5pm Sunday Service
 

I've been in Croke Park for the last few Sundays and couldn't help but notice that what looked like the Sligo train from Connolly had been using the South line out of Dublin. This can only mean that it used Platform 7 and went down the steep single track section out of Connolly over the Canal that I thought had been disconnected. Am I right or are my eyes deceiving me? I thought that line was no longer accessible from Connolly. I appreciate the line is of little use, being single line out of Connolly, missing Drumcondra station and only having access to Platform 7 (so being of little use to trains South of Connolly) but was wondering why IR were doing this? It doesn't seem to make any sense to force people to have to move over to platform 7 all so the train can take the slightly quicker route out of Dublin.

Sligo trains have used that route to depart on a regular basis in recent years, was daily for a while. It does avoid Drumcondra which avoids placing a non stop train passing through a possibly full platform at Drumcondra. Also means a train can be placed waiting in Drumcondra to collect fans without delaying other services

Given that you said it looked like the Sligo service, could it have been that they were using a 22k to run a Clonsilla / Dunboyne service? There is one at 17:10 on a Sunday.

Nah I was on the 16:10 inbound, they were 29k no 22k but dunboyne services were using the main station at platform 3, and were stopping at drumcondra. Now that gaa season is almost over, how about dunboyne services using the midland line/Newcomen curve to get to Connolly on weekends?