EACH evening, during rush hour, observant rail commuters may catch a glimpse of Ireland's ultimate 'ghost train', an empty dart running non-stop from Howth to Bray, apparently oblivious to those standing on station platforms.

Although dismissed by many as an isolated anomaly caused by some maintenance requirement, it is actually the most high-profile of the many empty services run each day by state rail company Iarnród Éireann.

Despite rising fuel prices and commuter anger over its fares, the company's empty services now clock up over 500,000km per annum – enough to get to the moon and a third of the way back.

Commuter group Rail Users Ireland estimate these services cost €5m annually, five times more than an apparently cash-strapped Iarnród Éireann will raise from its recent introduction of pay parking at stations in the greater Dublin area.

Every part of the country is affected, according to an internal timetable obtained by the Sunday Tribune, and many of the empty trains cover significant gaps in current passenger services.

These include late services to Dublin from Drogheda, Longford and Maynooth, early Dart services to Greystones and early commuter links to Enfield and Maynooth.

Most controversially, they include the infamous empty rush hour Dart, which Iarnród Éireann says is designed to facilitate later services from Bray, as well as a late evening service from Dublin to Portlaoise, which leaves the city at 10pm each night.

At the moment, the last service to Portlaoise leaves at 9pm, according to Mark Gleeson of Rail Users Ireland.

"Last year, the company gave a commitment to a group of commuters in Portlaoise to provide a later evening service to the town in the 2008 timetable. Subsequently, the commitment was withdrawn," he said.

"There is now an empty train on the route at the required time, so the cost of the train, the fuel and the driver is already covered, raising the question of why they aren't allowing passengers to use it."

Indeed, Iarnród Éireann recently allowed passengers to travel on a number of previously empty morning services on the Maynooth line after coming under pressure from NUI Maynooth and local TDs.

According to Gleeson, many other empty trains could easily be run as passenger services with the possibility of significant improvements in services through minor rescheduling.

"With continued chronic overcrowding and the absence of late evening services to many commuter towns around Dublin, it is an absolute insult to discover that Iarnród Éireann prefers to run empty trains than provide much-needed services," he said.

Although services on the Maynooth, Drogheda and Dart lines tend to get more attention, the most significant empty mileage is clocked up on commuter services to Carlow, Gorey and Arklow with just four services on these lines accounting for almost 20% of the annual total.

Three of these services, accounting for over 70,000km of empty travel per year, run in the early hours of the morning between Dublin and the three locations so the company can operate commuter services.

This is due to Iarnród Éireann's refusal to locate drivers in the towns in a perverse echo of a previous controversy after it emerged the company was spending €70,000 per year on taxis to ferry drivers from Dublin to Longford so they could run early morning trains. When this went public in 2002, the company argued it was cheaper than running empty trains. Now, it claims running empty trains is more efficient than the alternatives.

"The argument that it would be more efficient to locate these trains at these stations and have mini-depots is deeply flawed," said a spokesman.

"It would be hugely inefficient for Iarnród Éireann to have small depot locations with a requirement for one or two drivers, as rostering would have to ensure that we had sufficient cover. We can make best use of driver resources and time by quickly despatching trains in early morning from large depots, to get trains into position for the morning peak time requirements."

The company has a history of shunning minor investment work which would cut its fuel costs and improve efficiency.

The most notorious example of this was the shuttle service between Ballina and Manulla Junction which continued on empty to Claremorris, 16km down the line, to turn around due to the lack of facilities at Manulla. This manoeuvre went on for almost 20 years until it ended last year.

However, services terminating in Balbriggan, Co Dublin, still go through a similar ritual on a daily basis.

Due to Iarnród Éireann's reluctance to invest in trackwork at the station, each service has to run empty to the disused railway station at Mosney, Co Meath, over 6km away, to turn around, using up 6,600km worth of fuel each year in the process. In the process they pass Gormanstown, which has the worst service of any northern line station.

"Just to keep this in context, there are only three trains a day which terminate in Balbriggan. It's not a wholesale operation. Any alterations to track layout would be examined in the context of electrification of the northern line," said its spokesman.

The spokesman added that the remainder of empty trains running throughout the Dublin commuter network operated to facilitate maintenance work.

"All diesel railcars must undergo a basic examination every 48 hours and to ensure this work can be carried out timely, trains are brought back empty to ensure this happens."

He said this examination lasted four hours and said there was no demand for additional passenger services anyway, particularly late in the evening. "If there was a genuine demand for late evening city-bound services from locations, we would of course re-examine this, but there is no indication that such a demand exists, certainly not of a level to justify ticket checker, station or security staffing costs which would result."

Others are less convinced. Fergus O'Dowd, Fine Gael's transport spokesman, called for an independent inquiry into Iarnród Éireann's operations.

"It is a disgrace that so many commuters that could benefit from these empty trains can't get them. They are ripping off customers with pay parking charges at stations while funding hugely inefficient activities, wasting huge amounts of fuel and causing considerable emissions in the process," he said.

1. No train to Greystones

Greystones, the southernmost point of Dublin's Dart system, is completely inaccessible by train from the city until 8.25am. However, the internal timetable reveals six empty trains running to the town each morning. Iarnród Éireann claims there is minimal demand for morning services to Greystones, even though it runs trains to nearby Bray from 6.30am.

2. Escape from Carlow

One of the oddities of Iarnród Éireann's current timetabling system is a three-and-a-half hour gap in services from Carlow during rush hour each day. Even odder, an empty train leaves Carlow heading for Dublin during the gap. Although the 7.05pm service is actually destined for a depot in Portlaoise, it has to stop in Kildare where passengers could connect with services into the city.

3. Never on Saturdays

Empty trains are not only a staple of weekday services – Saturdays throw up a number of additional long-distance empty trips, most notably an empty Intercity service from Galway to Dublin, which departs at 6.12am – two hours earlier than the first official service. Meanwhile, the 5.05am service from Athlone to Dublin, which runs on weekdays, does its trip empty due to "lack of demand."

4. The reverse rush hour

Each morning, the majority of commuter trains arriving into Dublin from Drogheda and Dundalk return empty, rather than stay in the city and run later passenger-carrying services. By doing so, they rack up almost 85,000km of empty mileage a year. According to Iarnród Éireann, they have to return for maintenance examinations, ensuring later services run reliably.