Irish Rail’s new timetable will mean faster and more frequent trains around the country.
The timetable begins this Sunday and Irish Rail Communications Manager Barry Kenny said there are several changes across the network.
“No matter what route you’re travelling on, we’d advise people, just check your times,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
“There might be minor changes affecting your service.”
Travellers in some locations will also find their journey times have been slightly reduced.
“We also have some journey time improvements,” Mr Kenny said.
“A 6.15 non-stop Cork to Dublin is our fastest ever scheduled service on that route at 2 hours 14 minutes.
“We’re also going to have an additional later evening service to Westport, that’s connecting from the 7.45 Heuston to Galway service at Athlone.
“Then some significant improvements on Portlaoise Sunday commuter services and also extra services Cork to Mallow at morning peaks.”
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Train services over the Christmas and New Year holidays will operate with some amendments and alterations
Please check our Journey Planner before travel.
Pre-booking of Intercity is strongly advised at https://t.co/r50m2431AZ pic.twitter.com/FtPrzyjyZS— Iarnród Éireann (@IrishRail) December 4, 2023
Mr Kenny said Irish Rail hopes further improvements can be made in the years ahead.
“Ultimately, we could see a situation where we could go every half hour to Cork at peak, as opposed to that hourly service all day,” he said.
“Every hour to Galway, things like that, we’re building towards that all the time.”
Other new services include:
- Two more Dublin Heuston to Carlow trains Monday to Friday.
- Further services between Dublin Connolly and Drogheda.
- A later service to Clara, County Offaly on Sunday.
- Furthermore, Kishoge Station in Dublin will open in 2024.
Climate change
Last year, the transport sector produced 18% of Ireland’s carbon emissions - most of which come from road use.
In its Climate Action Plan, the Government said it hoped to reduce transport emissions by 50% by 2030 and encourage more use of public transport.
Earlier this year, the All Island Rail Review endorsed a €36.8 billion expansion of the network and Mr Kenny said the industry has already seen greater investment.
“We are seeing capital funding and that’s very welcome,” he said.
“The move towards favouring public transport investment [over] private transport investment is hugely beneficial to us.
“As well as the type of track works we’ve been able to do, we’ve got a lot of carriages… entering service early in the new year to allow us to provide more capacity on individual trains on intercity and commuter routes.”
In 2022, Irish Rail reported there had been 35.8m passenger journeys.
Main image: Trains at a station.
