Irish Rail has apologised to customers for the travel chaos caused by its recent timetable changes in Dublin and confirmed that it is reverting to the old timetable.
In a statement, Iarnród Éireann said it was reverting to the old timetable from Monday October 14th with some “minor changes”.
Commuters in Dublin have complained of lengthy delays, crowded trains and longer journey times since the changes were introduced at the end of August.
Passenger group Rail Users Ireland has warned that it had “not seen such repeated delays or such widespread passenger anger in many years”, while Fianna Fáil Senator Lorraine Clifford-Lee described the changes as “completely infuriating, upsetting and mind-boggling”.
Speaking to Newstalk this morning, Irish Rail spokesperson Barry Kenny apologised for the disruption.
“We are sorry to our customers who have been disrupted by this,” he said.
“It isn’t just that their journeys have been disrupted; it impacts their work, it impacts their education and their childcare.
“We are committed to correcting this.
“We’re committed to rebuilding the punctuality that people have a right to expect when they travel with us every day and we will deliver those changes in response to the concerns of our customers.”
Customer complaints
Mr Kenny said Irish Rail has been monitoring the performance of the new timetable since it was introduced and has listened to customer complaints as well.
“We apologise to our customers,” he said.
“It’s clear that there was significant disruption to people’s journeys and in turn their daily lives and that is down to us.
“That’s down to, in trying to accommodate additional services, impacting too much on the journeys of our commuting customers.
“We want to correct that and we will be correcting that from the 14th of October.”
Timetable changes
Mr Kenny said there is a “lot of detail in the changes” but assured customers that the full timetables will be available online from this Monday, October 7th.
He noted that some of the trains on the Maynooth and Drogheda lines will depart from Bray and Dún Laoghaire rather than Connolly and there will also be some other “minor time changes” on other lines.
“We’ll make some significant changes, particularly on morning timetables,” he said.
“We’ll revert to the pattern of the pre-August 26th timetable on the Connolly routes, including some minor time changes.
“This will improve punctuality, will address some of the interchange issues that were causing delays and also some of the gaps in the timetable as well.”
In a statement, Iarnród Éireann summarised the changes that are due to come into force later this month.
Connolly
Morning timetables on routes operating to and from Connolly Station up to around 10am will revert to the old timetable with minor changes.
This will see trains that had been terminating at stations like Pearse, Grand Canal Dock and Bray resuming operation to and from these stations, reducing the need for interchanges at Connolly during the morning peak
Belfast
There will be time changes on several Belfast services, with departure times for Drogheda trains being updated by between five and ten minutes.
The planned 07.50am train from Dublin to Belfast will now leave at 07.40am
Commuter trains
Some evening Commuter services which currently commence from Pearse and Grand Canal Dock will instead commence from Bray and Dun Laoghaire
There will be some minor changes to the departure times of several DART, Northern, Maynooth, Phoenix Park Tunnel commuter train, and one Dublin to Rosslare train.
The increased services on the Galway, Waterford and Belfast lines introduced in August will be maintained and the weekend timetable will remain unchanged.
Full details of the changes will be available here on Monday, October 7th.
With reporting from Tom Douglas.
