http://irishrail.ie/your_journey/car...nformation.asp

How's this for sheer laziness?

2 months since the first announcement and not a thing on the part of the website devoted to car parking information.

EDIT: Anyone know if the weekly price at Gormanstown has risen to €8?

It was meant to go up

Of course Gormanston (not Gormanstown as Irish Rail like to spell it now and again) car park is rarely more than half full since rail fares and service levels from Balbriggan only 2 miles away are so much better

€8 a week better? :D

Balbriggan annual 890 euro
Gormanston annual 1210 euro

I was abroad for the last few weeks so It was a bit of a shock to find pay parking in dundalk this morninig I'm told it was all done over the weekend. Like many others who drove into the car park, I turned around and parked on the street where there is no charge currently. I live 6 miles from the station and thanks to the irish childcare situation we have no choice but to have 2 cars. We both commute to Dublin every day. Someone said earlier about choosing to buy closer to the station that is not necessarily a good thing and houses closer to public transport cost more usually. I know some locals that are now parking at the station instead of the council longterm park as its cheaper and they all work locally!! While those of use that use the train have to fight for a spot (if we so choose) I've already written to our local TD but since he hasn't done much to buck the FF trend lately I doubt he'll do anything!! I'll be switching to another transport company (and use the carpark) as it will be cheaper and just as fast next year as there is nothing there currently to stop me doing this!

That link wasn't working for the last few minutes, but the following is now showing

Note that they speak of November 2007 as being in the future.

Connolly has parking ?
 

I didn't know Connolly had parking. Where is the access ?

z

Coming down Amiens Street from the 5 Lamps, take a left just after the railway bridge down the cobbled road (main Connolly building on your right, Irish Rail head office (red brick) on the left) continue for about 200m then left at the junction, you have arrived at your destination

Refunds
 

I know we are talking about CIE here, so I know what to expect on the ground, but in general terms would there not be a case for claiming refunds if you buy a weekly ticket and can't use it because the car park is full every day ?

Imagine a worst case situation where you buy your ticket on day 1 and get a space, then on day 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 you can't get a space because the car park is full. Is there not some consumer legislation provision covering this situation ? In this case you have been sold a ticket which you can reasonably assume entitles you to park for a week since it is called a weekly parking ticket, yet in practice you can't exercise your entitlement.

z

Not a lot of people know that
 

Thanks for that Mark - I pass there quite often and never realised that parking was there. Shows how much attention I pay.

z

Ticket =/= seat, same game plan here

Fairly sure the T & C's have clause for that

Think we will have to write to these guys

Well its a joke of a gameplan we are talking about two different situations here to say that a car park ticket does not entitle you 100% to a car park space is an absolute joke!

Out of interest were all car parks affected today ok in terms of spaces?

Who issues the refunds though?

At dundalk there were quite a few places free. The upper carpark which is normally full had places left. Cars I normally see parked there were parked outside the station. I also noticed orange warning stickers on some cars as i left the station. I've passed on a few of the template letters to some of the ppl I knew that travel on the enterprise.. they were quite happy to send them on the Dermot Ahern

Well it will be interesting to see how it pans out but if things go pearshaped as we expect and people not getting spaces, the operators should be forced to issue tickets as seven day credit rather than a scheduled seven day ticket

Ticket may not equal seat, but usually does equal standing. Don't think too many people aren't able to get on trains altogether, and if they are usually on DART services which are (relatively) frequent.

However, if Irish Rail grossly oversell weekly passes for a certain station, I think you would have a case to make.

If you fail to board the train you can simply return your ticket to the booking office if you bought it that morning and get instant refund. Ticket doesn't actually guarantee carriage

At the moment it appears Irish Rail have scored an own goal, car parks have spaces but reports suguest a drop in passenger numbers on train

I'm not so sure Mark, whatever about yesterday overall it was not so bad even the roads were grand. This morning was a completely different story absolute nightmare on the roads didn't take the train this morning, it will be interesting to see how the stations faired this morning!

Its norm in terms of traffic to wait till next week or at least tomorrow or Thursday. Its back to school week and normal school time traffic patterns in the AM and PM have not yet bedded down.

The Dundalk one was emptier than usual for a tuesday when I got the train this mornng, but we'll see what happens after a week! I passed a few more letters to some colleagues at work who are not currently hit by the system but will be in a few weeks...

From my perspective I'm stuck with IE until june... but because of competition in the bus sector and the M1, I'd say more people like myself will switch to a bus service next year for the commute!! it takes the same amount of time and the busses are more frequent... there is now no incentive to use train. The enterprise service has over the years got worse and when the colleges get back and christmas coming things will only get worse!