it will work with camino on a mac, that's what i use

aaahh obscure browsers, the preserve of the true nerd

One major tip here

Before clicking anything wait until the full page has loaded if you don't the javascript functions don't work correctly so if you click quickly for a certain train or seat the click will show on screen but when you hit submit/go/proceed etc it will throw an error insisting you haven't selected something

Camino is from the same family as Firefox, Firefox works for me on a Mac certain of that

Maybe it's just me, but I thought that Dublin Bus didn't actually OFFER toilet services, whereas the Arrow DOES..... Also, the Arrow takes me DIRECTLY into my Saturday night boogie woogie realm of debauchery, which I believe anyway, is made more alluring by the fact of having gone in via train, rather than a soulless, decrepid bus.

TEST 1: FAIL!!
 

oh dear oh dear

remmeber the test i proposed?
reserved seating on the 17:55 heuston-galway was a joke on friday

i got to heuston quicker than i expected so i was quite early
headed to the fron of the train and sure enough there was the pleasant chap in the yellow who looked at my ticket and directed me into the first carraige.
Not only was my name or a reserved sign not on my seat (FAIL A) there were no seat numbers in the carraige at all! but being early i picked a spot and took out me book. anyway the carraige fills up and about 17:50 i overhear this woman looking for her seat number. yellow man has disappeared and the carraige is full (FAIL B). She and about 5 others with reserved seats can't find any staff to talk to (FAIL C)

train moves out with them standing. enough ppl get off at hazelhatch to give them seats spread out (some had booked seats together)

i had planned to post my story on tuesday but in the faint hope that someone from IE is reading this can they make sure that the lads in galway reserve the seats on the 18:05 to dublin tomorrow as i'm bringing my niece up to her cousins and if she has to stand my brother will kill me

----------------
in other news!
---------------
while i was waiting to board in heuston there was this girl on her mobile almost in tears as she explained to her friend that she wasn't allowed to board her train to limerick as it was going on to ennis and only people with ennis tickets were being let on(!) for whatever reason she had been relying on getting on that train and when she asked the ticket checker if she went off and bought a ticket to ennis would she be allowed on and he said no...

is this true? maybe she was bull****ting her friend but if so she's an amazing actress. classic IE customer care!!

Firstly Donal write it all down and send it in to IE

Customer Services
Southern and Western
Heuston Station
Dublin 8

And if you hear nothing within 3 weeks let us know, the time has come to play a game with IE

The 17:05 is the last train to Ennis, if it was so important to this person to be on it they should have booked..............

Best of luck this evening Donal! I can't believe that IE still can't get this right.

Was intending on carrying out your test, but ended up not getting the train I booked on.

I'm going to be car-less for a month starting from yesterday and already I'm depressed at having to use public transport!

well much to my suprise the trip back was ok

of course the seats were not marked as reserved, but the train wasn't full so we got two seats together. because of this i didn't really look too hard for my seat but i get the feeling that A55 does not exist on the first class carraige - is that right?

in any case this is my 4th time reseving seats and i have yet to sit on the seat i reserved!!

anyway out of principle the letter is going in to customer services...

I thought you travel for free if you don't get your reserved seat?
Surely free travel should counterbalance the hassle no?

You travel for free if no equivalent seat is provided, well you apply for a refund and given IE's current performance it could be months before you see it

Thus if you stand you get your money back and by the letter of the law if you are upgraded to first it still applies since its not equivelent

Would not getting 2 seats together if booked together count?

So game on Donal

a) how often they actually mark the seats
b) how often the seats are taken by other passengers
c) what efforts the IE guy makes to get you into the seat you paid for....

So I shall try the 11:00 Dublin Cork tomorrow (Coach C Mk4 so it should be ok) and the 19:30 Cork Dublin (Coach A Mk3 and I already know it will go wrong since that train has a coach B)

I'm going to Thurles so the return trip will allow me to sample finding my seat occupied when I board. If it goes wrong any IE offical I find who does not perform their duty will be brought to full account, names will be taken since this crap has gone on too long

Guess I should report on last weekend.

On saturday we took the 15:00 Dublin Heuston to Portlaoise. The guy in the yellow jersey was busy chatting to somebody, but we found our seats ok, and they had been marked with a "This seat is reserved, please do not sit here" sticker. So outward journey was grand,

On sunday we took the 19:28 Portlaoise to Dublin Heuston. I knew we were in coach A so waited a long way down the platform, but the train was longer than I'd expected so it was coach B that we boarded on. Met the ticket inspector immediately after boarding, and showed him our tickets. I said to him that we were heading down to look for our reserved seats and he told us not to bother, there were plenty of seats around. I insisted on getting the seats we'd reserved anyway, so we went down the coach A only to find them occupied, reserved sticker in-situ. However the row behind them was unoccupied but even though it also had a reserved sticker as Portlaoise was the second last stop before Heuston and the carriage was only half full, I thought nothing of sitting there. Nobody got on our carriage in Port so it was a nice pleasent trip, but my girlfriend was not impressed by the ticket inspecters laissez fair attitude to the reservations, you wouldn't get the like in Norway! I know it was a pleasent trip, but I kind of agree with her, if you don't enforce the rules when a train is quiet, then people are less likely to follow them when the train is full.

Question:
Was there a card with your name above the seat

eg
http://forum.platform11.org//attachm...8&d=1145375259

If not its a fail a, b and c on the return and a fail a on the outbound

There were no cards above any seats that I saw. I wasn't aware that those cards existed, this was my first time reserving seats.

Fail a outbound so and fail a, b, c on the return

You missed fail b on the outbound just by chance

Its not much use unless your name is there, we have had incidents where there are two coach B's

So the results

11:00 Dublin Cork
Seat labeled, no one in it
No IE staff seen to assist anyway

19:30 Cork Dublin
No seats labeled, seat didn't exist
IE staff on site moved us up to first since I had the cop to board coach A even knowing I wasn't getting a seat

And reports from ground 9:00 Dublin Cork had no labels either

17.05 Heuston-Ennis Friday 10 Nov

Booked a student single online (seat A37) arrived at Heuston about 4.45 so far so good. However a huge queue had formed for the train snaking all the way around the concourse, which didn't start moving until nearly 5, with the result that no tickets were actually checked at the platform (the checker just waved everyone through).

I saw the yellow jersey crowd on the concourse but no sign of them when I was on the platform or boarded the train. When I got on board no seat in carriage A was labelled and the checker was only concerned with the 1st class. A woman was about to occupy my seat but in fairness to her moved without any hassle when I told her it was reserved (the train was full, large no. standing). No effort by IE staff to guide people to their seat. Tickets were not checked at any stage on the trip.

Overall, pathetic implemetation of the reserved ticket concept. And to top it all had to change to an Arrow at Limerick despite the FO service being timetabled as direct to Ennis. Ennis station has been done up well though, new carpark and bus bays. Progress of a sort...

Excellent choice on A37

Lash it down send it in to Customer Services, Southern and Western, Heuston Station, if you hear nothing in 3 weeks tell us, the 17:05 is a persistent source of trouble

If you had to stand on the Arrow to Ennis, IE failed to provide your reserved seat thus a refund is in order

Will fire a letter off to them, quite peeved by the whole pointlessness of going to the trouble of booking the ticket online when it isn't enforced.

Arrow to Ennis wasn't full of course, just annoyed I had to change trains and move bags and baggage when timetable calls it direct.

I hadnt read this thread all the way thought till now so i'm having to refer to some old posts.

firstly these:

I get that train all the time, and indeed regularly comment on it here. Pat the waiter for the first class poeple is a great guy by the way. I always travel in coach A and sometimes there is reserved seats. The last time I took it, eight seats were reserved - for that mornings service from Limerick. The ticketman wasnt allowing anyone sit there untill i pointed that little fact to him, and then he opened them up.

As for your tearful girl, what she was told was rubbish. If you are going to any of the stops on that train (eg I get it to go to Templemore) you are perfectly entitled to get on, and if you are there before people from Ennis - tough on them. The 1730 to Limerick stops everywhere and she may have been late for an appointment or something.

She had a ticket to Limerick. That train stops in Limerick. She was on time and she should have been let on. How can you possibly stand behind that decision of the ticket checker? What if the ticket checker in Prease told you that they were only letting on people who are going to Bray on the next DART? Same difference.