16:50 to Athlone

[Slowcoach]

Portarlington commuter. The 16:50 to Athlone, this use to stop in Portarlington, it no longer does, probably on reasons of capacity it no longer does. However if it stopped in Kildare station it might be justifiable and Portarlington users can make the drive and be home before 6pm (oh what a luxury . Is there anyone interested in trying to get this to make one stop at Kildare.
Also for Port locals I've heard the 5:30 from Cork that hits portarlington at 07:35 is to be removed no word back from IE on this yet. Fingers crossed its untrue, the station is bursting at the seams and its been around forever.

In the words of Braveheart
Unite the commuters

[Derek Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Slowcoach

Portarlington commuter. The 16:50 to Athlone, this use to stop in Portarlington, it no longer does, probably on reasons of capacity it no longer does. However if it stopped in Kildare station it might be justifiable and Portarlington users can make the drive and be home before 6pm (oh what a luxury . Is there anyone interested in trying to get this to make one stop at Kildare.
Also for Port locals I've heard the 5:30 from Cork that hits portarlington at 07:35 is to be removed no word back from IE on this yet. Fingers crossed its untrue, the station is bursting at the seams and its been around forever.

In the words of Braveheart
Unite the commuters

There is a Portarlington rail users group on the go.

As for the 5.30 ex Cork...Its likely that it will stop serving Portarlington in line with a similar situation in Templemore. They've set up a users group. Details available on this board.

Myles McHugh in Heuston Station is the man directly responsible. Let him know of your disgust.

[2Funki4Wheelz]

Originally Posted by Slowcoach

However if it stopped in Kildare station it might be justifiable and Portarlington users can make the drive and be home before 6pm (oh what a luxury .

Not everyone has a car!! And I don't pay all that money for my ticket to pay money for petrol!! (car envy!)

Noob here, I don't see much activity on here re Portarlington, apologies if being blind where are those user group details? A search is throwing up all mentions.
There was an email address in the station months ago but never got a response.

[Slowcoach]

The figurehead of Portarlington user group is expecting a baby, so its kind of in disarray and no one is really in tune with the national forum yet. As for driving to Kildare, if it saves me 20 minutes I'l do whatever I have too. I'll Ring IE today to confirm the 07:35am removal, will they tell me.....? Its mostly used by mothers who just get enough time to fling the kids through the door of the creche and get to the station.

[Mark Gleeson]

Don't bother ringing IE since they won't tell you, since the timetable is not finalised, well it actually is

The 5:30 ex Cork will make 3 stops instead of its current 8, Mallow and Thurles are 2 and Charleville is the third. It will leave Cork at 5:30am and arrive Heuston at 8:10am and leave for Cork at 9am

You may think that as a passenger on the train you are entitled to be consulted but, passengers can't dictate the service according to IE which begs the question who is the railway serving?

[Slowcoach]

Thanks for that. I did ring IE and whoever I was put on to was very cheerful and helpful, yes I did pinch myself, but he was very courteous and that is indeed welcomed. He asked his colleague for a proofed timetable and said that last stop on the 5:30 from Cork is still Portarlington on the Dec 2006 timetable. Maybe its was to put me off pitchfork protests, but we'll save the burning of the round bales, them Laois cows are looking hungry.
Anyway bar that is there a best known method for organising protest against these things, a functioning user group would help ..thats is to run again soon, but in the meantime what about local TD's and petitions, is that the normal.
Peace

[Mark Gleeson]

Which contradicts what I have been told, quite clearly Portarlington was not on the list. The real question is what time does it pass Portarlington that would be very telling as would its arrival time into Dublin.

As Derek would say lets tie ourselves to the tracks

[2Funki4Wheelz]

The removal of the 7.35 (which never actually comes at 7.35) will mean an awful lot of people on the already pretty jammed 7.16 unless there's a surprise in store (i.e. one of the Portlaoise services stopping instead?).

Maybe they'll cut intercity services because of the Portarlington platform extension work over the next 10 months?? (to avoid getting delayed?)

(Unlike slowcoach, I've no car to hop into to head to kildare etc - so I better buy some rope and learn some knots, tracks here I come)

[Slowcoach]

Well from the conversation with them, he said the train from Cork is a 5.20am not 5.30am so maybe thats changed and there's a train to arrive Portarlington at 7.30am. There is a train that runs straight through Portarlington at this time ,it probably is a Galway train so my guess is they're probably going to now have that one stop. However that would guarantee standing room only from Portarlington upwards
So its Standing for all Lilywhites onwards

[Mark Gleeson]

Ah that makes sense that gives him 5 stops, Mallow, Charleville, Thurles, Templemore, Ballybrophy, still missing 3, Port Loais, Portarlington are still in limbo, Limerick Junction is gone since there is a train from Limerick

It more or less matches the spreadsheet best case I have now, complex headbanging exercises kept coming back with 5:20-5:25 but 5:30 is considered more clockface

[Oisin88]

Originally Posted by Slowcoach

7.30am. There is a train that runs straight through Portarlington at this time ,it probably is a Galway train so my guess is they're probably going to now have that one stop. However that would guarantee standing room only from Portarlington upwards
So its Standing for all Lilywhites onwards

From reports I have heard the Galway train that would most likely pass Portarlington around that time is the "early bird" and is packed like an indian train!