43 thoughts on “How Much?

    1. Spaghetti Hoop

      A single off peak Birmingham to London Euston ticket can set you back £3-£5 if you book online.
      “Yoof bin ‘ad mate int ya”

        1. Spaghetti Hoop

          I wasn’t aiming to compare like with like; I was responding to Mani’s comment suggesting that a UK train would cost more. It doesn’t have to, thanks to off-peak fares, advance booking and competition amongst rail companies.

  1. Murtles

    I can get you a one way ticket on Ryanair to Bologna, Italy this Friday for €60.99.
    Bad news is, you’ll have to fly from Dublin. Lose/Win situation.

  2. noncanonicalpokemon

    book online. I recently took that exact train. When I saw the price at the station, I went into tralee town, went to an internet café and booked the same train for less than half the price.

      1. FistoRoboto

        You can do that at Dublin airport no problem – AerLingus was cheaper at the desk than online.

        1. smoothlikemurphys

          “AerLingus was cheaper at the desk than online” that one non-specific time that you did it.

    1. cccc

      me too – booked online over a week in advance and it cost me 20 beans, including bike. Cycled back to Dub

  3. Rob_G

    I guess that you bought it in the station – might have been cheaper to book online ahead of time.

    The odd time that I bought a single ticket, I was always peeved that I had to pay exactly the same price as people who were buying a return.

  4. Rep

    Even my parents knew that booking online was way cheaper. Then they got their travel passes and don’t care at all.

  5. Nej

    Used to take the Dublin/Galway line quite frequently a few years back (When Galway still had a functioning airport). It was cheaper to fly Galway/Dublin than to take the train. The prices are STUPID expensive, online or offline.

    1. Conor

      Ah I’d forgotten how easy it is/was to get the airport to eyre square, and the time spent getting to dunlin airport.. And checking in etc etc

  6. Vbomb

    For €66.50, I would want first class, free meals, complimentary wifi, a Thai massage and minor surgery.

    Outrageous. I assume the person booked at the station (as opposed to online) minutes before the train was due to leave?

  7. stev

    That genuinely doesn’t seem that expensive in relative terms though. That’s a 300km mile journey from a town centre to a city centre (well, nearly) on a weekend. I”d be surprised if you could find a cheaper similar distance route in most Western European countries. I use the rail quite a bit abroad and this doesn’t seem out of the ordinary (if anything, it’s a bit cheaper than DB for example).

    Now, there are cheaper options if you book in advance etc but if you rock up at a station and pay at the gate, what do you expect? I would imagine these sorts of ticket prices somewhat subsidise the early bookers/online punters etc but that’s the way transport pricing tends to work these days.

  8. frankiejp

    Florence to Rome, this Friday @14h, 285kms, 35€, 90 minutes. Booked online or in the station.

    Tralee to Dublin, this Friday @ 15;30h, 294kms, 30€, 215 minutes (including change in Mallow). Booked online, not sure how much walking into Casement Station in Tralee.

    I’m not sure why the price goes up that radically when you don’t book online and it’s a pity about the time it takes but it’s not too bad a price booked online. UK rail prices are a joke. German are expensive. Not sure about French or Spanish. Italians are the only country I know where you can travel very reasonably priced trains.

    The western rail corridor is also a bottle of smoke. Ennis to Limerick flooded half the year with transfer by bus as an alternative. Charleville to Limerick is non existant. In reality there is no western rail corridor. More of the old rail should be taken up and replaced with cycling greenways. You could get anywhere in the country by bike if we threw some gravel down on the old greenways.

    1. smoothlikemurphys

      “Florence to Rome, this Friday @14h”

      How do you know exactly what the ticket price will be for a walk-up purchase on Friday?

      1. frankiejp

        I live in Italy and the counter price on trains is generally the same as online unless you book weeks in advance online.

    2. mike

      If Ennis to Limerick can’t be travelled by train because it is flooded half the year, then how would putting down gravel and travelling it by bike help?

      There’s a hole in yer bucket there. But I hope you enjoyed your rant.

      1. frankiejp

        It wasn’t meant to be a rant. I think Iarnród Éireann isn’t an all bad service and that was supposed to be reflected in my comment.

        I wasn’t suggesting that we take up rail that is being used but the disused railway of which we have quite a bit. Obviously if any of it floods for half the year it may not be worth it.

  9. Nej

    That’s a 300km mile journey from a town centre to a city centre (well, nearly) on a weekend. I”d be surprised if you could find a cheaper similar distance route in most Western European countries.

    Recently took Munich to Brussels. 107e. That’s a significantly longer route, by much more than 2x the distance. I’ve travelled Brussels/Amsterdam for 40e return. Again, significantly longer. Hell, I recently travelled Copenhagen/Stockholm for 550SEK (About similar price as in the article). That is, again, significantly longer.

    So, I am not sure I can agree with your point of view based on my own (admittedly) personal experience.

  10. chicken

    You could get a train Cologne to Hannover for about the same price €72 but that would be on the ICE train which is much faster & takes 3 hours as opposed to about 5 hours on the normal train

    1. chicken

      But it all depends on when you book & if you book online over here.. if you show up looking for a ticket on a Sunday evening at the station you will pay way more – unless you are just lucky.

  11. Wayne Carr

    Dublin/Wexford return for less than €20 online. A lack of planning isn’t Iarnród Éireann’s fault (this one time).

  12. GiGi

    I could upload a pic of a ticket I paid €85 for to get to Heuston Tralee return. Something about allowing me to travel back any day within the month or something. I bought it T the gate about to rush on the train, barley realised, paid quickly by card and looked at the ticket on the train . €85. It’s cheaper to drive.

    I saw on some ad recently that I could do the trip for €11 or something around that mark. I’ve never been able to find these cheap tickets.

    Oh and… the toilets are mostly always disgusting. : (

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