Dublin; Saturday, 01 August, 2009

I had a quick breakfast and then negotiated the walk ways over the motor-way back to the tram stop.

Unfortunately, as it was a bank holiday weekend, the tram was partially closed to enable extension works to go ahead, consequently I had to walk the final two stops past Busaras to Connolly station to catch the “Enterprise” service to Belfast

The Enterprise service is run jointly by Iarnród Éireann and Northern Ireland Railways providing the only cross border train service in Ireland. It’s got a reputation for being a symbol of cooperation during the worst of the troubles.

It also has a reputation for being habitually late, and this morning was no difference. The inbound train from Belfast should have arrived at 09:55 when I got to Connolly station and a little after 10:15 it still hadn’t arrived; in fact it didn’t arrive until gone 10:30.

A very quick clean later (and not enough time to put the reservation cards in, I was quite glad I was at the front of the queue so I was still able to get the seat I wanted), and they started boarding us at a little after 10:40.

We pulled out on time, and appeared to be going smoothly, for the first two minutes, until we found ourselves behind a stopping train all the way to Howth Junction, we then picked up speed, but by the time we crossed the border we were already 10 minutes late.