More that by gouging 2 or 3 euro on every booking they're offsetting (or even covering?) the cost of the (very limited) free tickets.

They could have just charged a cent for the 'free' fares.

Anyone know when the cheaper fares will be available across the board. I'm a weekly user of the Dublin to Sligo route.

I don't know. The Galway-Dublin route does have a lot of competition on it, hence it was first.

Irish Rail has gone public with the free tickets as of lunchtime today

It is in theory possible for 6 people to travel return Dublin Galway for the grand sum of 2 euro, which can't be beaten. Discount codes are set against the full cost so someone did manage a single for 1.60 earlier this month.

Fares are demand based

1. Avoid Friday and Sunday afternoons
2. Book as far ahead possible
3. Many trains on bank holiday weekend are already heavily booked.
4. Single fares are 0, 10, 15 & 25 euro

The 0 fares exist on a wide range of services on the route

They've published a Facebook thing saying the fares are free, which of course they are not due to the transaction fee. I'm off to the ASAI on that.

They are classifying the 2 euro as a "transaction charge" so they're probably covered.

my da was travelling to dublin this weekend, he and my mam have free passes and were getting another ticket for their granddaughter. He tried to book the ticket online for the granddaughter and then reserve 3 seats for them all but the system doesnt allow it, which in my opinion is nuts. He then went to the station and asked the lady at the ticket desk for a single and to reserve 3 seats, she was going to charge him something like €59 euro even though the online fare was the €20 special (which he couldnt do because he couldnt reserve tickets online for thise with the travel pass), but the lady at the ticket counter told him, in fairness to her, to walk around the corner, literally around the corner, to the "travel centre" where they sold him the €20 ticket and reserved his seats. Have you ever heard the likes? you couldnt make it up.

The system does allow it

Select three passengers on the homepage and then complete as normal

What he needed to do was buy two "reservation only" tickets (each 3 euro) on-line and one webfare.

If either grandparent has a companion pass they could have gone for three "reservation only" tickets. I'm not certain, but I suspect the companion needs to be over a certain age (16?).

Once you have selected the train, you get a screen with:
Under "Choose Ticket Type", it gives the option for:Just select Reserve Seat and fill in the rest of the details.

Of course, if you are at the station already, reservations are often not needed.

i stand corrected, many thanks for that, will pass on the info.........

i see they got an increase in fares today. Losing passengers at a rate of knots so INCREASE the fares. Hilarious. Faster trains Irish Rail! just get faster trains. Oh, and do an actual link up with sports and concert and event bodies, with the integrated ticket that doesnt exist. Sit down with their accountants, work out a deal, everyone happy.

Intercity fares journeys more than 25 euro are excluded from the increase. Online fares are excluded as they are not controlled. So don't expect the base 10 euro fare to change

Irish Rail has chartered numerous trains to the IRFU in recent months and special deals are offered to FAI/GAA clubs for major matches. The risk is borne by the charterer. These are not shown in the online journey planner so go unnoticed.

The data protection act has put a block on offering any kind of focused offering. Ticketmaster and co know the addresses of every single ticket purchaser but can't tell Irish Rail the numbers in each town/city/county

The new Irish Rail website will show prices up front making it easier to find cheaper fares

Surely the big reason for the drop in passengers is just the increase in unemployment

300,000 extra on the live register.

If 1% of them were commuting by rail, that's 3,000 people who aren't making 500 journeys a year. 1.5 million journeys gone.

While as a regular InterCity user, I'd love to see faster trains, I'd say that you'd have to make them significantly faster to win new users. On the route I use most often (Cork-Dublin), the timing for car and train are roughly similar (2:30-2:45). So, knocking 15 minutes off that isn't going to have a huge impact on customer choice. You need to bring it down to something like 1:45 before it becomes a major selling point.

But the spin hides the following fact

Rail passenger numbers 2010 39.65 million AN INCREASE OF 3%

that's fair enough, there has been links up with the FAI, Munster Rugby etc but the fact is that this could have and should have been done ages ago. I believe entirely that there could be massive efficiencies within Irish rail if it is reformed from the ground up. Everything seems to be reactive rather than proactive. the webfares is something that could have been done ages ago, where is the integrated ticket? How many millions have been spent on that?

i just think Irish rail move and reform slower than one of their own trains. I know it's because we are a small country and dont have the money but 2 and a half hours to get a train to Dublin? 160 odd miles? for gods sake.

Charters have been there for decades, in fact what was probably the very first chartered train anywhere in the world took place in Ireland, guy called Thomas Cook paid for it, wonder what happened to him...

Believe it or not when a proper independent assessment is performed Dublin Belfast rail journey time is exactly on the EU 27 average for comparable city pairs

Irish Rail offer fully integrated ticket options, just ask

Cobh - Larne works
Galway - London works

Any station in the Republic of Ireland to any rail station in Northern Ireland is available at any booking office. It is also possible to go from any station in Ireland to any in the UK. All on a single ticket

tremendous but i just want to get to Dublin quickly and the train is only the same time as a car, which is daft. Perhaps one day Irish rail might publicise these things instead of a Rail Users forum.

Web Booking
 

Hey lads,

Trying to book tickets for my Mam. Traveling back from Galway>Dublin on Apr 27.
When I checked the fare its telling me Web Fare is €1 but when i go to the screen to book it

Adult - 25.00
Child - ??
Railcard/Taxsaver Loyalty - ****
Student - ****
Reserve Seat - ????

Am i doing something wrong? Do i have to wait a few days?

Please advise?

Works fine for me on the 05:05 train on April 27th

The 1 euro offer is strictly limited in availability only a few seats on each train are available at that price. If someone booked the last 1 euro seat the fare would go up immediately

It would help if we knew which train it was

Latest iteration went live over the weekend

Yield managed fares should now apply on the Dublin Cork route, so book far enough in advance and you should see 10 euro fares on most trains

Book for today and you should see only 36 euro as discounts are not offered on day of travel beyond the normal web fare

Great news! Not good news for Bus Eireann or Mr O'Leary's one remaining daily Dublin to Cork shuttle (can you believe he used to have 5 each way only a couple of years ago?), though I suppose some will always prefer the plane.