Ireland has no night trains unlike the rest of Europe.

39 comments
  1. Given that the longest train journey is probably Dublin to Cork and it’s about 2.5 hours, overnight trains are a bit pointless…

  2. a lot of memories come up, did interrail in 2011 through Eastern Europe all the awy to Istanbul and back via Greece on the ferry to italy. Great trip, still remember gettin out in Belgrad midnight, felt like the beginning of a horror movie. sadly the european nght train network got cut down a lot.

    great way to travel

  3. You mean, unlike the rest of Europe except the other countries that don’t?

    We’re a tiny country with no land connections to the continent. Night train would be utterly pointless unless you have a burning need to be in Cork at 3 am.

  4. For a night train to be useful it needs a greater than 8 hour journey. Any journey that picks you up or drops you off in the middle of the night is just going to be a horrible experience.

    That said, I’m always surprised no-one has done a tourist train here that people sleep on board.

  5. Spain have used EU money to build an amazing high speed rail network. I honestly can’t figure out why we’re not doing the same. The money is there, we just have to do the paperwork to get it.

    The EU will match any investment on transport infrastructure. The EU investment bank will give ridiculously low interest loans for investment in transport infrastructure. There’s no reason not to.

    I know we have to be very very careful with the tech tax billions, but infrastructure investment should be a safe enough use. Norway used some of their oil billions on infrastructure and their economy worked out fine.

  6. Ireland has nothing like the rest of europe….. Must be at least what 20 or 30 years behind mist european countries?

  7. But according to the poem night trains must cross the border (to bring the mail and the postal order), so perhaps during the troubles they just closed NI each evening.

  8. What is the demand for night trains? When you can get anywhere in a few hundred kilometres in this country the demand for long range over night services obviously disappears.

    What even was the point of this crosspost OP. SERIOUSLY. Would you ever conceivably use or need access to a night train in this country?

  9. Ireland needs more trains, I’m just saying it. We should re open lines like the great northern railway

  10. As a public transport nerd who wants to immigrate to Ireland I was sad at first…

    until it clicked
    Ireland is an Island, a relatively small island. The distance from Houston to Dallas is only 30 miles less than the distance from Belfast to Cork.

    Where would you go that required an overnight trip?

  11. Ireland don’t need night train unless one day in future we can built bridge over or under sea to reach Europe.
    What we need really is to extend train times so people who commute can find trains to reach commute towns at least until midnight.

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