Striking train drivers in Cork

KC61 wrote: »

Unfortunately there are more cancellations, but all Dublin, Sligo, Limerick, Waterford and Rosslare based duties, along with DART and Commuter services in the Dublin area are still running.

That was not what was implied last night on that board.

Carlow trains running this morning but for how long? Anyone think they will also be cancelled?

I really hope not, but i fear they might be

"Covert" is in getting the trainee to shadow someone during normal duties?

MOH wrote: »

Think he was actually addressing Covert in his reply?

That will be it, MOH; by name not nature

MOH wrote: »

Think he was actually addressing Covert in his reply?

Ah I see. Totally missed the comma, I'm not with it at all day.

Now for the obligatory "Thank you for logging in Bossarky" remark

popebenny16 wrote: »

true, but we can only go by what we are told, which is better than nothing, and at that time that was what we heard.

If you want to have a forensic look at our board you'll see that we've been ahead of IE since December in advising on cancelations/disruptions due to this dispute.

In fact it came very very close to the core walking out yesterday. We are most certainly not in the business of scaremongering, we've known for months this was going to happen, as a matter of fact it almost happened on April. We also have heard lots of alarming and silly stuff, but we've filtered that out to prevent scaremongering. Hey, we're fallible, who isnt?

At the end of the day the only people who matter are the passengers. We have no truck (bad pun I suppose but I'm under pressure) with either side. This can be sorted fairly quickly if there is a willingness to do so.

This is a stupid time for this preventable dispute. In a years time there'll be a motorway form Cork to Dublin Airport. All those Munster fans (for example) who want to get to Cardiff and have been stranded by this today will remember and wont take a chance again.

Problem is, if passengers vote with their feet will anyone on either side be affected by it?

Where is the incentive to prevent this happening again?

Indeed, I don't disagree with you on the fact that the passengers are the only ones that are losing here.

I just tend to be of the opinion that caution tends to be safer in making predictions about what service will run or not than predicting without certainty, particularly when it would appear that the information is coming from one party to the dispute (I can only assume that it is coming from employees of the company?).

While there is a need to keep people informed, predictions such as that last night, that no trains would run out of Heuston or DART would not operate could potentially inflame an otherwise difficult situation for both sides to the dispute. It also led to a post earlier in this thread that stated: "The guys over on rail users Ireland reckon full strike coming up! All services likely to be cancelled tomorrow!" It's this kind of reaction that a group such as RUI needs to be very careful that they don't cause. I just think that you need to be very cautious in your phraseology. There was a risk that more services could indeed be cancelled, but that does not equate to "All services Heuston likely to cancelled".

I know that this is symantics, but when it comes to industrial disputes it is they tend to be very important.

However, returning to the dispute, I agree that the sooner the core issues get resolved, the better. Some calm level-headedness is needed on all sides. This has the potential to do the railway irreparable damage, at a time when the remaining damage done by the ILDA dispute some years ago to the passenger traffic is just being reversed. That is something that is in no ones' interest be they the company, employees or the passenger.

Do we really need drivers?

At a time when the US Air Force is planning to phase out manned bomber planes over the next 10-20 years, and remember here that we are talking about something that flies at supersonic speeds, has no rails to guide it, and can operate highly complex defensive and offensive electronic weapons systems, can it really be all that difficult to build a computer program that will shunt a train along a set of rails, react automatically to signals telling it how fast to go and where to slow down and stop?

I am flabbergasted that it takes 48 weeks to train a driver. If you convert that into the number of weeks comprising a typical university term that's equivalent to two full years at university. Does it really take half the time it takes to become a biochemist or nuclear physicist to train somebody to shunt along a diesel-powered vehicle constrained by rails and (in this country anyway) hardly bothered at all by major junctions and attendant traffic congestion?

Either drivers are incredibly dim or, much more likely and more insultingly, they think everybody else is.

They should go the way of the bow and arrow. And for the same reason. Too much trouble, much cheaper alternatives.

Hamndegger wrote: »

It used to take 80 weeks to be fully trained just 20 years ago with applicants already certified as train guards eligible to apply. Today it is 48 weeks with the emphasis placed into on the job training as opposed to supervised training after long theory work; this time even now is being looked at for shaving.

Trains drive themselves more and more these days, plus there are probably less locomotive types... remember that some day in the not-too-distant future, trains will drive themselves

Like has already been said, Nuclear Physicists are trained from secondary school in 160 weeks, 1/3rd of that to drive a train along some rails and stop at the red light seems excessive....

Not, I think, with level crossings. If there were two tracks in either direction and no level crossings... well, that would be different.

rmacm wrote: »

Oh really?

Driver less Metro in Lille:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lille_Metro

The London DLR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway

Before you go and make the obvious point that neither of these are intercity rail systems the concept is still the same, there's a vehicle moving along tracks strangely enough not requiring a driver in these cases. So what do you think could go wrong that a machine/computer wouldn't pick up? You'd be surprised at what can be done these days.

DART is capable of being controlled without a driver but Irish Rail opted for driver controlled trains. To some extent, CAWS can do a lot of the work for drivers here were it chosen to be set up to do so. London Underground trains are almost auto driven as well; the driver being able to override or manually control if and when needed. The problem with driver less trains kicks in when any signaling or system faults take place; there still needs to be a trained person to deal with emergencies and problems in service and this is where a drivers long training comes in. Even something such as railway signals are not that easy followed and takes some time to be trained into understanding as such