Earlier quoted context omitted.
NI gets slightly messy; do you include the Enterprise service to Dublin? If so, only the ones run by Translink, or also the ones run by Irish Rail? (The Dublin-Belfast service is a particularly weird train service in that it has _two_ operators, with joint ownership of the rolling stock). You can also buy tickets from either operator, but you have to buy tickets from the operator in the country that you're leaving (e…
NI gets very messy! They had so many lines once and between the Troubles and cuts, they lost many of them. (The cross-border canal system was even more neglected.) The NI trains run on a different gauge from here (this came up yesterday when someone was talking about the possibility of a train between Scotland and there. The train to Dublin is way slower than it should be. The trains within the Republic tend to be mu…
There is, FWIW, a plan to improve that (https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/06/22/funding-to-cut...), though mostly on the Republic side of the border.
(The Rail 2050 plan plans to bring it dow further to 90 minutes, and up the frequency to once every 30 mins from once an hour, but that's fairly speculative at this point.)