Below is a video of the bicycle storage on new carriages being added to Irish Rail’s intercity and long-distance commuter railcar trains.
Unlike the existing bicycle storage racks on these trains, the new carriages are will not be at the end of the railcar trainsets. The outside door is also marked with a bicycle logo.
In its latest timetable update, Irish Rail said the carriages are being added to the following train routes:
- Newbridge/Hazelhatch to Connolly/Grand Canal Dock (Phoenix Park tunnel)
- Galway to Dublin Heuston
- Limerick to Dublin Heuston
- Sligo to Dublin Connolly
- Waterford/Carlow to Dublin Heuston
- Tralee to Dublin Heuston
- Westport to Dublin Heuston
The company said: “The expansion of the Intercity railcar fleet from 234 carriages to 275 carriages will lead to improved capacity on a number of existing services on the following routes. These improvements are being phased in between now and October as 41 new carriages are added to the fleet.”
The new space has flip down seats and no door between the multi-purpose area and the outer doors.
The marked bicycle side will be the bookable space for bicycles, with trainsets also retaining the end carriages with the much disliked two-space bicycle racks.
The unmarked multi-purpose space on the other side will be available for wheelchairs, bicycles and prams. Irish Rail previously told this website that people must wait with any bicycles left in the unmarked space which does not have a restraint to hold bicycles.
The normal rules apply in terms of not bringing bicycles on board at peak times except for booked bicycles on Intercity trains.
Both sides of the space have USB A sockets, although not the full plugs found on the rest of the carriage.
Images:
If you’re still unsure of the type of trains which are Intercity railcars, it’s these ones:
The outside door is marked with a bicycle logo much like the door to the existing bicycle rack area’
There’s easier access for bicycles to the outside of the train:
Here’s a person in the area for perspective:
And a bicycle:
Here’s the safety belt for bicycles and USB slots — the opposite side just has USB:
A few other perspectives:
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Are trikes (unpowered) still excluded? Even if necessary for someone with a gait disorder?
Very cool to see actual photos of it. Thanks Cian!
Nice. Do you know how many bikes can be booked on them
Two and two on the existing spaces which will also be available.
They are a great improvement on the Two- Side by Side Parrllel to the Window Racks.
However, there remain some issues that the junket that flew to South Korea to assess and give the OK to the new carriages.
1. The door is for passengers not passengers using bicycles. Surely a double door would have been better.
2. The flop down seats are ok for a short commute NOT an Inter City Journey.
3. They are appropriate for DART or commuter trains
Did the Junket research best practice on European rail network?
These don’t work well on Intercity. They are using them on Sligo and realistically you can’t ask 4 people to stand to make room for your bike. And there is no luggage rack so you can’t even store a folding bike in the car. This space is not really for bikes – it’s to provide more standing room when they use these cars inappropriately for Kildare line commuter trains.
Don’t tell us they had such a “junket that flew to South Korea”?Tell me you are just kidding?
They don’t look impressive to me. I use trains a lot & it doesn’t take such a tax-payer funded exotic, expenses paid, free holiday to see that what is needed is space, loads of space, not little seats. No need for any seating. We can sit in usual carriages, or stand for brief trips. We need space for 8 bikes in each bike carriage, as it is rare that only 2 or 4 bikes turn up on long journeys, or shorter journeys to & from colleges (e.g. Drogheda to Dundalk). On such routes in morning and evening you’ll see a dozen bikes piled in all over the place. I am wiling to write a report on these exceptionally difficult considerations if IrishRail will organise a trip to Japan…or maybe Brasil…or ah heck lets go to new Zealand.
Am I right in thinking these have no way to lock your bike securely (with an actual lock) because the thinking is that you’d be sitting next to the bike the whole time?
This is great news for commuter trains, but I usually only use the train to go home to Kerry and can’t imagine sitting there for the whole journey with no luggage rack and that’s if I’m lucky enough to book a bike spot for the one direct train a day. It’s mad that they wouldn’t just make it into a big holding space to lock a bunch of bikes and let people go and sit in the regular carriages.
Imagine the money they’d make selling the Dublin-Killarney trip as a car-free option with only a 5min cycle to the national park once you arrive in Killarney :(
Stickers notwithstanding, in any other European country this would simply be called a baggage car. I commuted 40 minutes by train with 10-15 either end by bike in London in the ’00s for three years on “South West” trains. 6 dedicated bike spaces on every train, doors always aligned with the same place on the platform, never saw fouled panniers or mudguards. As for the junket, I’ve been to Korea twice and mass transit is big there but cycling is not. Not analogous to Ireland at all.
Hi Colm, You’ll find flexible spaces like this on many EU intercity and regional trains. It is not a baggage car, which is a North American term for what was called a “guard’s van” here. There is no bag storage space in this carriage besides the overhead racks in the normal seating area.
Also, baggage cars or guards’ vans are usually located at the end of a train. This is a walk-through railcar.
The most ridiculous thing about the new carriages is that it is impossible to book the additional bike spaces. Irish Rail say this is because they don’t know in advance which trains will have these carriages! As a result, if a group of six cyclists want to travel on an Intercity train together with their bikes, they have to take pot luck on the extra spaces being available when they show up. And this is after IR spending a lot of taxpayers’ and customers’ money on the new carriages.