A few reservations
Conor Pope
Like it or loathe it, it can’t be denied that Irish Rail has been running some exceptionally good value-for-money online offers over the course of the summer, with one-way tickets on all intercity routes costing just €10.
The company clearly wants to encourage more automated online bookings in order to reduce staff numbers selling actual tickets. Another carrot being offered to rail users who book online is a relatively new seat reservation system which is supposed to allow people book ahead and show up at the last minute safe in the knowledge that a seat will be waiting for them.
If only.
Across continental Europe rail reservations systems work pretty well but in Ireland when you book ahead – particularly at peak times on the most popular routes – there’s every chance that instead of finding an empty seat with your name on it you will be confronted by a large, red-faced, cider swilling man and no sign of an Irish Rail employees to move him along.
A number of readers have contacted us to tell of furious seat allocation rows breaking out in carriages as the solitary Irish Rail employee on board skulks as far away from the action as possible.
Mark Gleeson of the Rail Users Action Group says the absence of real people to police the reservation system “when you actually get on the train, is letting people down. Onboard staff do not want to challenge people sitting in seats which are reserved for others,” he says. “That’s if you are lucky enough to find a staff member on the trains. From what I can see, as a result of cutbacks the staff who are supposed to ensure everything works smoothly have been pulled off the trains.”
He says that the Cork-Dublin route is the only one with a dedicated “train host” whose job it is to manage the reservation system and travellers using the other trains on the intercity network are effectively left to police the system themselves which frequently leads to anarchy.
Irish Rail spokesman Barry Kenny admits that “it wouldn’t be the case that there will always be someone on hand” to assist someone with a reserved seat or to ask the cider swilling gent to move along because “we have to take account of the cost environment” He expresses the hope that a more mature passenger body, as they grow more familiar with the reservation system, might be able to look after themselves.
Kenny’s optimism about self regulation is difficult to understand, says Gleeson, particularly when the technology is frequently found wanting. “The seat reservation system assumes the train actually has the seat you have booked,” he says. “So let’s say you book seat number 67 but the train you were due to take breaks down and the carriage in the substitute only has 58 seats, that leaves you without a seat and no-one to help you out.”
Kenny accepts that when trains are replaced at the last minute then reservation numbers don’t match the seat numbers but he insists that this is a rare occurrence and staff members will be on hand to help people find alternate seats. “It is not a perfect arrangement, I accept that but it does work well in most circumstances”
And if it doesn’t work and you are left standing all the way to Galway despite having reserved a ticket weeks in advance? The good news is you are entitled to a full refund if Irish Rail does not deliver its side of the bargain.
And i have my horror stories but they have dramatically decreased in the last few years so kudos for that.
10:42 pm
Conor, the times for these special ten euro fares are extremely limited! You truncated your sentence! Surely you meant to write “with one way tickets on all intercity routes costing just ten euro at very particular times and on particular trains and excluding busy GAA weekends”
Aside from that, there is another huge failing in the now three (I think) years old on line reservation system (not new by any stretch and still as crappy to use as ever). The staff on the train cannot override reservations for passengers who didn’t turn up or who catch a later train.
I reserved a seat once but decided not to sit in it (as an experiment). I fully expected that once I had departed my embarkation station, a rail reservation person would walk through the carriage, see which seats were atcually occupied as per reservations and then if the seat was empty, they would be able to override the reservation and blank the name over the seat so that some one else could sit there once the train pulled into the next station.
People vacate their reserved seats and choose to sit in unreserved seats all the time. Irish rail never frees these seats up again, not for the entire journey.
Also, what is with Irish rail penalising pensioners? Surely the elderly should be able to reserve seats without having to pay for the privilege. They have free travel passes. But the Irish rail website makes them pay six euro to reserve a seat. That is up there with Ryanair’s five euro credit card charge per leg.
The travel times for these ten euro fares are great ONLY if you are a person who doesn’t work five days a week, monday to friday, normal office hours like 0900 to 1730hrs. They are pretty unappealing if you are that person.
Worth investigating surely with Irish rail is the absolutely exhorbitant prices for food and drink aboard the train. Captive passengers = huge markups.
Comment by laura