A massive motorbike was the only point of interest on the ATGWU picket line at Colbert Station in Limerick yesterday. But the bike was not there for long. "We like to live dangerously," said the train-driver owner before speeding off.
Meanwhile, cold was beginning to creep up on the two remaining picketers, Mr Freddie McInerney and Mr Liam O'Shea, who between them have driven trains for 65 years.
However, their determination to continue the one-day-a-week strike indefinitely was unaffected.
"It will be one day until something happens. I can see something happening. The company and the unions cannot be getting away with what they are doing. They are actually infringing on our constitutional rights," said Mr McInerney.
Mr O'Shea added: "It is the last place in the world we want to be is out here. We want to be inside working our trains."
Bus Eireann drivers refused to pass the picket at the station and buses parked instead on the road outside.
Mr Jim Gallivan, business development manager at the station, said between 1,500 and 2,000 passengers were affected during the day. The scheduled services of freight trains, containing cement from Irish Cement in Mungret, Co Limerick, and container traffic, were also curtailed, along with connecting services from Ennis and Cork.
He added that before the foot-and-mouth scare the service had achieved a 96 per cent punctuality record under the new Passengers Charter but 20 per cent had already been lost this week through the one-day strike.
In Cork and Kerry, some 15,000 rail passengers were forced to make alternative arrangements yesterday because of the strike. In all, 25,000 Iarnrod Eireann customers throughout Munster were left stranded, writes Dick Hogan in Cork.
There were no mainline rail services to or from Cork and Dublin, and connections from Cork to Kerry and from Kerry to Dublin were also cancelled. Pickets were placed outside Kent Station in Cork and at Mallow, but it was obvious from early in the day that the picketers were not receiving any public support in their latest action.