://www.railusers.ie/news/news.ph...009&no=15.html

Numbers don't lie

Was rushing this morning for the number 5 bus, so I did not get a chance to ask @ Kent Station, but @ Mallow I was told that "its not coming out in book form this year".

I'm in Connolly Station at the moment and I have been definitively told by Customer Service that the timetable booklet is not being sold to the public and is only being made available to station staff.

Filled in a comment form requesting that the PDFs available on the Website be changed to the Booklet format as the leaflet format is unwieldy.

Time for an Irish Bradshaw I reckon if Irish Rail won't do it.

Book of Fiction
 

I am a little bit lost as to why anyone would want the #1 book of fiction in book form.

In reality, it should not be necessary at all, as the trains should be consistent and clockface.

Other then that, who needs the whole book. (Does it fit in the pocket of a parka?):eek:

The production of the book form of the timetable is yet another ongoing farce. It should be an important marketing tool for the railway and I have been chasing CIE/IE for a number of years to advertise their own products in it - such as the former "Rail Rambler" ticket, Fastrack, their own late lamented" Brasserie na Mara" but like so much else in CIE/IE it couldn't be done! In years gone by (1950s and 1960s) Sweet Afton cigarettes used to be the main external advertisers. A list of station buffets (!) used to also be included and while these are now an endangered species there are a few survivors.

Many people travel countrywide by rail and the book timetable is what they require not a handful of pocket sized leaflets which always end up mislaid. I am amused to see that another moribund concern "Tourism Ireland" is now embarking on a major promotion of Ireland in Britain and what better way to get people around the country than rail - of course that would be using the much trumpeted but rarely seen concept of 'joined-up thinking'. :mad:

copy the PDF into a text file, edit out the extraneous info and save it on your phone...

here's one I made earlier for Greystones:

That's a bit bloody snide. I do travel a bit at the weekends and do use the train. A book is a lot more convenient than either 1. firing up the computer or 2. digging out fiddly leaflets.

Some folks around my area got sick and tired of waiting for stuff to happen so they developed their own iPhone app.

http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/reviews...ne-red-rocket/

A fundraising idea for RUI?

There are already 2 apps, but without the full staff timetable (itself now split into at least 3 editions) its pretty hard to build a proper application

Oisin 88: I'm afraid I have to take issue with your message of yesterday in which you don't see why anyone would want a timetable booklet.

That's probably the attitude which IE management have: the mindset which thinks it knows what the customer wants. Also your premise that a clockface timetable renders detailed timetables un-necessary is false: regular clockface timetables are by no means the rule on IE: even Dublin-Cork has its gaps.

Irish Rail appear to have failed its customer base. Roll on the Irish Bradshaw
 

A hard-copy (i.e. printed) timetable is a necessity even in this, the internet age.

I have purchased the timetable book each year for over the last two decades. Its apparent demise is a sad day.

With a timetable book one can flick through the pages and plan a one-route or multi-route journey quite quickly, jotting down the key times on a page.
With individual leaflets the process is slowed a lot.

To print out all the route timetables one ideally needs to get an A4 ring binder with plastic pockets and all-in-all by the time the job is done there may be time left out of two hours for a cup of tea after which you may need to visit a computer store to replace the ink cartridges that have been gulped during the process.

On a day out or short break many people don't want to bring a laptop. Certainly nobody wants an enforced visit to an internet cafe or library.

Certainly the internet is great, but not the exclusive replacement of printed material. Throwaway remarks to the effect of ah sure it's on the internet what would one want a (printed) timetable for are sadly becoming too common in transport companies these days and demonstrate a lack of understanding of how the customer base accesses information.

Roll on the Irish Bradshaw. A definite business opportunity.

But Irish Rail claim copyright if they didn't we would have a printable b&w pdf available by now

If anyone is interested I can provide following

Departure times and destinations for all services ex Connolly, departure times for all services southbound Lansdowne Rd

The magical DART office (the same people who said no DART after U2 concerts and then ran 4 trains) are considering changes, but as always its more a case of saying that than actually doing something