Thread: Sail & Rail
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Unread 29-03-2013, 18:31   #138
Traincustomer
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: ar an traein
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That's good news - particularly the 15.10 sailing ex Dublin. Even with a 18.40 arrival in Holyhead, London is reachable at just after 01.00 (change at Bangor & Birmingham). Between dedicated night buses and ordinary routes operating 24 hours a day there's about 8 bus routes serving Euston at this time and linking to a wide range of places across the city and suburbs.

The disadvantages of living in provincial Ireland and trying to use SailRail ex Dublin at present are that:

1. the 3 morning sailings (08.05 Irish Ferries conventional, 08.20 Stena Line conventional & 08.45 Irish Ferries fast ferry) are hard to access by public transport. While there are express coaches from various towns around Ireland to Dublin during the night it's unrealistic to reach Dublin at 05.00/05.30 for a sailing that's still a few hours ahead. There's nowhere to pass the time short of forking out for a taxi and a very long wait at the terminal. The first buses and trains from several provincial centres reach Dublin either too late or worryingly tight to make one of these ferries.

2. The afternoon sailings are a fastcraft from Dublin and the HSS from Dún Laoghaire (both susceptible to cancellation in windy weather).

3. The night sailings entail sitting in Holyhead for around 4 hours) awaiting the first train) and while Rosslare-Fishguard offers a viable overnight journey with no long wait, origin in Ireland and or destination in Britain may not be compatible with using the southern corridor.

An afternoon service operated by a conventional ferry essentially resolves point 2 making it possible to plan ahead further and allows the end to end journey be accomplished within a normal day. It will be interesting to see if Irish Ferries at a future date may introduce a conventional afternoon sailing (as per certain dates at Christmas).

As an aside Stena Line have also just introduced Rail and Sail via the Belfast - Liverpool (Birkenhead) route. Bookable via booking engine on UK site. Apparently they've a free shuttle bus from Hamilton Square Merseyrail station to the port. Can see it working very well as there's also an overnight option (8 hours crossing) each way daily.

The Steam Packet Company also note that Sail and Rail has been growing in recent years though that's via the routes between the Isle of Man (Douglas) and Heysham/Liverpool and not available on either the Dublin or Belfast routes (provincial Ireland to the IOM was available as a through sea-rail ticket in the 1990s or thereabouts). Incidentally the Dublin - Douglas route sees the lowest passenger figures of all of the company's regular routes - it used to be ahead of Belfast in terms of usage but now it's far below it.
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