Irish Rail reverting to its old timetable today following controversy

IN THE WAKE of overwhelming dissent regarding Irish Rail’s revamped timetable, today marks a return to the previously held timetable – with a few minor changes.

From today, the morning Connolly route services will revert to the pre-26 August service patterns. Irish Rail said that this will “rebalance the timetable” while accommodating improved frequency on a number of Intercity routes, including the Dublin to Belfast route.

From today, the most significant changes to the timetable will be as follows:

• Trains which previously terminated at Pearse, Grand Canal Dock and Bray will resume operation to and from these stations.
• Revised running times on a number of Belfast services, including changes to times on the 06:00am and 07:00am Belfast to Dublin services, arriving to Dublin at 08:23am and 09:20am respectively.

“As well as improving punctuality for Commuter services, this will enable a key gap in the Northern Commuter morning service to be reduced,” Iarnród Éireann said, highlighting additional departure times from Drogheda.

• The proposed 07:50am Dublin Connolly to Belfast will operate at 07:40am, to prevent congestion at Malahide.
• Some evening services which currently commence from Pearse/Grand Canal Dock will commence from Bray / Dun Laoghaire.
• There will be some minor changes to departure times to a number of DART, Northern, Maynooth and Phoenix Park Tunnel commuter trains, and one Dublin to Rosslare train to facilitate the above.
• Increased services on the Galway, Waterford and Belfast lines implemented on 26th August will be maintained.

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Speaking on the alterations made to the timetable, Irish Rail said that it recognised the “enormous disruption” caused by the previous overhaul of train times.

“While changes made on 16th September improved evening punctuality in particular, it is clear that the impact to morning commuting was continuing,” it said.

“The changes from 14th October will restore morning service patterns, rebalance the timetable to improve punctuality and end to end journey times for commuters, while accommodating improved frequency on a number of Intercity routes, including the Dublin to Belfast route.”

Full details of changes will be available for customers at www.irishrail.ie and the Iarnród Éireann app.

The changes follow engagement with the National Transport Authority and Irish Rail colleagues in Translink, the company said.

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