Galway to Limerick, the slow way

They say it's faster to drive from Galway to Limerick than to take the new train route but, as KATHY SHERIDANdiscovers, you'd miss out on the brief encounters with strangers

EVER BEEN stuck in a traffic jam and felt a pressing need to get out and demand to know where all the others were going and why the hell they couldn’t cycle, walk or take a bus? No? Not even a little bit curious? True, there is the risk of being knocked unconscious by a deranged driver who fails to see the value of such research.

Trains are so much more civilised. You can pull up next to any stranger at a station and they’ll talk – even at 6.30am. Of course, it helps that people are at their most vulnerable around that time, a fact soon verified when I ask a chatty man I now know to be a loiterer to direct me to the ticket desk. He points me to a machine, I press the button for Limerick, insert €15 – good deal for a train, I’m thinking – get the ticket, and ask my helpful friend where the train is. He escorts me out to the bus. We stand looking at one another uncomprehendingly. Yes, I have purchased a bus ticket.

Call it research (please, expenses authoriser). I can now verify with total certainty that the bus to Limerick is little more than half the price of the train, which came to €28.50 – oddly, still 50 cent more than the online price of the Dublin-Galway leg (which, Ryanair-style, would have been €3 cheaper if I hadn’t the cheek to want to use a credit card).

So, yes, buses are cheaper. But anyone can get a bus. This, by contrast, is only the second day’s train service to Limerick in 34 years.

6.40AM DEPART GALWAY

Before proceeding, I must contend with another setback. To be frank, after 34 years of dammed-up demand, I expect the train to be mobbed, with people hanging off the roof.

Instead, there are Abdel, Patrick and me. And John, the ticket collector, who is only going as far as Ennis.

Abdel looks remarkably kempt and alert for this hour of the morning, in crisp white shirt and suit. He is Dr Abdel Wael, a 29-year-old medical doctor from Khartoum in Sudan, working on unpaid attachment at University College Hospital in Galway, and heading for a 10am interview at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick. He has been in Ireland for 70 days, he says, as we shiver on the train (the other carriage is the unheated one, interestingly). But he notes with no great yearning that it’s 40 degrees in the shade back in Sudan. I suggest that with the state of the economy, perhaps the heating is being rationed. He looks at me gravely and says: “It’s not that bad. . .” And it’s not. We should all start our mornings with some perspective from Abdel.

The gentle motion is taking us through landscapes where sheep and lambs are safely grazing, cattle are still slumbering, and the new day is opening over jewel-green fields and ancient stone walls, the gathering light reflecting off little rivers and small, temporary lakes, as an old Massey Ferguson queues at one of the 143 level crossings.

The only early bus – even at half the price – would have got Abdel to Limerick at 10am, cutting it too fine for his hospital interview. This way, he gets to Limerick at about 8.40am, with plenty of time to spare.

Our other passenger is Patrick Rochford, a 22-year-old student who is trying to get to Cork for an 11am board meeting of Experimental Intercultural Learning, a non-profit trust that administers travel awards for young people in all sorts of settings, from Nigerian healthcare and turtle egg conservation in Mexico to working time with the governor of Vermont. He could have got the 5.30am Galway-Limerick-Cork bus. But that would take him first to Shannon bus station, where it would arrive around 7.30am, meaning a 45-minute wait before pushing on to Limerick city, and another half-hour wait there before heading for Cork, arriving at 11.40am. Six hours on and too late for his purposes.

The direct 7.05am service from Galway would get him to Cork at the same time, but still too late.

By train, he’ll get to Limerick soon after 8.30am, and is torn between getting a bus or another train all the way north to Limerick Junction, to connect with the Dublin train to take him south again to Cork.

7AM ATHENRY

We’re only five minutes behind the timetable. Ben Hannon joins us. Now we are four. He’s from Limerick and took the 11.55am train yesterday up to Athenry to visit his girlfriend. So will he be using the service regularly, we ask hopefully? “Well, [the relationship] only started recently, so hopefully. . .”

How recently? “A couple of weeks.” We can tell you, Louise, he’s keen. And the train is ideal, better than the bus, since you only live just around the corner from the station and the €20 fare is worth it.

7.10AM CRAUGHWELL

But we are still four, alas, pulling out of Craughwell. John McGrath, the ticket collector, assures us that it gets busy from Ennis, but frankly we’re not interested. From Ennis, the trip becomes a mere commuter journey to Limerick, and – worse – one that has been running for several years. John thinks people are going to wait and see whether the new route lives up to its promise. “And this is Holy Week, so it’s not a typical week.”

7.20AM ARDRAHAN

Mary Kelly gets on. She works in administration and is off to Limerick to do some shopping. She’s taking the train because “it’s a novelty”, and has paid €17.25 for the round trip. “It’s effortless. But they’d want to start offering more attractive fares,” she says, suggesting that Irish Rail missed an opportunity to run promotional offers this week to market the new route.

7.30AM GORT

A pretty station from this angle. Teresa Fahy, from Newquay in the Burren, and her cheerful 12-year-old grand-daughter Doireann climb on, and confirm that Gort station is indeed newly refurbished, a clean and lovely place. They are sitting in the first of the two carriages, both wrapping their collars around their faces to ward off the cold. We suggest they join us in the second, where the heaters are working – sort of. Teresa is going to babysit her other grand-daughter in Limerick, and makes the journey regularly, so is glad to have the train. In fact, she tried to use it on Monday, but only chained officials were allowed on. Between them, the trip is costing €8 return, since Teresa has a travel pass and she got free parking (this week only) at the station.

8AM ENNIS

Our intimate little idyll is destroyed by a small flood of commuters. No one is hanging off the roof yet, but the train is certainly three-quarters full by the time we pull out at 8am. Micheal Lynch, a graphic artist and personal trainer, home on a visit from California, is on the way to Cork to collect his new passport (no queues in Cork) and teams up with Patrick. Two sisters, Geraldine O’Brien and Siobhán Flanagan, from Bray and Greystones, are on the multi-leg return journey to Co Wicklow, after one of their regular visits to Geraldine’s daughter in Lissycasey, Co Clare.

8.40AM LIMERICK

We arrive on time, or thereabouts. After a pause, our train pushes on to Limerick Junction, with Patrick and Micheal aboard.

LATER . . . THE OTHER WAY

So who’s heading back to Galway? The 15 or so in the queue are a leisurely bunch in the main. Three generations – Nancy Cahill; her daughter, Niamh Cahill Donnellan; and Niamh’s sons, Andrew (six) and Barry (three) – are looking forward to a day out in Galway. They’ll take a bus out to Salthill and get a scent of the sea. The round trip cost €30 for the five (Nancy and Barry travel free), says Niamh happily.

Marie Jerome and her two teenage sons, Darragh and Dean Lillis, from Castleconnell, Co Limerick, are just trying out the new service – but there’s no hiding their joy about spending a day in Galway. They all like “the younger, more vibrant, more European” feel of the city. For Dean, there are more places to sit and relax, more parks and cafes. Darragh finds it “a more sociable city, less closed than Limerick”. And, says Marie, there’s a Marks Spencer in Galway. What? No Marks Spencer in Limerick? Afraid not.

Later, we check back with Patrick. His trip worked out rather well. He got into Cork before 11am. Soon after, he’s sifting through EIL applications for Japan: 61 candidates for a single place. Later in the day, he’ll be doing the whole journey in reverse, hopefully in time to have his feet washed in St Nicholas’s Church, since it’s Holy Thursday.

And Abdel? The interview went well, he thinks. Does he think he got the job? “It never happens that way . . . Often they say ‘very good’, then you never hear from them again. But they asked for more documents so I’ll get them to them today.”

But the train service at least was working out. By now, he was back on the 11.55am train, waiting to be whisked back to Galway .

And yes, it’s true as some allege. Given a fair wind, you can drive faster. Brian, the photographer who accompanied me, says he can drive it in 90 minutes without breaking the law, and providing it’s outside peak time. Ah, but then you’d miss being able to see in the dawn, and lurching gently through that magical landscape, the light spreading over that emerald fields – and the brief encounters.