Sail Rail Ticket - they seem completely unavailable now and I need one for May 23rd!

[NLC1072]

As in the title,

There are no booking engines that can sell me a Sail Rail ticket from PAD to Rosslare Europort for May 23rd for the day time sailing. It's not that they are sold out, I am told as the standby ticket should be still available. Anybody have any knowledge?

 

[Haywain]

Are there any websites that sell Sail Rail tickets for other dates?

 

[NLC1072]

Nothing on any website for the entire week, seems the ticket is missing from the system for some reason?

 

[Haywain]

I think your problem might be the lack of a valid connection at Fishguard. From London you would take the 07:48 from Paddington to Swansea (10:34) and then the 10:58 to Fishguard Harbour which arrives at 12:26. The minimum connection time there is 35 minutes and the ferry (according to the Stena website) leaves at 13:00. As there is no valid connection, for the sake of 1 minute, you won't be able to get a valid itinerary. Which is, I guess, a bit of a ...

 

[Gaelan]

Trainsplit seems willing to sell the standby tickets, although with a horrendous itinerary involving leaving Paddington at 23:32 the night before - is there really not a more sensible boat train?

It's also worth contacting Stena and TfW (who puts the boats into the timetable) to see if advance tickets are going to become available - I know there were some issues with booking the Belfast SailRail after the timetable change, and the same thing may be happening here.

 

[kkong]

ScotRail will sell SailRail Standby Single (£57.00) for the daytime sailing on 23rd May.

Of course this means leaving Paddington late on the 22nd so that you can make the Swansea to Fishguard train.

 

[Gaelan]

I think your problem might be the lack of a valid connection at Fishguard. From London you would take the 07:48 from Paddington to Swansea (10:34) and then the 10:58 to Fishguard Harbour which arrives at 12:26. The minimum connection time there is 35 minutes and the ferry (according to the Stena website) leaves at 13:00. As there is no valid connection, for the sake of 1 minute, you won't be able to get a valid itinerary. Which is, I guess, a bit of a ...

Ah, that explains it. Seems like the best bet is to book a flexible ticket then chance the 34-minute connection.

 

[NLC1072]

I think your problem might be the lack of a valid connection at Fishguard. From London you would take the 07:48 from Paddington to Swansea (10:34) and then the 10:58 to Fishguard Harbour which arrives at 12:26. The minimum connection time there is 35 minutes and the ferry (according to the Stena website) leaves at 13:00. As there is no valid connection, for the sake of 1 minute, you won't be able to get a valid itinerary. Which is, I guess, a bit of a ...

Ah this will be the problem in, for the sake of one minute.
I may just book a standby ticket for the same days date and hope for the best!

Thank you.

 

[Gaelan]

Someone should give TfW a poke, as this is almost certainly an oversight - surely the whole point of that train is to connect with the ferry!

 

[NLC1072]

Someone should give TfW a poke, as this is almost certainly an oversight - surely the whole point of that train is to connect with the ferry!

I have been on the phone with them, even with escalations, they seemed friendly enough but pointed me to telesales in the end. They said they couldn't help me, the telesales team were down right rude And yes the point of that train is indeed to connect with the ferry, they even run it as an express headcode to make sure.

 

[Haywain]

I have been on the phone with them, even with escalations, they seemed friendly enough but pointed me to telesales in the end. They said they couldn't help me,

I doubt they have any idea what the cause of this is. It just happens to coincide with the timetable change, so I think a letter pointing out the specifics of the problem might well be in order. The ideal solution is probably to reduce the minimum connection time to 34 minutes, rather than trying to retime the train, but I have no expertise in this and am just guessing.

 

[Gaelan]

Sent TfW a twitter DM - I don't have experience with TfW in particular but in general the social media people are fairly good at what they do.

And got a reply: "Hi Gaelan. Thanks for noticing this. I'll report this to our train planning team."

 

[NLC1072]

Sent TfW a twitter DM - I don't have experience with TfW in particular but in general the social media people are fairly good at what they do.

And got a reply: "Hi Gaelan. Thanks for noticing this. I'll report this to our train planning team."

Thank you!

 

[Haywain]

Hi Gaelan. Thanks for noticing this. I'll report this to our train planning team

Oh, so you get the credit!

 

[Hadders]

Back in Arriva days I managed to get their timetable planning people to amend a train when the Fishguard to Swansea early boat train was 1 minute short of the connection time into a London train.

 

[Gaelan]

Back in Arriva days I managed to get their timetable planning people to amend a train when the Fishguard to Swansea early boat train was 1 minute short of the connection time into a London train.

Shame they didn't learn their lesson and have a way to make sure those connections remain valid! Seems like timetabling software should really have a way to track a list of intended connections…

 

[danm14]

Unfortunately this appears to be an intentional change rather than a mistake.

It is actually an increase in the minimum connection time at Rosslare Harbour (from 30 to 35 minutes) invalidating the previously valid connection from the 12:26 arrival, rather than a retiming of the train or ferry.

The minimum connection time has also increased at Holyhead, but there it has not invalidated any previously valid connections.

 

[Gaelan]

Perhaps a little late for you now, but the connection time at Fishguard Harbour has now been reduced back down to 30 minutes, making the connection valid again.

 

[father_jack]

Perhaps a little late for you now, but the connection time at Fishguard Harbour has now been reduced back down to 30 minutes, making the connection valid again.

I never noticed there was a thread here but the real thank you should be to @father_jack . That and also a few ferries that were always operating being totally missing from Sailrail systems.

All becomes entirely solved from 30th of June when the day sailing becomes a 1400 departure. What happens as a result to the other connections I do not know and maybe there will be a separate thread created by someone closer to the area .

 

[30907]

I never noticed there was a thread here but the real thank you should be to @father_jack . That and also a few ferries that were always operating being totally missing from Sailrail systems.

All becomes entirely solved from 30th of June when the day sailing becomes a 1400 departure. What happens as a result to the other connections I do not know and maybe there will be a separate thread created by someone closer to the area .

View attachment 136138

The answer is that it makes the 2215 train to Swansea pretty pointless

 

[kkong]

I never noticed there was a thread here but the real thank you should be to @father_jack . That and also a few ferries that were always operating being totally missing from Sailrail systems.

All becomes entirely solved from 30th of June when the day sailing becomes a 1400 departure. What happens as a result to the other connections I do not know and maybe there will be a separate thread created by someone closer to the area .

View attachment 136138

So the 14:00 ex Fishguard will be no use for onward rail travel from Rosslare Europort - the last train leaves at 17:30!

 

[paul1609]

Ive never done Fishguard to Ireland but does anybody actually use these services? The ORR figures suggest that Fishguard Harbour station had around 13k passengers pa pre pandemic, down to 5k in 20-21 that's under 20 a day, many of whom must be for the local area Id have thought?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Ive never done Fishguard to Ireland but does anybody actually use these services? The ORR figures suggest that Fishguard Harbour station had around 13k passengers pa pre pandemic, down to 5k in 20-21 that's under 20 a day, many of whom must be for the local area Id have thought?

Fishguard Harbour basically only serves the harbour. The locals will use Fishguard and Goodwick (or their car ).

 

[paul1609]

Fishguard Harbour basically only serves the harbour. The locals will use Fishguard and Goodwick (or their car ).

Ah, the only time Ive ever been there was to walk the Pembroke Coast Path and it was the only station but 18 tickets a day doesn't really sound like it makes sense to worry about rail connections off a late night ferry to me.

 

[Sleepy]

and to think there used to be an overnight HST to Paddington from Fishguard !

 

[HamworthyGoods]

and to think there used to be an overnight HST to Paddington from Fishguard !

But there never used to be zillions of cheap Ryanair flights back then…

 

[Flying Snail]

Ive never done Fishguard to Ireland but does anybody actually use these services? The ORR figures suggest that Fishguard Harbour station had around 13k passengers pa pre pandemic, down to 5k in 20-21 that's under 20 a day, many of whom must be for the local area Id have thought?

But how accurate are those stats, do they include the Irish issued tickets that have no interaction with the GB ticketing system and would require somebody to be bothered enough to enter manually?

As above, there is very little within walking distance, especially as Fishguard and Goodwick was reopened there is little reason for many non ferry passengers to use FGH.

 

[cyclebike]

does anybody actually use these services?

Not many, I think. I did the trip back in January 2020. En-route from Swansea to Fishguard, the guard got a message that the sailing was cancelled but that passengers should still proceed to Fishguard Harbour for alternative transport. Can't remember if it was weather or an issue with the boat.

Must have been about 5-10 pax off the train and maybe another 3 foot passengers who had travelled separately to Fishguard. Stena arranged a full-size coach for us which then took us onwards to Pembroke Dock for the Irish Ferries sailing. This was all fairly smooth (apart from the crossing itself!), but of course we then made Rosslare after the last train had left, so I had to shell out for a taxi to Wexford (he only took cash, fortunately I just had enough € on me!) from where I could get the coach onwards to Dublin....

 

[reb0118]

I did this route on my Edinburgh - London - Cardiff - Fishgard - Rosslare - Wexford - Dublin - Belfast - Cairnryan - Stranraer - Troon - Glasgow - Edinburgh trip a few years back.

It was a Friday and the boat train from Cardiff was quite heavily loaded with about 60 or 70 passengers transferring to the ferry - of those about 10 to 15 also boarded the IR service to Wexford and points North.

 

[James H]

We did SailRail on this route in 2018. So far as I remember there was a respectable number of passengers at Fishguard.

Bet not many Elephant & Castle to Rosslare tickets get sold though