One Irish Rail worker has been praised for stepping in and driving three girls home to Killarney from Limerick Junction after a signalling fault made them late for the last train home.
The three Kerry women met at the train station in Galway to make the journey home for the festive period and all was going well until they hit delays at Limerick Junction.
Cara Ní Chofaigh, an applied behavioural analysis student studying at NUIG, said she met her former housemate and her friend on the train leaving Galway and they were in good spirits.
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Cara knew her mother would be waiting for her at the station in Killarney when the last train of the night got in.
However, the three young women were just outside Limerick Junction, waiting to make their connection home when they discovered that signalling delays had caused them to miss their next train, the last possible way home to Killarney last night.
It was then that a very distressing situation - with no transport and nowhere to stay - took a turn towards something of a Christmas miracle.
Speaking to CorkBeo, Cara said: "We were outside Limerick junction when the train stopped and there was an announcement saying there were signalling delays for five minutes, then the same announcement came after ten minutes, then fifteen before we pulled into the station
"The conductor asked us where we were going and when we told him Killarney he said we had no chance of making our train in Mallow so we should go talk to the people inside"
Cara had been working since 6:30 am that morning and her mother was waiting at the station in Killarney to bring her daughter home for Christmas in South Kerry. The women were presented with the option of getting a bus to Tralee and then a taxi to Killarney which would not only have been expensive but wouldn't have gotten the girls to Killarney until close to 1 am.
As the women were weighing up their very limited options a hero in an Irish Rail uniform came along and offered to drive the girls to Killarney in the company car.
"I was so upset and then he just came along and told the guy behind the desk that he'd drive us to Killarney instead"
They only know his name was Tony, but the Irish Rail employee popped into the car with the three women and began the 120km journey back to Killarney.
"It was great craic chatting with him on the way down, I was sitting in the back with my housemate who I hadn't seen in a while and it gave us a great chance to catch up.
"Tony was so good, he told us he was meant to be picking up one of his kids from the cinema that night and that he'd have to give them a ring to explain why he was in Killarney"
The girls asked if Tony would be compensated for his trip, to which he replied that he was scheduled until 3:30 anyway and there was usually nothing to do so he decided to use the time to help out the passengers in need.
After two hours in the car, the girls arrived safe and sound in Killarney where their families were waiting to bring them the last few miles home for Christmas - and hear all about their adventures on the way down from Galway.
Let's hope Tony gets a raise in the new year!
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