I first became a regular user of Irish trains in the 1990s, when college took me to Dublin from my home in Co Tipperary.
On Sunday evenings, the train stations in Templemore and Thurles would be jammed with young students waiting to, somehow, cram themselves and their backpacks on to a diesel locomotive. As the train had originated in Cork or Tralee or Limerick, a seat was rarely still vacant by the time it crossed the border into Tipperary.
Back then, Heuston station felt like a suburb of Dublin – certainly not part of the centre of a city. The onward journey from there to whatever flatland area the student was renting was another, often long, adventure.
The return leg on a Friday evening was equally chaotic.
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