Talks between unions and the Department of Transport on CIÉ's future are expected to restart next week, following SIPTU's 11th-hour decision to call off yesterday's transport strike.
The two sides had been due to meet yesterday, but discussions were deferred.
With the exception of about six early-morning DART services in Dublin, disrupted because two drivers failed to turn up, all Iarnród Éireann, Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus services operated as scheduled. The two drivers are members of the NBRU.
SIPTU leaders, meanwhile, were attempting to repair the damage to internal relationships caused by the decision of its senior officers to call off the strike.
The union's CIÉ strike committee had wanted to go ahead with the action and described the decision to cancel it as "treachery".
Officers in its civil aviation branch displayed equal anger at the decision earlier this week, also taken by the union's leadership, to call off a planned six-hour airports stoppage.
The union's president, Mr Jack O'Connor, called on members to take a united stand in defence of the security and quality of employment in the public transport sector.
Contrary to what some members were saying, the leadership was under no illusions about the scale of the threat faced from the Minister for Transport "and other right-wing elements in the Ryanair wing of the present Government", he said.
It could well be that SIPTU would have to take industrial action in defence of members' jobs and to protect essential State infrastructure "from being asset-stripped for the short-term gain of powerful lobbies within society".
"Firstly, however, we must exhaust every possible opportunity to resolve the disputes at Aer Rianta and CIÉ peacefully."
Addressing "confusion" over the reason the strikes were called off, Mr O'Connor said the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, had given significant commitments to the union on his own and Mr Brennan's behalf.
