[wiredfool]

Ireland: Hold my Guinness.

At least Germany has trains that go places. Ireland ripped most of their tracks out in the 50's and now there are two separate rail networks that are "joined" by taxi between Heuston and Connoly station in Dublin. Going from Sligo to Ballina (both on the west coast) means going through Dublin. I don't think any airport in Ireland is served by rail.

[rsynnott]

Fun fact; there used to be about _six_ terminus stations. Harcourt and Broadstone are gone, though parts of their lines have become parts of the luas system. Pearse used to be a terminus, but the loop line in the 19th century linked it in to Connolly, and it’s now a through station. Connolly used to be two separate termini for different companies, which is why it has such an anwkward internal layout.

There was supposed to be another ‘loop line’ linking Connolly to Heuston, but it never happened; DART Underground was also supposed to do that, but was cancelled. They just have a luas for now. The 2050 plan contains yet _another_ Heuston-Connolly link. Separately, Dart+ SW will provide a link from Connolly to a new station beside Heuston, which will be called Heuston West, presumably for maximum confusion of tourists. Trains from Connolly actually pass Heuston platform 10 (note that there is no platform 9 and never has been), but do not stop there.

The “loads of terminals in slightly awkward places” thing was actually a somewhat common feature of Victorian rail, but in most places they were at some point either consolidated or linked via metro. Irish Rail is simply preserving the highly inconvenient past :)

The worst bit is, it is likely that in the next couple of decades, Dublin will need a third terminus, because Connolly is more or less at capacity (and will be overcapacity after Dart+ is finished in 2030 or so) and can’t realistically be made larger.