(Holyhead) "Port 'highly unlikely' to reopen before Christmas" - BBC news article.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y492n55rqo

Mark

 

Nope. Relates to brewer Diagio marketing their beer to Generation Zers without working up capacity needed to meet the increased demand.


My understanding ios that they *are* honouring RailSail tickets booked in advance for these dates via Fishguard-Dublin at no extra costs. They aren't selling any morer however. Possibly waiting to see whether they return to Holyhead on 20th?

 

Extra trains at a time when GWR (for certain) are finding it impossible to staff even the trains they are 'committed to' in their timetable seems optimistic.  And the transport industry should honour the pricing / ticketing they have in place when there are diversions from the scheduled routes and timetables due to no fault of the passenger.  Again, the GWR examples suggest you have to know this, with online systems failing to offer fares at the normal rate when they don't have enough staff to run direct services.


I can cap that - I think it was six runs one day - frightful delay and with two competing ferry companies the bus of the second one that didn't have a high volume of foot passenergs parked up without helping once he had loaded his boat!

 
Ouch!

This ls also goes some way to explain the Guinness shortages in the pubs of England and Wales?

On a more serious note it illustrates the danger of putting too many eggs in one basket I remember crossing from Liverpool and from Moistyn to Dublin during my working career so wasn't all that long ago.

There are more crossings these days from France to Ireland and I think to Spain - encouraged by the choice made by the British to remove themselves from the previously much closer economic ties.

 
The jetty at Salt Island in Holyhead sustained damage during Storm Darragh last weekend. The jetty has a berth on either side of it which is used by Stena Line and Irish Ferries. All ferry services between Holyhead and Dublin (and vice versa) have been suspended since.

The closure is having a significant impact on the carriage of freight, delays to parcels as well as the disruption to motorists and foot passengers on the Irish Sea's Central Corridor.

One of the most notable developments to alleviate this situation has been the introduction, by Stena Line, of a route from Fishguard to Dublin open for all traffic viz. freight, motorists & foot passengers.

There is one crossing per day at 09:00 ex Fishguard and 23:00 ex Dublin. The crossing takes 6.5 to 7 hours and is operated by the Stena Adventurer (which usually sails Dublin-Holyhead). There are photos on the Western Telegraph site of the ship alongside and towering above the harbour station.

The Fishguard - Rosslare route is also running as per its usual sailing schedule.
Irish Ferries have deployed the larger ship, James Joyce, on their Rosslare - Pembroke Dock. Stena Line are operating their other Dublin-Holyhead route ship, Stena Estrid, on a freight-only service to/from Birkenhead.

News reports and ferry operator websites point towards a reopening date for Holyhead Port of next Friday, 20th December but there doesn't seem to be much optimism in this happening. This situation will be inconvenient for many cross-channel passengers. How can the best be made of this situation? Given the potential for this to continue into Spring 2025 what measures can TfW Rail and GWR implement to assist passengers?

* For the ship arriving at Fishguard from Dublin at 06:00 there is an onwards train at 06:50 M-S (but nothing on Sundays till lunchtime)

* For the sailing leaving Fishguard at 09:00 travel to Fishguard by rail from further east than Carmarthen is impractical (without overnighting in local accommodation). Similarly there's no early-morning train on Sundays.

* As Holyhead-Dublin SailRail ticketing is meaningless at this juncture can temporary SailRail ticketing via Fishguard-Dublin be put in place? The sea journey from Fishguard to Dublin is nearly 100 nautical miles and, understandably, some fares appear to be marginally higher than they are for Holyhead - Dublin. This would need to be factored in but other than that the same rail zones for fare purposes can be used as if coming from/going to Rosslare.

* It's been my experience that foot passenger traffic can fluctuate considerably - I've been on journeys requiring two busy runs of the shuttle bus (full-sized single decker) at Rosslare to bring passengers onto the Fishguard ship but equally been one of a mere five foot passengers on the evening crossing to Fishguard once. Lots of folk still use the ferry coming up to Christmas so perhaps additional capacity will be needed on some trains.