Mind how you go…
fter a request from Greystones Municipal District, Irish Rail’s Chief 
Executive Jim Meade explained their regular bank holiday work closures…
essential infrastructure for example, tracks, bridges, signalling, overhead lines, or helping third parties with major plans. We work to ensure that any such disruption is minimised, and that the number of customers affected is minimised too.
“Bank holiday weekends in particular facilitate more complex and lengthy works and afford up to three days for completion. This ensures works can take place without impacting on crucial weekday services, when other modes would not have the capacity to cater for additional demand,” he continued.
“These works and their timings are planned many months in advance, and while we appreciate that all works will disrupt some customers, we do endeavour to ensure that they are scheduled to minimise the overall impact. We do this in a number of ways.
“We try to ensure that our busiest lines are unaffected at the busiest times, so weekday works, and particularly at peak, are avoided.
This poses challenges — we’re busier with works than ever before, but there are more events than ever before too.
“We don’t schedule works at St Patrick’s weekend or generally at the August weekend, which are particularly important for tourism. However, the new February bank holiday, Easter, and the May, June and October bank holidays are often used for works.
“We do regret the inconvenience to customers and facilitate alternative bus transfers while these essential works are being undertaken.
undertaken as part of a planned and scheduled maintenance package based on the identified needs and more importantly for the safety of the rail network overall,” he concluded.