When Rachel Langan started her degree at the University of Galway three years ago, she also embarked on what has become a weekly train commute from Athenry to Galway. She would catch the 7.50am train. However, before September of this year, it was never too crowded and delays rarely exceeded ten minutes, she says. Then the schedule changed.
“It’s just become madness since then,” the final-year university student said. “You’re packed in like sardines, there’s very little space to move. It’s hot and stuffy, you’re cramped and on top of each other. I’ve seen children nearly trampled because of the number of people in the carriages. It’s actually become quite scary to ride on the train.
“People are getting worried, if someone pulls the emergency cord or if there’s a medical emergency, the conductor won’t be able to get through the passengers.
“The change in timetable caused a massive impact. They’re doing work in Galway station, which is great, but only one train can come and go. If that’s delayed, then everything is delayed.”
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Ms Langan has epilepsy, so driving to and from the city is not an option. “Trains are regularly delayed or cancelled now.”
She is one of the more than 80 commuters who contacted The Irish Times in response to a call-out for details of experiences of delays, cancellations and poor service on Ireland’s train lines.
David Drennan, who commutes from Baldoyle to Dublin city centre on the Dart, got in touch to highlight the impact delays have had on him and his family. After his son was born ten weeks prematurely earlier this year, his wife would ring asking when would he be home. “I couldn’t reassure her,” he says. “The constant delays have impacted so many people and made lives much more difficult. Having already gone through the stress of his premature arrival, once he was out of hospital after eight weeks, I was pretty much straight back to work. There has not been one day without delays on the train since then.”
One of the reasons the couple moved to Baldoyle was because of its proximity to the Dart. They previously lived in London, where they both used the Tube daily. “While London’s not perfect, at least you can rely on the underground. And if the station is closed for work in London, there’s always a replacement bus service.”
The uncertainty around Dart arrival times, and the “lack of communication”, is the most frustrating element of Irish Rail services, he adds. “You look at the board when you walk into the station, you go upstairs and it’s a different time, you look at your app and it’s different again. You’re cross referencing three or four different points of information.
“It is a measurably worse service than 20 years ago and an embarrassment to the country.”
There needs to be good incentives to use public transport, otherwise people will just move to driving
— Commuter Dmitry Gerashchenko
Shane Pollard, who has taken the train on an almost daily basis for nearly two decades, believes a lack of State investment has resulted in “the worst rail service in Europe”. Mr Pollard used to get the train from Hazelhatch to Dublin’s Connolly station and now relies on the service from Sallins into the city centre. He is bewildered by the timetable changes introduced in September. “There wasn’t any planning or phased roll out, it was all systems go and it became crazy. They have added extra carriages but it’s still overcrowded.”
The daily closure of the Phoenix Park tunnel line during offpeak times makes no sense, he says, adding that Irish Rail’s communication system simply does not work. “When there are announcements at platforms you cannot make out a single word ... And with updates in general, if you have Twitter (social media platform X) it’s useful, but my grandparents wouldn’t have a clue. They don’t have the tech know-how to use that tool to get any sort of an update.
“It’s insane in this day and age that we’re still struggling to commute in to work and have to face all these issues in a major European city, I don’t see where the money is going.”
Aisling from Skerries, who requested only her first name be used, believes poor communication is part of Irish Rail’s “company culture”.
“It’s culturally embedded in that organisation, it’s almost as if the customer is a problem and an annoyance. If you address them on the platform respectfully and politely, they have an innate defence mechanism. It doesn’t matter how you deliver, it’s received defensively.”
She believes “with a high degree of confidence” that every train she’s taken to work since the summer has been late.
“It’s pretty much a given that you either arrive late or be parked outside Connolly waiting for a platform to be free. I now expect it to be late and take an earlier train to compensate for the delays I know will happen. And everyone leaving their homes earlier just compounds the issue, it’s not increasing efficiency.”
Aisling is also concerned about the safety implications of so many commuters being packed into a small number of carriages. “You can’t even stabilise yourself, you’re just a solid mass of people. How safe is that?”
Another commuter, who requested he remain anonymous, said he lost his job last week after repeatedly showing up late to work because of delays on the Dart line. An intern for a company in Dún Laoghaire, he says his manager was initially understanding, but lost his patience when the delays became a daily occurrence.
“I am so frustrated. That company said there was a very high chance they would give me a full-time job and sponsor me after my internship. It took a year to find that job, and now I’m sitting here with my laptop open, trying to find work before my visa runs out.”
For Dmitry Gerashchenko, the only option has been to start driving to work. He started using the train on a daily basis for college in 2015 and has been commuting to work in the IFSC by train since 2018. However, constant delays, overcrowded carriages and the need to “arrange my life around a train timetable” pushed him to give up on public transport.
He now opts to sit in traffic in his car rather than risk what had become 90-minute rail commutes from home to work. Gerashchenko regularly travels for work and cannot understand how rail systems across the globe – from Switzerland to Russia, from Korea to Malaysia – are so much more advanced. “I give almost half my income in tax and this is what I get in return. There needs to be good incentives to use public transport, otherwise people will just move to driving.”
Irish Rail spokesman Barry Kenny said: “The period since late August has been an extremely challenging one in terms of punctuality for our customers, for which we apologise, and assure customers we are working to address.”
He blamed a numbers of factors including revised timetables. The rise in commuter numbers after Covid and the traditional delays caused by winter weather were also factors, he said, and such “force majeure” issues account for almost 40 per cent of delays.
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