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18th June 2018
09:07am BST
We asked our readers to provide their best Irish Rail stories, for a chance to win a €500 voucher for train journeys around Ireland. Vote for your favourite at the bottom of this article! Here's story #1 from Holly...
"I was travelling down to Limerick to go to college, as I'd just missed the bus, and the next one wasn't for another hour. I got onto the train and an older gentleman sat down beside me.
"Straight away he started chatting to me about how excited he was to be on the train. He said he and his daughter hadn't always seen eye to eye and it affected him seeing his grandchildren, who were now about my age. He talked about it all for about 30 minutes, talking about all the activities he had planned for all of them, like going for lunch in a lovely café and visiting the funfair. We then talked about his life and mine and became great friends.
"But then he got a phone call about 10 minutes before we arrived — his face fell and he looked on the verge of tears. When he came off the call I asked was he all right and he told me that his grandchildren had cancelled as they had 'other plans'.
"I was devastated for him and clearly he was too. I said his grandchildren were foolish to miss out on time with family. I asked him if he would still like to go for coffee and he did, where we talked some more. It turned out he flew with my own grandfather in the RAF.
"After a short while, we parted ways as I had to go to college and he had to go home. As we said our goodbyes, he shook my hand and thanked me so genuinely. He said he hadn't chatted to someone like that for years and he was glad that not every person from my generation had lost family values."
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