Questions About Belfast to Dublin
 

The wife and I plan to travel from Belfast to Dublin via train on Saturday March 10. We were hoping to go fairly early so that we would have more time in Dublin. However, as I look online, many of the fares are already sold out. Here are my only train options that I can find:

2:10-4:10 route for £17.98 for two (WebFare) or £56.00 (Standard class)
or
8:00-10:00, 10:35-12:35, 2:10-4:10 routes are all available in First Class for £88 for two

The jump from £17.98 to £88 is significant, but it would allow us to leave earlier.

Here is part of the problem: when we booked our flight, the only option was with 1 layover in Newark and it is only 1 hour. Most of the time, flights are on time, but with only an hour, I am somewhat concerned about missing the connection and therefore arriving late. If that is the case, I would probably lose my pre-booked train tickets. No big deal with £18, but £88 is kind of a big deal. Or am I worried for nothing?

I know that buying WebFare is much cheaper than buying in person, but is First Class that way? Should I just wait until we arrive in Belfast to buy the tickets if we are going first class? Will it be sold out? I know that there are other options like buses, but we have never been on a train so we are leaning towards that if possible.

Any help is appreciated.

Welcome to the board.

If you are in the US then your question is academic. The £8.99 ticket is only available to persons with a UK address for it to be mailed out to. You will be as well off buying your ticket at the station on the day with the other options.

There is no capacity control on the £28 or £44 tickets and they can be bought at the station.

Due to the Six Nations Rugby match between Ireland and Scotland on Saturday the 10th of March trains leaving Belfast at 1035 and 1235 will be be particularly busy. You should have no difficulty buying either standard or first-plus tickets at Belfast for any other services up to about 10 minutes before departure. No need to pre-book.

Thank you for the information. It was very helpful.

Why do all the travel blogs say to buy the tickets online to save money if you can't unless you are in the UK, or is this just because the trip originates in NI?

So either I am out £56 or £88 for the train or I take a bus...:(

From Belfast, what you may find is that only part of the train (possibly only one carriage out of seven) is reservable, the rest are available on a fist-come, first-serve basis. It may claim to be booked out on-line, but there may still be plenty of seats available on the train. However, note the rugby match that day, which is likely to see the 0800, 1035 & 1235 services busy.

When you say "route", we would normally say "departure", "service" or "train". There is only one train route from Belfast to Dublin. :)

Are you travelling Home-Newark-Belfast-Dublin or the other way around? If you are only arriving in Ireland that day, do consider just buying at the station.

The prices for 'Standard' (£56 for 2) and '1st Plus' (£88 for 2) appear to be the full prices that one would pay at the station.

Depending on how much time you have in Dublin, a DART trip from Howth to Greystones is worthwhile from a sightseeing point of view - bring your camera.

On such a day, I wouldn't be leaving it until 10 minutes before departure to buy tickets. :)

If those blogs are specific to Northern Ireland, then they are unthinking / naive / wrong - on-line purchases / the booking system for Northern Ireland Railways (the Belfast-Dublin 'Enterprise' is a joint service with Irish Rail) is unsophisticated and depends on posting out the tickets. With Irish Rail operated stations (and I imagine most operators in Britain and elsewhere in Europe), on-line bookings can be collected from most stations.

Bus timetable: http://www.translink.co.uk/Timetable...-200-Outbound/ hourly from 0600 and fares: http://www.translink.co.uk/Services/...Dublin/#centre

As I said apart from the 1035 and 1235 service from Belfast, there should be no problem buying tickets up to about 10 minutes before departure. By all means allow 15 or 20 minutes, the message I was trying to convey is that there should be little difficulty in buying tickets on the day for services other than the two I specifically mentioned.

The Belfast/Dublin trip, particulary south of Portadown is one of the more interesting trips to make in Ireland with many engineering features (viaducts, cuttings and causeways) as well as a range of of scenery including mountain and coastal.

Enjoy !

That is referring to train travel in Great Britain, which has a rather more sophisticated system and allows tickets to be collected at many major stations. As mentioned above, the Northern Irish approach is much less sophisticated.

Don't rely on taking a bus unless you're prepared for it to be full and have to wait an hour to get the next one, possibly two or three times.

Thanks for all the help guys. I think that we will just try the train either early morning or early afternoon. We will save the bus for an emergency backup.