Two issues

I got 19.50 for that train, but it did tell me 29.00 when I clicked the euro symbol. 19.50 appeared when I used "Check Price" and was the fare in the system when I actually did a booking - so a bug there clearly

Since you are traveling on two trains it looks to be summing the fares i.e its 9.50 single Limerick - Limerick Junction and then 10 to Dublin, 19.50 I got

If I select the direct services I get 10 euro, if I select the 17:30 Cork Dublin which is the connecting train I get 10 euro as well.

Obviously this is serious and I'll get on to our contact in Irish Rail's web booking system

Great stuff Mark - thanks. That makes sense at least! I knew there had to be an explanation (though now I think I should not have booked as the price might come down when they fix the problem lol - I'm never happy I guess!)

yes I had checked the price of the connecting Cork train and was annoyed when I saw it was a tenner alright - that's why I could not understand it, discrimination against Limerickans maybe :D

Thanks for the info / help :)

I've been able to recreate this bug on different trains for different fares on different days between Limerick and Dublin

Irish Rail have got back to me and are looking at it right now, its clearly not right.

Until a fix is confirmed, use the check fare button at the bottom of the page, slower but seems to be the definitive fare

A strange anomaly seems to exist in the system vis-a-vis the online fares charged for journeys on 1205 service from Connolly to Arklow and the return ex Arklow at 1435. While one can get a fare of Euros 10 on off-peak inter-city services between Connolly and Arklow if one books sufficiently far in advance, the only fare offered on the above-mentioned trains, which are commuter offering a lower level of comfort and without trolley service, seems to be Euros 15.90. Why?

But you can't book a seat on those trains

There is a 15 euro day return deal from the booking office on that route

Dublin to Cork, bank holiday weekend, Friday 3 June.

Out of a total of 210 bookable seats on each of the 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 7pm and 9pm trains, just 11, 6, 11, 8 and 7 seats have so far been booked respectively. Yet all seats are €36, except the 5pm which is €25. I thought there was supposed to be an incentive to book early?

To be fair with the exception of the 9pm all those trains were always 36 euro on a Friday. Those trains have been for sale for 6 days at this point

7:00 - 10 euro
8:00 - 10 euro
9:00 - 36 euro
10:00 - 25 euro
11:00 - 25 euro
12:00 - 25 euro
13:00 - 25 euro
14:00 - 36 euro
15:00 - 25 euro
16:00 - 36 euro
17:00 - 25 euro
17:05 - 25 euro
18:00 - 36 euro
19:00 - 36 euro
21:00 - 36 euro

A number of matters of concern have been raised with Irish Rail concerning the system and we expect some changes shortly, but bear in mind Irish Rail is entitled to charge 66 euro for a single to Cork so don't expect miracles.

I think "permitted" a better word than "entitled"...

At a 00.15 last night, just after the webfares would have been released for sale due to the 28 day rule, the webfare for the 7pm Dublin to Cork train on Friday 22 July was €10. I wanted to check if the cheapest fare was available on that train on a Friday, albeit not for that particular weekend, immediately after their release, and sure enough it was.

Just under 24 hours later, 1 ticket has been sold and the fare is now €21. Surely more than 1 ticket should be available at the cheapest fare?

7pm Dublin Cork was always set as full fare in the past so the number of very cheap seats will be low.

The system will sell you up to 6 seats in a single transaction, all of which will be at the same price. So if the system is quoting 10 you can get all your seats at that price provided you book as a single transaction

The number of cheap seats on less busy services is greater

Fares available on the web are riddled with anomalies. For instance it can cost more than €20 to travel by bus/Luas should you be foolish enough to book a through ticket from say, Dundalk to Cork.

For example one-way a trip from Dundalk to Cork on July 9th currently costs €34.95 whereas the cost for separate Dundalk/Connolly and Heuston/Cork tickets (1600 from Heuston) is €7.50 and €5 respectively. The Luas trip therefore costs €22.45 !

The amounts quoted reflect the fairly dramatic slashing of fares on Saturdays and will hopefully result in a much needed boost in patronage.

Thats the ongoing issue with cross route fares, the system just can't cope with them

34.95 is half of 69.90 (68.50+1.40) which is the max single fare

Rail Users Ireland has been consulted by the consultancy group working on Irish Rail's intercity fare structure. The resultant revised structure will resolve this we think.

To a degree, this is much the same as the way the airlines do things. If you want to travel from Dublin to Bremen with Ryanair, you have to go via Stansted, Edinburgh (or slightly less obvious routings like Venice) and get two separate tickets.

This is the way Ryanair do things and they only do it to avoid having to pay comp if the first flight is delayed. Most other airlines will sell you a single ticket that covers two or more legs of the journey.