Tuesday, December 27, 2011

You Should All Stay Home

If you had some notions of being out and about on St. Stephen's Day, Iarnrod Eireann settled your hash this year.

They simply didn't run the trains. If you couldn't walk to your destination, you were out of luck.

There was a time when the day after Christmas was meant to be slow. You were supposed to do some visiting, walking all the way if your family couldn't afford a car.

Ah, nostalgia. Irish Rail has brought it all back.

The State can't afford to run all the trains it once did, and that's a large part of the problem. It costs money to send a train from Cork to Dublin, and if there's only ten people on board, it's money lost.

Until after the first of the new year, there's to be reduced services, under the assumption that unemployment is high and there's few in need of rail service to commute to non-existent jobs. That's my take on the situation, at any rate.

As for the retailers asking for more trains to bring in more clients for the after-Christmas sales, can you believe their optimism? Does anyone have a euro to spare on the 26th of December?

If you really have to get somewhere, climb out of bed at the crack of dawn and take a bus. That's the only option that's left.

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