As it happens, I was one of the unfortunates on that train. Well more fool me for believing that it would be less stressful and only sligher more expensive than driving. It was not.
The train left Heuston at 6:30am on time. The train was about 10% full at most. It ground to a halt about 15 miles on the Cork side of Limerick junction at around 7:20am. An announcement was made quick enough saying it would take 2 minutes to "assess the damage." The situation remained pretty much the same, around an hour or so later they announced there would be free coffee and tea and would be receiving a replacement loco in around 40-45 minutes (presumably somebody was physically pushing it from limerick with their bare hands).
It arrived at around 9 to 9:10am and the train set off again, abeit at a much slower pce (I'd say around 40mph) and got to Limerick Junction at 09:25am, more than 2 hours late by now.
I had an appointment in Terenure at 11:30am so realised there was no way the train would get to Dublin before 11:15am, and judging by the slower speed of the replacment locomotive, I guessed a later delay was highly likely, and I would be far too late to make my appointment. So I got off at Limerick Junction and took the next train back as I was planning only to go to Dublin for this appointment and get the next train home.
Anyway I had heard that you are entitled to refunds if the train is a certain degree late so I asked in Limerick but they told me that I'd need to go back to where I bought the ticket. When I got to Cork I asked at the information kiosk and a rather unhelpful assistant gave me a form to fill out. She wasn't exactly volunteering that she could send it via internal post so I waited until she came back to me and got her to send it via internal post.
What bugs me though, is that I am stymied, as I didn't complete the journey but didn't acncel due to the train being late (as I was already on the train - after all, they didn't announce at 6:30am that the train was going to take 5 hours instead of 3 so I didn't get a chance to cancel due to the delay). Looking back technically Cork should have given me a refund, but in fact they don't really make allowance for cancelling a journey midway due to lateness, nor the unique case of having a day return ticket (as effectively the entire cost should be refunded since the return end of the ticket is useless since you never got there). Its extremely frustrating facing into a 28 day return period for a ticket I was unable to fully use due to a very significant delay on IE's part.
The thing is, I don't really want vouchers - I'd prefer a refund since I don't want to use this service ever again. Any suggestions? I as thinking of throwing it to a local parish pump politican and seeing what gurning they do with it. Or ring customer service directly? Any ideas?
The other thing is IE cannot refund me is the 2.80 rip off cappucino, the 5 euros parking for the day at Water St, the petrol i paid to drive into town, what an absolute great big rip off.
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