Link up our rail and ferry routes

WITH this island’s utter dependence on external connectivity never having been more clearly exposed, we might do well to look at how our internal surface transport system feeds into our international linkages.

Since last Thursday, record numbers of weary travellers returning to or visiting Ireland have unexpectedly — yet gratefully — found themselves rerouted via Welsh and French ports through Rosslare Europort. In response, in a bid “to facilitate ferry passengers” (according to the Iarnrod Éireann website), Monday’s 17:55 Rosslare-Dublin train was exceptionally held back to 18:45.

The national rail company is to be congratulated on this sensible decision. Normally, those catching this sailing arrive back in Ireland a galling five minutes after what is the day’s last train northwards has already left. However, this sudden flexibility begs the question as to why a joined-up scheduling arrangement is not already permanently in place across the system. Could it possibly be that rail timetables are not designed primarily to suit the travelling public? One might have imagined that having the hugely valuable resource of a pair of national rail lines terminating at a port within IE’s ownership would logically mean that train and ferry times might correspond in order to attract a steady stream of patrons. This is standard practice elsewhere and was the case here some years ago but is now apparently only something to be reconsidered upon completion of IE’s track renewal programme. Perhaps the company is waiting for the ferry companies to change their schedules to suit it?

With recent media reports revealing that more than 100 modern train carriages are lying idle, it is good to know that there is clearly no operational reason why this particular later service, having been pressed into action in extremis, cannot be retained. The next step is that the 19:30 Wexford-Dublin serviced might also commence at the port in order to serve those arriving on the final daily service from Pembroke (18:45). Passengers heading from Rosslare towards Waterford, Limerick and beyond over the last few days at least had the comfort of a train waiting for them. That’s assuming that they happened to be on the red-eye sailing from Pembroke (except the Sunday crossing) and could sprint the almost 1km to the train platform within 15 minutes of the scheduled 6:45 docking. They won’t have that facility in a few weeks’ time when that line is closed. It’s little wonder, given institutional efforts to discommode potential passengers.

Ronan Gingles

Avenue Michel-Ange

Brussels

Belgium