Irish Rail strike days

I am fully behind the drivers on this one.

This whole financial mess comes down to one big thing in my opinion - IE not being reimbursed properly for all the passengers who are travelling with DSP passes. How can any company operate when they are not getting the correct Revenue in.

Passenger numbers have dropped in recent years, but the number of DSP passengers most definitely has not and has probably even gone up. It has been the day to day regular full fare paying customers that have disappeared because of the recession, and along with them, their vital Revenue.

The government controls the subvention to Irish Rail. It is Fine Gael and Labour who are forcing this situation. While I fully understand the precarious situation that the economy was / is in, this is not the fault of IE drivers and frontline staff. It says something when a country we are more than happy to pay the bankers huge money to let the nurses / guards / teachers etc get hammered for something that is not their making.

The whole way IE has been run in the last 10 years has been a shambles. I could go on and on all day about it. Frontline staff have been wiped out. Most passengers are lucky to see another staff member apart from the driver these days or the catering attendant (whose works for a private company). Yet the number of managers has increased year on year!

The staff that are still on the frontline are being relied on to work a huge number of rest days throughout the year to keep the service going. I wouldn't like in my job if was expected to come in for about 15 Saturdays or Sundays over the year to keep things afloat. I have a life! It is this extra overtime that is running up the wage bill causing more problems.

A few cost saving measures from the top of my head for IE management when they are reading this! :

1: Stop the paint job on the 29000s.

2: Stop the renumbering of the fleet in UIC numbers - Trust me there is no worries that an 071 or an ICR will be wandering off this island any time soon.

3. Stop having Dundalk drivers doing the Enterprise, that will mean you are not paying drivers to travel passenger to / from Connolly on certain jobs. This will eliminate the ridiculous carry on of having an 071 being used as a "taxi" every Saturday night.

4: Fix diagrams up so the amount of ECS movements to/from Portlaoise every day is sorted.

5: Protect Revenue on the DART/Commuter in Dublin. It is currently a free for all when the skeleton staff that remain are not there.

6: People are afraid to get the train, because they know the walk up fares are extortionate. There should be an off peak fare structure. €30 return max to anywhere in the country if travelling on off peak services. Full fares still apply if you turn up looking to go to Cork on a Friday evening for example.

7:Stop running 8 car 29000s on a large number of services to / from Dublin during the day. (I know space is a premium and sets have to end up in the right place, but it can be done better than it currently is. You did it with the DART)

8: Have a root and branch review of what ALL your staff ACTUALLY do everyday. I am sure there is a huge amount of duplication in work that is being done.

The list could go on and on!

Anyway, best of luck to the staff on strike, it is not easy. I'll be on my bike for work as the buses will be rammed.

Semi-State companies can't have it both ways.

The money isn't there, the business isn't there and the taxpayer's money certainly isn't there.

Infini2 wrote: »

No chance of it beforehand Franks fecking off on holidays sums up Managements attitude to the workers ie. Go strike I couldnt give a toss.
As for after unless they back off on the pay cuts and the goverment stops playing politics I cant see anything but an escalation happening.

As for the public most people seem to understand the situation much as its an inconvenience but can see we got little other option but to stand up for ourselves.

in fairness you do seem to have a lot of support which is good, but on the radio only the begrudgers get most of the airtime

bikeman1 wrote: »

Fix diagrams up so the amount of ECS movements to/from Portlaoise every day is sorted.

i thought they were eliminated with the portlaoise commuter service? a service who's existance is one of the excuses as to why 29s still run to rosslare and sligo.

Marhay70 wrote: »

I can never understand this argument. If free travel is withdrawn my guess is that most recipients of the FTP just won't travel, that leaves IR still running the services, still paying the wage bill, still paying the fuel and maintenance bill on rolling stock and track but doing all that without the subvention. The only solution at that point is to cut services and staff, how will that help?

CIE get less than €100 per year for each free travel pass, which gives unlimited free travel on IE,DB & BE.

If the free pass was abolished in the morning and all of these free travelers stayed at home all week and only went out once a week to do the shopping and used the DART.
The lowest fare possible is €1.70 with LEAP.
Once into town and back home for a total cost of €3.40 .
52 weeks at €3.40 for a total of €176.80 for one journey a week on the DART.

Is it any wonder the prices are going up each year for fare paying passengers, someone has got to pay for the free travel.

Banjoxed wrote: »

Believe you? I believe you have an axe to grind against the railways for some reason, that's what I believe.

You're personalising the argument. I quite enjoy travelling by train as it happens.

Infini2 wrote: »

Actually having staff in the stations DOES have an effect. Having even one man there will put potential gurriers off because if they act the maggot the guy there in the station will catch wind and tell em to either get lost or call the guards to eject them. With noone there they got free reign of the place and noone will notice therye there until something is wrecked and thats before taking into account potential travellers being intimidated out of going to the place.

As for the guy who got stranded in howth jct and had to be helped off the train thats the issue nailed in the head. Noone manning the place becase of lack of staff and equipment locked up because of gurriers wrecking/stealing them.

While not confirmed I heard from one or two people Raheny was unmanned the day that poor woman got run over by the train. If thats turns out to be true that would be another reason why you shouldnt have stations unmanned.

How would Raheny being manned prevented what happened to the poor woman?

Marhay70 wrote: »

I can never understand this argument. If free travel is withdrawn my guess is that most recipients of the FTP just won't travel, that leaves IR still running the services, still paying the wage bill, still paying the fuel and maintenance bill on rolling stock and track but doing all that without the subvention. The only solution at that point is to cut services and staff, how will that help?

That would make train travel that little bit safer.

Infini2 wrote: »

Because someone couldve helped her down to the platform and onto a dart instead of her making her way down by herself. Thats one of the reasons you have people in these stations for. As I said Ive only heard it was had been unmanned but my point is valid if confirmed.

She did the journey daily and didnt fall trying to get onto the train. A lot of visually impaired passengers travel daily and require no assistance they either dont ask or refuse. One travels daily and requires no assistance as he does his own thing, he fell onto the tracks one day and after that ,staff kept making sure he was ok etc . The result was him taking a case against IR for infringing on his independence . No win situation.

You point is valid for as long you want it to be .

Infini2 wrote: »

Because someone couldve helped her down to the platform and onto a dart instead of her making her way down by herself. Thats one of the reasons you have people in these stations for. As I said Ive only heard it had been unmanned but my point is valid if confirmed.

No it wouldn't, we don't know the exact details but it was an accident and IE are likely not at fault. They have raised bumps on the platform. It could be medically related if the women took a turn.

Whats with all the Free pass allowance bashing, do you all think that is the cause of the problem?

It is the problem, well at least 90% of it!

now they've gone and ruined the bosses holidays....
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/irish-rail-boss-to-return-from-holiday-early-to-deal-with-rail-strike-30526388.html

Irish Rail boss to return from holiday early to deal with rail strike

I think you'll find that if passenger numbers dropped that dramatically again that the NTA would be drafting revised timetables that reflected demand which would equate to service cuts.

You can dress it up all you like, but the core problem is that the companies' business collapsed. That's the reason for the losses.

The companies were left with a cost base that was too high and which was based on the previous demand levels. The business dropped almost 10% in one year, but costs didn't. That's a total mismatch that left the companies in dire straits.

You can believe in your own world that the FTS is to blame, but that's only a small part of this. The fundamental fact is that the business collapsed but costs were not paired back fast enough.

I'd also argue that the paying customer has paid a far bigger price than anyone (including employees) in all of this in terms of the percentage annual fare increases which have been the main source of the shortfall in PSO subsidy. We have paid a far higher price in terms of our transport costs than any staff member on terms of payroll cuts, plus anyone working in the private sector has had to pay a higher percentage pay cut on top of that.