IRISH RAIL IS set to introduce a new non-stop express service from Cork’s Kent Station to Dublin Heuston.

The service will run from Monday to Friday at 6.15am, with a journey time of 2 hours 15 minutes.

The Cork-Dublin route is Irish Rail’s flagship Intercity route, with 2.84 million journeys on the route in 2014- an increase of over 4% on 2013, with growth continuing this year.

Gerry Culligan, Commercial Director of Irish Rail (Iarnród Éireann), said the new service – which is the only non-stop service of its type on the company’s national network – will be particularly useful for businesspeople.

“We intend for this to be the beginning of a series of continuing journey time improvements, including network upgrades to deliver further speed enhancements on all our services, to ensure the train is the most competitive option for you and your business needs,” Culligan said.

Earlier this year, Irish Rail began a programme of line improvement works on the Dublin to Cork line, focusing this year on the section between Hazelhatch and Portlaoise.

The initial investment in 2015 of €10 million in line improvements is expected to lead to higher reliability, smoother running of trains and, with other works, deliver consistent 160km/hour speeds (100 mph/hour) by the end of 2016 on this section.

The company’s ultimate goal is to continue line improvement works over a number of years subject to funding availability, to reduce the Cork to Dublin journey time to 2 hours or less.

Other changes

Irish Rail has also received approval from the National Transport Authority for the following service updates:

• 6am Cork to Dublin Heuston (Mon-Sat) will now depart at 5.55am, and operate 5 to 10 minutes earlier throughout.
• 4.55am Tralee to Mallow (Mon only) will now depart at 4.50am, and operate 5 to 8 minutes earlier throughout.
• 5.15am Westport to Dublin Heuston will now depart at 5.25am, and operate 6 to 10 minutes later throughout.
• 8.09am Newbridge to Dublin Heuston will now depart at 8,11am, and operate 2 minutes later throughout.
• 6.55am Athlone to Dublin Heuston (Sat only) will now depart at 7.05am and operate between 6 and 10 minutes later throughout.

Good news if you use the DART… There’ll soon be more of them

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