Yuku free message boards

I was one of the 250/300 people on platform 1 in Athenry on the Bank Holiday saturday. I like a lot of other people though the train would have been the ideal mode of transport to the city centre with easy access to the race village. The frist train was due to arrive at approx 9.30, and a sceond at 9.50, thus I felt Id have a good chance at´getting a seat and it would be a much better option than getting the park and ride bus as I had a buggy and my 2 year old with me.

How wrong I was....the first train was a dublin service which they routed through the loop and didn´t stop as it was full (but not over crowded). We were then assured that yjere were plenty of spaces on teh following service from Athlone, whihc duly arrived 25 minutes or so later, with just a handful of seats available. As i was standing on the platform an IE employee passed and I gave my concerns about the crowd fitting onto an all ready 95% full train, the response was "ah we´ll all be grand". I went to the end of the train as I felt there maybe a better chance of getting a seat, lucky for me the a door stopped right where I was standing and I was able to get a seat for myself and family, but then everybody crowded into the aisles and gangways. It was totally unsafe especially with so many kids and how IE let this train go so overcrowded was a concern. We slowly made our way to Galway where we enjoyed a fabulous day which was excellently organised for all ages and pleasure to witness that such an event could be handled as efficiently in ireland. The fact that IE couldn´t provide a service was shocking to say the least.

Later we decided we catch the 1505 back as we figured the two evening services would be jammed based on the crowds. When we arrived we were faced with another massive queue for a 6 piece ICR and I reckon close to 600 plus people boarded with kids standing in gangways again in what was another dnagerously over crowded train. Meanwhile the mk3 set which had brought us in earlier that day sat on Galway all day doing nothing.

My feelings were echoed by lots of other irate customers, with the majority stratching their heads as to how IE couldn´t provide a shuttle service to Athenry Ballinasloe, instead they felt the regular Dublin services on a bank holiday weekend would suffice. Railways are designed to cope with mass movement of people, unfortunately IE didn´t read the script.

This was a massive opportunity missed by IE to promote railway travel into Galway especially the phase 1 of the WRC opening in Autumn (hopefully).

The words piss up and brewery came to mind as I stood squashed on the Dublin bound ICR. I´m sure I wasn´t alone in my thinking.