[Article] Rail bosses feel the need for speed on key city line

Slice

Rail bosses feel the need for speed on key city line
Richard Oakley



THERE’S a train a-comin’ — but the car isn’t far behind, and rail bosses are worried. Iarnrod Eireann, Ireland’s train operator, is attempting to speed up its inter-city service between Dublin and Cork to ensure the journey can still be completed faster by train than car.
The direct train from the capital to Cork takes two hours and 25 minutes. Thanks to a number of road improvements the same 255km (160 miles) car journey can be completed in three hours, but this journey time is set to fall further.



Plans to continue upgrading the entire road to dual carriageway or motorway-standard have led to expectations that the travel time will fall to two hours and 15 minutes by 2010, putting motorists firmly in the fast lane.

Anxious rail bosses are now devising plans to knock more than 25 minutes off the journey time with an initiative due to start in the next five years.

“Obviously one of our selling points is that we get from city centre to city centre in a faster time than cars, and this is something we want to maintain on all routes,” said Barry Kenny of Iarnrod Eireann. “Our service from Dublin to Cork is quick but we are aware of the need to make it quicker.”

Kenny said the company wants to “dramatically improve” maximum train speeds between the cities from 160 kph (100 mph) to 200 kph (125 mph).

To achieve this, the railway will introduce two engine cars in place of just one. Trains are currently hauled from the front, but under the new plan they will be pushed from the other end as well as being pulled.

According to Kenny, feasibility studies will begin soon. The plan also involves straighter tracks, the elimination of level crossings and the renewal of signalling and train-protection systems. “A two-hour time would simply be impossible for any other transport mode in this country to even come close to matching,” he claimed.

But the Dublin-Cork train route is not the only inter-city service threatened by cars as the republic’s roads improve dramatically. The direct train from Dublin to Limerick can complete the journey in two hours and six minutes, but by road this can now be completed just nine minutes slower. With the completion of the Mountrath bypass in 2010 that time will fall further.

Dublin to Belfast is two hours by train and the same by road, while Dublin to Galway is two hours and 39 minutes by car compared with two hours and 20 minutes rail.

As part of the government’s Transport 21 plan, Martin Cullen, the transport minister, said times on the Dublin to Limerick road route will be reduced by 31 minutes, while Dublin to Galway will be shortened by 36 minutes between 2006 and 2015.

Austin Smyth, a transport professor at the University of Westminster in London, and the author of a report on Ireland’s transport plans, said that travelling by train from Dublin to Cork would not remain attractive unless the travel time is reduced. “There is scope for improvement on long-distance rail routes from Dublin if Iarnrod Eireann had more ambitious plans. The idea for the Dublin to Cork line shows what might be achieved on the network,” he said.

The road travel times are calculated by the AA and are “achievable” at anything other than peak times, according to Conor Faughnan, the association’s spokesman.

But Kenny claimed these times were unrealistic. “For a road user to beat our centre to centre rail-journey times, you would have to be breaking the law, driving at 2am, or both,” he said.

Faughnan insisted the times quoted by the AA are real and “improving all the time as more roads are developed”.

Michael Egan of the National Roads Authority said the Dublin to Cork route could be travelled at 120 kph by 2010 if cars don’t stop, because all towns along the route will be bypassed. “This means it will be possible to drive it in about two hours and 15 minutes, and that’s at the speed limit,” he said.

The National Development Plan promised the journey by car from Dublin to Cork would be reduced by 39 minutes. Before this was achieved, Transport 21 was launched in 2005 with a similar target.

Odd when you think about it - IE seems so unconcerned with travel times that this article strikes me as quite surprising.

bk

ROFLOL, I brought up this exact issue a few months ago and a lot of people said I was being silly. But now look here, IR is worried.

Once upon a time, Ireland was poor and many people didn't own cars and the Cork to Dublin road was awful, so IR was the only game in town and they didn't have to worry about speed or service.

But now most people have cars and the intercity roads are vastly improving and people who have been messed around by IR for years are voting with their feet (car).

While it will be great to see the train journey reduced to just 2 hours, IR will still have difficulty competing.

Let say the trip was even 2 hours 30 minutes by car, here are the things that Kenny above isn't taking into account:

1) Nobody lives at a train station, so usually there is also the commute to and from the station and usually you need to be there about 30 - 45 minutes beforehand to get a seat.

Also most people journeys aren't city centre to city centre, usually they are either city centre to suburb, surburb to city centre and suburb to suburb. Often such journeys will be faster by car.

Even now, when the motorway still isn't finished, it is often faster by car now.

2) You have the convenience of using your car at the destination.

3) You have the flexibility to operate to your own time table.

4) It is often cheaper by car, specially if more then one person is making the trip by car.

5) Carry as much baggage with you as you like.

IR will need to vastly improve if it is going to compete with all of this.

I'm saying all of this as a Corkonian living in Dublin who regularly makes this trip. I've noticed that a lot of my friends from Cork living in Dublin, who have recently bought cars, are all now driving Cork to Dublin instead of the train and this is before the Motorway is even close to being finished.

Slice

I remember this issue coming up before. I agree completely.

It's estimated that the train is used for 30% of all Dublin-Cork journeys with IE even suspecting that the percentage could be as high as 50.

I think a big factor in how the train maintains this market share is the reliability of local public transport in both cities. I'm not familiar with Cork but from the threads in this Forum it sounds like that the situation there is pretty woeful so that would be off-putting.

bk: While it will be great to see the train journey reduced to just 2 hours, IR will still have difficulty competing.

I thought it wasn't all that difficult to achieve two hour travel times? I thought the difficulty was with IE themselves?

I've only travelled on the Dublin-Cork route once but my impression was that it seemed to be dotted with a load of unnecessary stops serving places I've never even heard of. At least the Enterprise service to Belfast only serves major towns whereas this wasn't the case on my way down to Kerry.

markpb

Slice wrote:

I think a big factor in how the train maintains this market share is the reliability of local public transport in both cities. I'm not familiar with Cork but from the threads in this Forum it sounds like that the situation there is pretty woeful so that would be off-putting.

I think this is just as important as the actual journey time. There's no way I'd take the train to a city when I've no way of getting around when I do get there.

My experience of intercity trains in Ireland is limited to Dublin - Belfast which I did a few times, hated it and took Aircoach since then. The bus takes the same length of time, drops me closer to the (Belfast) city centre, had free newspapers to read, is just as or more comfortable than the train and most importantly costs 18 euro compared to 48 on the train. I'm at a loss to see why anyone travelling off peak would take the train.

Enigma365

The train to Sligo from Dublin takes 3 Hours 5 Minutes, while it can often be done within 2 and a half hours by car.

Nobody really cares about Sligo though =/.

subway

i live on a dart line.
i could do dart - luas - cork in possibly3.5 hours if everything was timed to perection.
but i still need to arrive at heuston an hour before the train leaves so i can get a seat.

i then have to walk halfway across cork village to get to the bus station to continue my journey.

at least the "platform 6 of connoly to busaras" walk is mostly indoors....

the whole system is so disjointed that it takes hours to do anything,
even if they reduced the time to 90 mins, easily possible if their straightening the route and removing stops, itd still take 4hours or more because of trying to get to heuston on the first place.

bk

markpb wrote:

My experience of intercity trains in Ireland is limited to Dublin - Belfast which I did a few times, hated it and took Aircoach since then. The bus takes the same length of time, drops me closer to the (Belfast) city centre, had free newspapers to read, is just as or more comfortable than the train and most importantly costs 18 euro compared to 48 on the train. I'm at a loss to see why anyone travelling off peak would take the train.

That is interesting, I didn't think of that angle.

At the moment, no one in their right mind would take the bus from Cork to Dublin, it takes too long. But with the new Motorway and specially if Bus Eireann were to put a depot out on the M50, reachable by Metro/Luas, then I could easily see many students taking that option as it is so much cheaper.

So IE could end up losing it's high end business customers to car and their low end student customers (a very significant percentage of the Cork to Dublin traffic) to Bus.

bk

subway wrote:

i live on a dart line.
i could do dart - luas - cork in possibly3.5 hours if everything was timed to perection.
but i still need to arrive at heuston an hour before the train leaves so i can get a seat.

Absolutely, I do the same when heading to Cork. I leave East Point Bus Park on a Friday at 3:15 to get Dart -> Luas -> Hueston, usually get to Hueston by 4:15 which is just early enough to get on the train and get a seat on the 5:00.

So even if the journey takes only 2 hours the entire thing is a stressful 4 hours. As it is at the moment it is almost 5 hours. It is hardly surprising the most of my friends who have cars, take the same journey by car now.

Red Alert

the 201 locomotives are not too bad, although they should have got the power cars if it meant they could go faster.

what they could do is buy the power cars and then put the unneeded driving van trailers on the enterprise. they have a genset in them and are allegedly compatible both electrically and mechanically with the De Deitrich coaches.

Slice

bk: At the moment, no one in their right mind would take the bus from Cork to Dublin, it takes too long. But with the new Motorway and specially if Bus Eireann were to put a depot out on the M50, reachable by Metro/Luas, then I could easily see many students taking that option as it is so much cheaper.

In fairness the Aircoach is a far superior product compared to anything offered by BE or Ulsterbus. The comfort and space on Aircoach is close to what you'd expect on intercity trains.

I think BE would be the last to offer a service of the same quality or even at the very least of the same price as Aircoach or any other private operator. In fact BE have always been trounced by private operators for price on interurban routes.

Ham'nd'egger

Red Alert wrote:

the 201 locomotives are not too bad, although they should have got the power cars if it meant they could go faster.

what they could do is buy the power cars and then put the unneeded driving van trailers on the enterprise. they have a genset in them and are allegedly compatible both electrically and mechanically with the De Deitrich coaches.

They had better be doing a hell of a lot of recoiling on the driving motors to get the 201's up to a legitimate 125MPH. And don't mention the Generator onboard, a very touchy subject.

Me thinks Messer Kenny is hinting at a new Loco order.....

markpb

Slice wrote:

In fairness the Aircoach is a far superior product compared to anything offered by BE or Ulsterbus. The comfort and space on Aircoach is close to what you'd expect on intercity trains.

I think BE would be the last to offer a service of the same quality or even at the very least of the same price as Aircoach or any other private operator. In fact BE have always been trounced by private operators for price on interurban routes.

I don't think that's true any more. They charge the same price as Aircoach to Belfast, operate the same amount of services during the day as well as night-time services (11pm, 1am, 3am and 5am). Their new coaches are just as comfortable as Aircoach and their intercity prices on most routes have fallen by an incredible amount lately.

All this fares badly for IR in the future...

Navan Junction

Hamndegger wrote:

Me thinks Messer Kenny is hinting at a new Loco order.....

MarkoP11 may be able to answer this.

If the new CDE actually had it's 'own' loco rather than a 201, would it sort out the problems currently being experienced by the train?

MarkoP11

Navan Junction wrote:

MarkoP11 may be able to answer this.

If the new CDE actually had it's 'own' loco rather than a 201, would it sort out the problems currently being experienced by the train?

Over 80% of the issues with the new Cork train are related to faults on the coaches, which range from broken bolts (details/photo http://forum.platform11.org/showthread.php?p=13766) to a array of brake failures not forgetting various electrical and computer problems. The problems with the locomotives are fleet wide and common to all trains it depends on what you call a failure, if you want to call a brakedown a failure the locomotive count is 1 in 8 months (while in Heuston no reports a failure en route) coaches scored 2 in 2 hours last week

Put it this way on launch day the 9:00 to Cork broke down on the platform and left 20 minutes down, the 9:45 special was delayed by 20 minutes as a result and a spare train tailed us the whole way just in case. There is even a untimetabled train which runs as required to test the coaches with passengers, its a utter disaster

The locomotive failure rate on the new trains is in fact less than the others since only refurbished locomotives are used (and the best are hand picked it seems) with the new train for marketing reasons since they have the matching paint job

The jury is out on a 4 axle 200kph diesel machine, it would have to weigh in at less than 70 tons but still have 2500hp, gas turbine would be cool but way too heavy on fuel

Bare in mind unoffically Cork Dublin on a Sunday was done in under 2:15 during the early 1990's, 2:07 being the record time. Best possible today is 2:35 with 3 stops, thats repeatable and should fall to 2:20 in the next few years. Of course the fastest journey this year was 2:29 with 6 stops, you could chop 10-15 minutes off every time on every intercity route tomorrow

Assuming a full 125 mph treatment 1 hour 55 minutes with 3 stops or 100 minutes without, thats 87 mph/100 mph ave fact is in this country no one cares so it won't happen and if it does Irish Rail will make a mess of it. Unbroken 100 miles of 125mph from Portarlington to Mallow is possible with little hassle

Chris_533976

"Two engines powering one train??? WE WANT TWICE AS MUCH MONEY FOR DRIVING IT"

STRIKE

Navan Junction

Does it make any difference that 201's are not the naturally part of the train?

I mean in terms of the bolts snapping etc..

MarkoP11

Them bolts snap while the train is stationary though in theory they can snap while in motion, totally indepedent of the locomotive, first bolt to go went under the first class coach which is as far away from the locomotive as you will get

Plently of trains operate with two locomotives already

Way things are currently going might as well just buy a 125mph DMU and ditch the Mk4 coaches, yet another breakdown this morning

Navan Junction

MarkoP11 wrote:

Way things are currently going might as well just buy a 125mph DMU and ditch the Mk4 coaches, yet another breakdown this morning

The bolts again?

Enigma365

"Two engines powering one train??? WE WANT TWICE AS MUCH MONEY FOR DRIVING IT"

STRIKE

You know, thats so true its not even funny.

MarkoP11

Not bolts, exact cause not known

It just goes to show, relabilty is key if the journey can be delivered in a consistent time day in day out it might be a little slow compared to the best case driving but then again at 5pm on a bank holiday you could spend hours just getting beyond the M50. People use it in there droves so there must be something more, if its slow and overpriced why is it packed? Is it because it gets A to B without the hassle of traffic? That what you want to know

Slice

If this is IE's track record on maintenance then it doesn't leave much to the imagination what their attitude might be towards safety...

SeanW

CAF screwed up. Anyone who has had the misfortune of using a 29K on the Sligo line past Maynooth can tell you that CAF just don't know how to make suspensions that work right. Now I know that the 29000s are the most reliable trains in Ireland if not the entire British Isles and that they're a completely different beast to the new Cork trains, but the ride quality is so dire that it should have been a glaring red flag that when it comes to certain things, CAF just don't seem to know what they're doing.

positron

From a average Joe RailCommuter's point of view, the Dublin - Drogheda (and Dundalk, I would imagine) that I do everyday is painfully slow! After Malahide, there is absolutely nothing else on the tracks other than these trains and they are only slightly faster than a biker (okay, a bit of exaggeration), but I am really annoyed by the fact that it takes an hour to do what can be done in 40 – 50 minutes by road.

MarkoP11

New train is not a maintenance problem its design and poor quailty control, the number of bits replaced with better stronger parts is quite significant at this stage

If you don't go fast and don't run many trains its hard to have an accident

bk

MarkoP11 wrote:

It just goes to show, relabilty is key if the journey can be delivered in a consistent time day in day out it might be a little slow compared to the best case driving but then again at 5pm on a bank holiday you could spend hours just getting beyond the M50. People use it in there droves so there must be something more, if its slow and overpriced why is it packed? Is it because it gets A to B without the hassle of traffic? That what you want to know

No argument, the traffic is mad at rush hour on a Friday, but then if you are working outside Dublin city centre it is as easy to get out of Dublin as it is to make your way into the city centre.

Trying to get to Hueston and Hueston itself is mad on a Bank Holiday. It is why I normally take the Friday of a bank holiday weekend off and travel off-peak.

Remember the motorway isn't built yet, while the Fermoy bypass has taken a good 30 minutes off the journey, it is still a pretty long and tiring journey on fairly bad roads going through small towns.

Once the motorway is open, once you get beyond the M50, it will be pretty much cruising at 120km/h with little or no traffic to contend with, no small villages and excellent quality roads. It will make a very difficult and tiring journey, relatively quick and easy to do.

Also remember that the M50 will be improving, 2 extra lanes, barrier less tolling and fancy flyover junctions.

Of course this will all take a few years to complete, but when it does, it will be major competition to IR. They need to start the developments now, so that everything is in place for when the road project does come together, so that they can compete.

I'm sure that no matter what, bank holidays will always be packed, but IR would be in big trouble if they lost a lot of customers during weekdays and off peak times. Which is probably what we are mostly talking about here.

But what we are talking about here I've already seen happening on the Dublin to Belfast line. I've lived with a few people from Belfast, who went home every week. Since the M1 opened, one always drove (a professional) and the other (a student) always took the bus. Non of them ever thought of even bothering with the train, the M1 was just so good. I see the same possibly happening to Cork.

I'm saying all this as a person who actually uses this service once a month for the last 6 years and who has many friends who also used to use this service (most have cars and drive it now). We all pretty much feel the same way.

I'll give you an example of overpriced. I have 2 friends from Cork who are married and living in Dublin now. They use to get the train to Cork, €120 return for the two of them. They now go by car, it costs about €40.

Likewise another friend has gotten a car and he normally takes 2 of us down with him some weekends and we share the petrol cost. Way cheaper and more convenient.

As for quality, about 6 months ago, in a period of 4 months, the Cork to Dublin train broke down 3 times on me (I only take it once a month)!!!

I'm a long time, angry IR customer, their level of service is crap and I'm just itching to buy a car, for the new roads to open and for me to never use a train ever again. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.

bk

Ok, I'll be more positive, here are the things IE needs to do in order to keep my business in three years time:

1) Cork to Dublin in max 2 hours.

2) More reliability (leave on time, arrive on time, don't break down).

3) Make it so all seats on train must be booked. [1]

Major dis-satisfier now is that after paying €60 you're not guaranteed a seat and you mightn't even get on.

4) Have the tickets inspected by conductor on the train and not at the gate. [2]

You shouldn't need to turn up 45 minutes early to line up just to get a seat, you should be able to arrive 10 minutes before departure and slide straight into your booked seat.

This would reduce the persons A to B journey time, which people care far more about then the made up IE city to city time.

5) Power points on all seats.

I know first class have it, but if the selling point of the train over road is that you can work on the train or just sit back and relax and watch a DVD, then it should really be available in all carriages, it really wouldn't cost IE much.

[1] Yes, I know you can book seats at the moment, but it doesn't work very well. Only one carriage, and you still need to turn up relatively early and line up with everyone else if your getting on a busy train.

[2] I know this might lead to some confusion and messing for the first few weeks, but just make the fine high enough for not having a ticket and have one staff for each carriage before the train leaves to point you to your seat and sort out disputes for the first few weeks and people will quickly get use to it.

I was on a train in Italy that had this system and it worked very well. Train was pretty full, but all seats booked, I arrived 10 minutes before departure and just slipped into my seat. No waiting and standing, very pleasant.

BTW that Italian train had a nice idea, the tables in the middle could fold up giving you more room to move.

Chris_533976

All Strike joking aside, how many times have these (BRAND NEW) MK4s broken down now? Seems to be at least a weekly occurance. I'd like to know the statistics on how many break down here, compared with trains in other countries.

And yes IE basicially need to get their fingers out of their arses. They wont be able to compete in a few years time. 2 hours on the train with 10-15 minutes waiting to get on (tops) is what should be expected thesedays.

Compare IE to most other modern European countries with similar economies. They're a shameful shambles and need to get themselves sorted. IE is a cancer on this country at the moment.

markpb

MarkoP11 wrote:

It just goes to show, relabilty is key if the journey can be delivered in a consistent time day in day out it might be a little slow compared to the best case driving but then again at 5pm on a bank holiday you could spend hours just getting beyond the M50. People use it in there droves so there must be something more, if its slow and overpriced why is it packed? Is it because it gets A to B without the hassle of traffic? That what you want to know

I know you've touched on this already but right now, IR are nowhere near reliable. The last time I got the Enterprise, it took just under three hours to get there (timetabling conflict an hour out of Belfast) and just under three and a half hours to get back (no explanation or apology). Reliably bad maybe, but not reliable.

Red Alert

The Mk4 DVT's have an onboard genset, so moving them to the Enterprise if they got the power cars would sort out the 201's genset problem (or even ordering more of them solely for that).

The 201's, 29000's, Mk4's all are 80% alright, but have not fitted their purpose, because IE never sat down and decided a suitable spec and trial for any of them.

Slice

Markpb: The last time I got the Enterprise, it took just under three hours to get there

I remember before the Enterprise service as we know it now was launched it was promised that journey times Dublin-Belfast would be something in the region of 1hour 30-40 minutes. I've never known it to come in under 2hours 15minutes.

Happy Bertie

bk wrote:

I'll give you an example of overpriced. I have 2 friends from Cork who are married and living in Dublin now. They use to get the train to Cork, €120 return for the two of them. They now go by car, it costs about €40.

The true cost of going by car isn't €40. The average car depreciates 25c/mile, so for a return trip to Cork (400 miles) that's an additional €100. If you include insurance, maintenance, motor tax, repairs, etc. the total would be closer €150.

The argument could be made that you have the car anyway, but one could question why so many people need a car in Dublin with so much access to public transportation. Most of the cost of private car transportation is depreciation and not petrol. Even if you used taxis for all your local transport needs, in many cases it would work out cheaper than owning your own car, if you include all the costs of ownership, parking in the city, etc..
I know traveling by public transportation is beneath many people, putting up with people cleaning their ears, picking their nose, scratching themselves, body odour, etc. But most of us have to deal with that anyway even inside our own cars. (Hey, who doesn't let one go every now and then)

Victor

SeanW wrote:

CAF screwed up. Anyone who has had the misfortune of using a 29K on the Sligo line past Maynooth can tell you that CAF just don't know how to make suspensions that work right.

Aren't the 29000s used up north fitted with a different (working) suspension?

Hotblack Desiato

Happy Bertie wrote:

one could question why so many people need a car in Dublin with so much access to public transportation.

That's hilarious, although not intentionally.

The government tells me I'm served by both Luas and Suburban Rail
Each is a half hour walk away from where I live, up a hill
Thanks but no thanks.
The bus service takes up to 45 minutes to get out of the village onto... the Red Cow
At least from there there are some buslanes, but the Inchicore buslane was taken away to make way for a Luas service I can't use

Most of the cost of private car transportation is depreciation and not petrol.

Not if you buy a cheap car (the ones with the highest emissions/km.)
There is no way any public transport service in this state can realistically, at present, compete with a 1994 Nissan Sunny. I wish they could, but they can't.

bk

Happy Bertie wrote:

The true cost of going by car isn't €40. The average car depreciates 25c/mile, so for a return trip to Cork (400 miles) that's an additional €100. If you include insurance, maintenance, motor tax, repairs, etc. the total would be closer €150.

That is a load of BS. A nice cheap second hand car will get you from Cork to Dublin nicely and will already have lost most of it's value to depreciation already. (For instance my friends in the example have a 8 year old Fiesta).

While statisticians like to sprout about depreciation per mile. The reality is the second you drive it out of the lot it loses the greatest amount of value, followed by simply how many years you have it and how good a nick you keep it in.

For instance if you bought a new car for €20,000 in the morning, drove it home (lets say 1 mile) and never drive it again for another 5 years, your certainly not going to get €19,999.75 in 5 years time, hell you wouldn't get it if you turned around and tried to sell it straight after buying it.

Happy Bertie wrote:

The argument could be made that you have the car anyway, but one could question why so many people need a car in Dublin with so much access to public transportation.

ROFLOL, do you actually live in Dublin?

I live in Dublin, don't own a car and cycle a lot. But I wouldn't even make that claim and I can certainly understand why someone needs a car in Dublin.

For instance I'm moving into a new apartment soon, I'll need to buy lots of new furniture, but most furniture places are out in the middle of nowhere, making it very difficult for me without a car.