Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson
Its 41.98 to Cork by train.
The fall off is mainly in short to medium commuting, where unemployment combined with effective bus services (Mathews Coaches in Drogheda being the prime example) have seen fairly serious falls in Maynooth/Drogheda and DART services. For example the Poles were heavy public transport users, they have now left.
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How do Irish Rail propose to compete with the effective bus services to which you refer - maybe deploy surplus ICRs on express commuter trains on the northern route? Even three limited-stop expresses out of Dundalk at, say, 0630, 0700 and 0730 taking advantage of the 90mph line limit and with corresponding return services in the evening would transform the current lack lustre offering and form the basis for re-building patronage.
Bit of a no brainer but I suspect on past performance highly unlikely to happen.
Incidentally there is still a substantial number of foreign nationals working in Ireland (around 10% of the working population), although it is true that this group have been dis-proportionately affected by the collapse of the Celtic tiger as many were working in construction related employments.