Cork Kent – Dublin Hueston Iarnród Éireann – 1st Class

Operator: Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail)

Headcode: N/A

Route:    CRK-DUB

Class:    1^st Class

Seat:     A37

Date:     Friday 13^th September 2024

Whilst I’d started my trip to Ireland by flying from Heathrow to Cork, I was ending it by flying from Dublin to Birmingham and so needed to make my way from Ireland’s south coast to the capital. The easiest way of doing this was by taking an Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) service from Cork Kent station direct to Dublin Hueston. Whilst the vast majority of Iarnród Éireann services are now operated by Diesel or Electric Multiple Units, the Cork to Dublin route is home to one of Ireland’s only remaining loco-hauled services, giving me the chance to try something a little bit different. You can read the other posts from my trip here and here.

The route between Cork and Dublin has 16 daily services (Mon-Fri) in each direction and I was booked on the third departure of the day, the 0700 service, which takes just under two and a half hours to make the journey to the Irish capital. I got to the station really early, almost an hour before departure, and was disappointed to find that despite my 1^st class ticket, there was no 1^st class lounge to wait in, although that is partly my own fault for not checking. Grabbing a coffee in the ticket hall, I was able to see the 0615 non-stop departure to the capital leave and around 10 minutes later the locomotive and carriages forming my service arrived into platform 4.

Boarding around 25 minutes before departure, I found the 1^st class seating in coach A at the front of the train behind the driving van (the opposite end to the loco) and settled into seat 37 for the journey north. As with most inter-city 1^st class in Britain, the 1^st class seating on these Irish inter-city carriages is laid out in a 2-1 configuration with a mix of ‘airline style’ and groups around tables, with every seat having a decent table. Unfortunately, the large seats were not quite as comfy as they looked and ended up being quite hard, however they were still ok for the two-and-a-half-hour journey.

Departing on time at 0700, we headed straight into a tunnel under Cork’s northern suburbs, emerging into the early morning light as the sun began to emerge over the hills of Munster. 1^st class was about a third full on departure from Cork and almost immediately we were offered a complimentary hot drink from the trolley, with the caffeine being greatly appreciated at that time of the morning. Unfortunately, despite a decently long journey, the trolley didn’t make another appearance in 1^st class until we were around 20 minutes from Dublin, by which time most people were getting themselves ready for arrival into the capital.

The journey to Dublin had three scheduled stops, at Mallow, Limerick Junction and Durlas, although depending on which service you catch this can range anywhere from zero to six stops. All services stop at Mallow and Limerick Junction except for the 0615 departure from Cork (which is non-stop) and the 1705 departure from Dublin (which skips Limerick Junction). On my journey, the stop at Mallow about 20 minutes after departing Cork was brief and uneventful and just after 0800 we arrived at Limerick Junction. Here we encountered a short delay as the inter-city trains have booked connections with the trains serving the Limerick branch and the inbound service was running a few minutes late.

Seemingly we had a bit of make-up time in the scheduled as our final stop at Durlas was on time. My general impression of the journey is that it passes through a great amount of countryside and was a pretty smooth ride. Whilst the majority of the Cork mainline is a two-track railway, it does become four-track from Hazelhatch and Celbridge station which sits straddling the border between County Kildare and County Dublin. Even here its very rural and it only really started to get built up as we reached the outskirts of Dublin itself, 5-10 minutes before arrival at Hueston.

The layout of Dublin Hueston is very much what I imagine may mainline terminus stations used to be like, with a large depot in the middle of the station throat, and middle sidings between pairs of platforms. There’s also an interesting loop line that branches off to the northern side of the station throat, connecting this half of the Irish rail network with the other half through Dublin Connelly and there’s a rarely used platform 10 here that is a good way from the rest of the station. Arriving into platform 5 just after the end of the morning peak at 0930 (one minute late), there were a good collection of units, carriages and locomotives stabled in both the depot and the middle sidings as the service levels wound down to off-peak.

All in all this was a pleasant journey in 1^st class with Iarnród Éireann from Cork to Dublin, although I’ll need to try out standard class at some point to see if the upgrade is worth it. With no lounge to wait in and a very limited onboard service, the only real benefit of upgrading is extra space, a more peaceful environment and a cup of coffee. However, the journey was very smooth, certainly much smoother than the journey on the East Coast Mainline during which I’m writing this post and all of the Iarnród Éireann staff I interacted with, from the station staff to the onboard host, were friendly and just generally excellent. Whether you upgrade to 1^st or not, I’d certainly recommend the train as the best way to get between Cork and Dublin.

Lounge              0*

Seat/Facilities     3*

Food                1*

Service             5*

Punctuality         5*

Overall Rating      14/25 (read about my rating system here!)