Ken Foxe
Irish Rail received more than a thousand complaints from passengers about controversial changes to their timetables that led to delays, packed platforms, and congested trains.
The rail operator said 1,154 people had been in contact with them to complain with a decision ultimately taken to revert to the old arrangements.
A sample of thirty complaints from Irish Rail details public anger over the changes with passengers complaining of major disruption to their journeys.
One person wrote of reduced services on the busy commuter route from Connolly to Maynooth: “When you change the timetables it should be to improve the service … next time you make changes, try to do it to improve the service and frequency.”
Another wrote of confusion in Drogheda where the normal scheduled service was replaced by one a short time later but that left from a different platform.
“A large group of people missed the train that pulled out this morning from a different platform,” they said.
“This is not acceptable as public transport should be reliable and live information available like other stations.”
One person wrote of their anger about their journey time increasing from forty to fifty minutes and having to switch trains.
A message said: “The new train timetables that removed the 8:21am from Skerries to Bray is absolutely terrible.
“Northern commuters should be able to get into Dublin stations without swapping trains. Please go back to the old timetable.”
Another complained that on the day the new arrangements were introduced, the website still referred to outdated arrival and departure times.
“All the links on your website are to the old one,” they wrote.
“How can you launch a new timetable but not have it up on the links on your website????? I cannot find the new DART times for Greystones on your website.”
One person said the marketing campaign around the changes had been “pitiful”.
“It should have been called out in bright eye-catching colours, instead of the standard green and grey branding, odd fonts and one sign per station, and announced over the train speaker system in the one to two weeks building up to the changes,” they said.
“These changes impact the livelihood [of people] and ability for the DART customers to arrive to work on time.”
A passenger travelling regularly from Dundalk to Dublin asked “who on earth” could think the new timetable was better.
They said a new 7.13am service was “too early” while the 8.13am train was “too late given that the majority of people’s start time is 9am.”
Another furious commuter said the changes were a “disgrace” and said the government was not giving money to Irish Rail “to make services worse.”
There were multiple complaints about one 5.01pm service to Adamstown in West Dublin that was taken off the timetable.
One parent wrote: “I really need this train to be home on time for my child. Please reconsider adding it back. There are so many new people in [this area] that use this service to be home with their families at a reasonable time.”
Another complaint was more to the point saying: “Restore the old timetable!”
A spokesman for Irish Rail said they deeply regretted the disruption caused as they tried to increase services between Dublin and Belfast and manage capacity in the city centre area.
He said: “The changes had a disproportionate negative impact on commuting punctuality and overall journey times, for which we are sorry.”
The spokesman said they understood the “enormous disruption” that had been caused with Irish Rail reverting to the old timetable with a much smaller set of changes.
He said they aimed to “rebalance the timetable to improve punctuality and end to end journey times for commuters, while accommodating increased frequency on a number of intercity routes.”
