Irish Rail has poured cold water on suggestions it could run train services through the night or at much later or earlier hours.
There have been growing calls for the rail operator to put on additional early or late trains to match service levels that are available in many EU countries.
However, in discussions with the National Transport Authority (NTA), Irish Rail said 24/7 operations would not be “viable irrespective of any level of funding” that was available.
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A senior Irish Rail official said overnight gaps in service were a key time for maintenance works and if those hours were lost, “the infrastructure… could not be maintained to a safe standard”.
An email said: “The Irish Rail network does not allow for alternative routing of services unlike, for instance, certain parts of the Great Britain network where diversionary routes allow for longer operational days.”
The NTA had asked the rail operator to examine three options around the provision of extra train services.
The transport authority asked what the implications would be of running round the clock operations, with commuter services every half hour and intercity services on the hour.
A second suggestion asked about the possibility of just running later services every day with a final train departing for its destination at 12.30am.
Lastly, they wondered what would be involved in providing after-midnight services on certain days of the week, most likely, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Tim Gaston, Director of Public Transport Services at the NTA, said: “[We have] been asked about operating later services on trains and trams.
“I know there are significant issues on engineering closures, maintenance and safety issues and obviously significant resourcing issues.”
Mr Gaston asked if it would be possible to report back by the end of last month with “rough order of magnitude costs” for what would be involved.
However, Irish Rail responded quickly to say discussions had taken place internally about each of the scenarios put forward by the NTA.
Billy Gilpin, Director of Railway Undertaking at Irish Rail, said: “Scenarios One and Two are not deemed viable irrespective of any level of funding as they reduce/deny the opportunity to maintain the infrastructure to such an extent that it could not be maintained to a safe standard.”
He said they would give further thought to the practicality of the third option around later weekend services.
Mr Gilpin wrote: “[It] again impacts on the maintenance window especially running later on a Saturday, which eats into the period between end of service and start of the Sunday service which is when a significant amount of activity takes place.
“To mitigate this, [we] would need a later start up on a Sunday or more frequent disruptive possessions, the level of which would need to be determined.”
He said the cost implications operationally for enhanced weekend services were “not huge”.
However, Irish Rail needed to know whether a later start on Sunday, or more ‘possessions’ i.e. pre-planned maintenance disruptions, were considered acceptable by the NTA.
Another email from the NTA also asked the rail operator to look at options around adding additional evening services where there were currently none adding that “in particular Waterford” should be examined.
A spokesman for Irish Rail said discussions on late-running services remained ongoing.
He said: “We’re continuing to engage with the National Transport Authority as part of an examination across public transport operators of opportunities for later services to meet customer needs, covering DART, Commuter and Intercity.”
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