Róisín Ingle: No tea, no air con, no seat booking — another shambolic day on Irish Rail

On the 3.05pm train from Galway to Dublin last Sunday the electronic reservations system, which displays, above each seat, the details of people who booked their places online, is not working. We’ve been here before. So have you, most likely. Some people on the train, including me, are playing musical chairs and grumbling. Eleven years have passed since Rail Users Ireland called the seat booking system a shambles.

Grumbling clearly doesn’t work, but it’s all we can do.

“How are we supposed to know if the seats we are in are actually booked by someone else?” is the main question being asked by those of us who have not reserved seats online. We sit and wonder if any minute now we’ll be asked to move from our seats by people whose actual seats we might be sitting in.

I’m with my 82-year-old mother, who has mobility and sight issues, so moving is not straightforward. Maybe we’ll be lucky. Maybe we’ve chosen two seats on the train that are not already reserved. In the meantime, although remaining grateful for my mother’s free-travel pass, I continue grumbling.

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“That’s nothing,” says one woman who passes through the aisle as I moan about the state of things. “I was booked on the train last week. I booked a seat in coach F. When I got on the train there was no coach F.”

[ Irish Rail apologises for delays that ‘ruined’ Bray Air Display for some ]

It’s funny in a Monty Python–sketch kind of way. And it could be much worse. At least we’re not on the way to Bray Air Display by Dart. We later learn that at this precise moment, on the other side of the country, people are trapped in sweltering, stalled Darts, with windows that don’t open and air conditioning that doesn’t work. These people are so uncomfortable they opt to escape the trains by pulling the emergency lever and opening the doors.

Some of the escapees, the early ones, are called trespassers for their trouble, by Irish Rail on social media. The next day the Irish Rail chief executive, Jim Meade, apologises for the debacle. Wisely, he doesn’t mention anything about “trespassers”. Wisely, he says sorry.

Nobody is saying sorry to us. I decide to find out why the reservations system is not working and if it might be fixed. I get off the train. As I detrain I’m thinking about Are Ye Right There, Michael? a masterful satirical song that Percy French wrote in the 1890s about the shambolic running of West Clare Railway. Will we get to sit in our seats all the way to Dublin or will we be forced out of our seats and have to stand? I ask Percy the question in my head. “Ah, ye might now, Róisín, so ye might,” Percy replies.

On the platform I see a man checking tickets and ask him if he can fix the onboard reservation system. He tells me to talk to the station manager. I go into the station manager’s office. I ask if he can fix the problem. No, he says, he can’t. I tell him about my mother and her sight and mobility issues, and I ask what we should do when somebody comes to our seat and tells us we’re sitting in their seats.

He tells me if that happens we should not move from our seats. He says it’s not our fault the reservation system isn’t working and the people who booked the seats will have to find seats somewhere else. Astonished, I get back on the now packed train.

We relax when the train pulls out of the station. Nobody has come to claim our seats. But at Athenry more passengers are waiting. Suddenly two people are waving tickets at us and telling us that we’re in their seats. I tell them what the station manager told us to tell them. That it’s not our fault the reservation system is broken and we’ve been told not to move even though the seats were booked online by the good people standing in front of us. And because they happen to be kind, and two other are seats available nearby, they go to sit somewhere else and don’t force us to move.

Now would be a good time for a celebratory cup of tea or dodgy train coffee, but of course there is no tea or coffee on the train. There is not even a bottle of water to be had on an Irish train in 2022. Sorry for any inconvenience, but you’ll have to wait for a mysterious tendering process to play out, so you might get a cup of tea on a train at some point in 2023. So you might.

I’d be mortified if I ran Irish Rail. Mortified into action. If I was in charge of intercity trains and Darts at a time when for obvious reasons we’re being urged to leave our cars at home I’d try my utmost to fix all the issues. And if there were some issues I couldn’t fix I’d find somebody, somewhere in the world, who could fix them. I would not stop until all the unforced errors had been sorted.

But none of us runs Irish Rail. All we can do is hope someone comes along who cares enough about rail passengers to get refreshments back on the trains, fix the reservations system, mend the broken air conditioning and sort all the other issues that come up again and again and again. In the meantime I’ll cheer myself up by channelling Percy French. Sing along if you know the tune.

You may talk of Elon Musk and him travellin’

Across the bould Milky Way

But he never tried to go Dartin’

To a fabulous air show in Bray

You run for the Dart in the morning

They’ve nine extra trains on they swear

You’re on board when the Dart gets to movin’

And hours later you’re still there

And as you sit there sweatin’ buckets

You’ll hear someone say “I’m outta here, f*ckit!”

Are you right there, Irish Rail, are you right?

You couldn’t really blame us for takin’ flight

We’re openin’ the doors now

And we’re walkin’ along the tracks now

And it’s shite, Irish Rail, so it’s shite

roisin@irishtimes.com