‘Ridiculous’ system sees southern ticket holders forced to queue separately at Belfast Grand Central Station

https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/ridiculous-system-sees-southern-ticket-holders-forced-to-queue-separately-at-belfast-grand-central-station-FNBORVJRF5AKHAAT3NDAAELWRA/

Train passengers from the Republic are forced to queue separately and have their tickets scanned manually in a “ridiculous” system upon arrival at Belfast Grand Central Station.

An MLA has urged Stormont’s Department for Infrastructure to intervene to allow “seamless cross-border travel” at the new station, which opened last year at a cost of £340m.

The number of passengers on the Enterprise trains between Belfast and Dublin has jumped 50% since a new hourly service was introduced last October.
However, passengers with tickets issued by Irish Rail cannot scan through the gates themselves to enter the main part of the station and reach the exits, as those with Translink-issued tickets can.

Instead they are herded to queue at a separate gate, where a member of Translink staff scans each ticket manually.

The system has been slammed by SDLP MLA Justin McNulty, who previously branded the inability of passengers to purchase cross-border bus and rail tickets from the 12 ticketing machines in the station as “embarrassing”.

Travellers seeking to go to destinations including Dublin, Cavan or Monaghan must instead queue at a customer service desk if they did not purchase tickets online in advance. Those who do purchase an online ticket to cross the border must still face having to print out a ticket at a machine using an electronic code they have been sent, or ask a staff member to do so.

Mr McNulty, a Newry and Armagh MLA, recently put a written question to Stormont’s infrastructure minister Liz Kimmins over the ticket machine issue.

The minister said it was an “operational matter” for Translink, and had been advised that “due to Translink’s main bus and rail cross border services operating under a capacity management system, the purchase of ad hoc tickets from the ticket vending machines is not possible”.

The minister added: “Translink needs to ensure that customers who have purchased a ticket and booked a seat from a bus stop other than the departure stop of the bus service can avail of the service, i.e seat is available.”

A spokesperson for Translink previously said of the cross-border tickets that most passengers purchase them online, but a “limited number” were available for “passengers who prefer to purchase at the station”, adding that this “ensures a more streamlined and efficient ticketing process for passengers”.

Mr McNulty said: “I asked the Minister a direct question about the laughable reality that Dublin-bound passengers cannot buy a train ticket in Belfast’s state-of-the-art Grand Central Station. If you throw that into the mix alongside the fact that a passenger with an Irish Rail ticket cannot exit the turnstiles in Belfast on their own, it just becomes ridiculous.”

Mr McNulty said the minister saying the matter was for Translink was “not acceptable”.

“If your Department has built a £340million train station that won’t print tickets, then you need to do more than hide under the desk and say it’s someone else’s problem.

“I find it ridiculous that we have a Sinn Féin Infrastructure Minister who is unable or unwilling to facilitate seamless cross-border train travel. Sinn Féin make grandiose claims that they are the only party who care about uniting Ireland, yet they haven’t delivered unified rail fares across the island, they can’t facilitate the purchase or acceptance of cross-border tickets at Grand Central, and when confronted about it, they do nothing.”

A Department for Infrastructure spokesperson told the Irish News that Irish Rail ticket holders being forced to queue separately at Grand Central Station was a matter for Translink.

A Translink spokesperson told the Irish News they were “committed to making our ticketing system as simple and convenient as possible for all our customers”.

“Digital ticket validation is a highly complex and technical process and we continue to work with service delivery partners, Irish Rail to review and simplify our systems where appropriate,” they said.

“Anyone travelling with a rail ticket purchased through Irish Rail should simply present their ticket at the attended rail gates where it will be quickly checked by a member of staff. This type of procedure is commonly practiced in other European stations.”