What was the point?

[kevin]

of putting posters up all over Heuston telling people to reserve their seats because it's a busy weekend.

Why could Irish Rail not hold up their half of the bargain and actually mark the bloody seats?

The 18:25 Heuston->Waterford had no seats marked in the non-First half of carriage A. The reservations in the first class were spotty at best.

Of course there are no yellow shirts to be seen.

Really, what's the point....

regards

kevin

/me peeved at paying 3eur for a reservation only addon.

[Thomas J Stamp]

nah, the posters actually tell you that because its a bank holiday weekend you wont get a seat at all.

You know how these bank holiday things are like, brand new and you never know when they're going to happen

[Thomas Ralph]

Originally Posted by kevin

/me peeved at paying 3eur for a reservation only addon.

Just book your entire journey rather than an addon and you don't pay anything extra.

[James Shields]

Originally Posted by tralph

Just book your entire journey rather than an addon and you don't pay anything extra.

But will it make you any more likely to get a seat?

[Thomas Ralph]

On Dublin-Cork and Dublin-Belfast it's pretty likely, other routes it's still a crapshoot (but if you don't get a seat when you've reserved then you're entitled to a refund).

[Donal Quinn]

mixed experience with the booking system this weekend
boarded the full 1915 galway->heuston train ccarraige A and saw booking slips above the seat - impressed intil i realised they were from 8th march!!

got the half empty train back on sunday and lo and behold there it was with my name in it - wow

point is that the train that needed the seats marked did't and the train that didn't did!!

there were people sitting in other people's seats on friday - pissed off and everyone having another laugh at crappy IE with their 8th march slips...

[Mark Gleeson]

For the first time ever I managed a return trip with the electronic displays working in both directions between Dublin and Thurles and I got my seat

Needless to say to was more by luck than by Irish Rail's efforts, no yellow tshirts to be seen and the train hostess decided to hide in the first class coach as is usual

You are entitled to a full refund if you are left standing however Irish Rail aren't terribly vocal about telling you that

Now if you are standing and an hour late do you get 150%?

[MOH]

Just tried to book seats from Connolly to Carrick on Shannon for tomorrow (Thursday) and got the message 'not allowed with this combination of stations'. Can you not book on the Sligo line?

[Donal Quinn]

You are entitled to a full refund if you are left standing however Irish Rail aren't terribly vocal about telling you that

they are als pretty vague on

• you get a seat but only after standing until sallins
• you get a seat but it's not the one you booked (point of principle!)
• you get a seat but it's not with the people you are travelling with although that was the whole reason you booked seats
• you booked a second class ticket but were assigned a first class seat and then made to move seats half way on your journey??

[Thomas Ralph]

Originally Posted by MOH

Just tried to book seats from Connolly to Carrick on Shannon for tomorrow (Thursday) and got the message 'not allowed with this combination of stations'. Can you not book on the Sligo line?

Correct. Bookings aren't supported on services that are or may be operated by commuter sets, most journeys involving DARTs, non-cross-border services on the Enterprise unless they include a transfer from Heuston to Connolly, and a few others.

Edit: This one piqued my interest so I did a bit of poking around into the JavaScript validator on the website. I've attached a list of stations that if you type exactly these words into the reservation system on the Iarnród Éireann website, it'll reject it (ALL matches anything). However, typing in a variation on the station name will be enough to defeat the validation and allow a reservation - for example, Waterford to Dublin Connolly rejects, but Waterford to Connolly works, as does Waterford (Plunkett) to Dublin Connolly.

Also to actually get beyond the timetable screen or view the price of your ticket you have to have at least one seat reservation selected - ticket only won't work.

I don't think I need to say how ludicrous this is ;[

[MOH]

Ah, thanks for that.

I've done a bit of poking around in the site source before, it's a bit of a mess.
I hope they did it internally, because if they paid someone for it they were rippied off.

[Mark Gleeson]

Was done internally

If you know the station codes you can bypass the javascript and book seats on unbookable journeys