Midland railway commuters from Dublin felt their complaints had been vindicated this week when the new commuter trains were introduced.
Since January Midlands commuters have been warning Iarnrod Eireann that they did not want a commuter service if it was going to be a second-class one.
Their preference was to remain on the mainline trains which service Portlaoise and Tullamore, Portarlington and Moate. They lost the battle.
However, Iarnrod Eireann, which has banished the commuters from the inter-city trains, lost the first day of the battle very heavily on the trip to Tullamore.
"It was everything we expected it to be - bad. The train was, as we expected, late, and everything lived up to our nightmare," said the spokesman for the 100 or so Tullamore commuters, Mr Ger Hayden.
"The train to Dublin on Monday morning was all right but the commuter train down on Monday evening was 15 minutes late which meant we arrived home 45 minutes later than normal," he said.
He said the train used by the company was an antique and one of the carriages had a leak in it and the rain was wetting the seats.
He explained that as the new commuter service now leaves Dublin later than the inter-city train and services all the stations in between, an additional half-hour is added to the journey.
"I know that some people have already given up. They have taken to travelling by coach or by car and a number of them have moved back to Dublin or got jobs locally," he said.
Mr Martin Dunne, chairman of the Portlaoise Rail Commuters' Action Committee, said that the quality of the carriages in the commuter train was dreadful.
"We are meeting the managing director of Iarnrod Eireann on Friday to express our frustration at the way the new service is lengthening our working day," he said. "There is no reason why we cannot be accommodated on the inter-city trains and it makes good sense to look after regular customers," he said.
"It appears that the company is more interested in looking after long-haul passengers and ignoring us. We cannot understand the reluctance to cater for customers who want to use the service," he added.