Right, something I want to mouth off about here. It involves Irish Rail and the procedure with which people in possession of Free Travel Passes are meant to follow to use the train.

So, last Thursday morning (the one with the random snow) I was heading in towards college, hitching a life with my mom who at the time was going… well, somewhere. Half expecting to get off somewhere in Blanch and get a bus to town, firstly I realised the time, and then the fact that she was going via Carpenterstown. So I then decided to give the train a shot, since it would get me into Drumcondra much quicker than a bus into town and then back out would have.

Walking up into the station, fumbling around trying to figure out which pocket I had my pass in. As I’m going by the side windows of the ticket office, I see them shut, which I find to be quite odd, as it’s only 9.20. Round the corner – and the main shutters of the office are closed as well. Well, that’s just fucking brilliant…

The one annoying thing about train travel with the Free Travel Pass, is the absolute need for a manned ticket office to be open in order to get a ticket, as there’s no way otherwise to get through the ticket barriers onto the platform (well, except for hopping them of course). It’s also annoying how the ticket vending machines have no option for people with their pass to get their ticket from it. It’s as if Irish Rail haven’t put any thought into designing their system for passholders.

So I did a little searching around to try and piece together some things. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t seem to have a decent enough result for "irish rail free travel pass ticket office closed", and rather annoyingly has links to the Irish Rail website which just says "Free Travel Pass". However, I did find some half-decent links out there with regards to others in a similar situation.

• Firstly, a link to Irish Rail’s "Guide for Rail Passengers with Disabilites" (PDF). On page 4 (really page 5…), it states:
  

  Free Travel Passes must be produced at the ticket office in order to receive a valid ticket to travel on the train.

  Fat lot of fucking help when there’s no open ticket office.
  The same sort of thing is repeated on the passenger charter.

• A link to a thread on RailUsers.ie, detailing how Irish Rail were forced to pay compensation to a visually impaired man in possession of a Free Travel Pass as well as review their policies on the matter – because of the fact they don’t provide social welfare tickets for any day other than the one you’re getting the ticket on.
• A link to a report on the accessibility of public transport in Ireland for people with disabilities. On page 14, section 2.2.2:
  

  All People with disabilities in Ireland have a free travel pass but must get a ticket for travelling on both long distance and intercity trains. Ticket vending machines are not accessible for disabled people.

  Nail on the head right there.

• And finally, the least "on topic" of all of these, a link to a thread in the Commuting and Transport forum on Boards from three years ago. While not necessarily about the Free Travel Pass, it still highlights the fact that passengers might not have a choice in the matter when there’s no way to get a ticket at the station, either by the office being closed or vending machines being out or the like; and how staff at Irish Rail react to such a situation.

All in all, stuff giving out shit about this.

Oh, in the end I ended up just buying a single ticket from the vending machine there, as I wasn’t going to try "fare-dodge" and risk getting caught – which I wouldn’t have by the way. Thankfully I actually had enough change in my wallet to be able to buy the €2 ticket…

And on a related note, I see Dublin Bus are still sticking with the whole "you need the photo ID, period" sort of attitude after another ticket inspector on the 70 recently; all despite the fact that it is specifically mentions living in Dublin, not Meath. They really should get it changed to say something along the lines of "In order to utilise Dublin Bus services, and Bus Eireann city services in (whatever the other cities are), you need this photo ID". Although at least the inspector was a bit more passé about it and just kindly mentioned to me that I "only have to go to O’Connell St. It’ll take 3 minutes." Rather than the situation of the driver almost not letting me get the last bus back home from town one night.