Major Delays on Inbound Northern Commuter Line

The Hill Billy

Irish Rail are reporting major delays on the inbound Northern Commuter line due to technical difficulties at Rush & Lusk Station.

As informative as ever this is what they've posted on their website:

"Travel Alerts
Service Disruption to Northern Services by Corporate Communications

Due to a failure at Rush Inbound services north of Rush are experiencing delays"

The Indo states:
"Technical fault disrupts rail services north of Dublin
Tuesday September 04 2007

Rail commuters between Dundalk and Dublin are being severely disrupted this morning due to a technical fault at Rush station.

A line failure has left one train stuck in the station and prevented any inbound trains from passing Rush.

Iarnrod Eireann says a different line is being opened to deal with the problem, but passengers are still facing major delays and Dublin Bus will be honouring all rail tickets to help commuters get to their destinations."

sirpsycho

My first time to use a rush hour train in about one year almost happened this morning. Wasnt to be! The ticket man in the station told me there would be a 20min delay at first. This turned into 40mins. After about 30mins it was going to be a further 1hour. Joke. What time did they actually get going at anyone know?

Stick to the cars I say. At least you know you are going to be in a traffic jam and will eventually get into work.

EmiliaK

Disaster!!!!

Got on the 7.56 from Balbriggan. Spent 40 minutes sitting just outside Skerries station between there and Rush & Lusk. The driver didn't even come on and tell us what was going on until 8.40 when we reversed back into Skerries before the shocked faces of those on the platform, the doors opened, and we were told to make alternate arrangements.

We went to get the 33. Got into town at 11am!

It didn't knock me about per se, as I would much rather have been on a bus taking in the lovely sights of North County Dublin in the sun than sitting at my desk but I sympathised with those that had to be at exams, or in the city for a particular time. I understand that these things are unavoidable and accidents happen (though albeit regularly in the recent past) but the driver could have made an effort to keep us informed or at least to make contact with the passengers the minute he discovered the delay.

Incidentally, if we were 40 minutes sitting 30 secs from the station, why were there tons of passengers out on Skerries platform when we returned to the station? Surely they should have been informed of the delay to save them the trouble??

susanna

I was on that same train Emilia. We were told to expect delays of an hour so popped home for a cup of tea and when we got back (around 9.15) the trains were slowly getting back to normal. Got into town around 10.30

EmiliaK

Good idea susanna. It was a toss up for me. If I decided to go back to Balbriggan on the bus, there would have been little point in me attempting to go to work until the afternoon and I didnt want to waste any annual leave on it, so I said I'd soldier on into town. I didn't mind the disruption, I welcomed the extra time out of the office but it was bad form the way it was dealt with, communication leaves a lot to be desired.

Rashers72

Arrived into Rush+Lusk on time @7.56 on the 07.03 Dundalk to Connolly.
After a couple of minutes driver declared the train a failure and asked everyone to leave the train. The following 07.16 Dundalk-Bray has already left Skerries and was stuck south of Skerries. Some of you were on this.
At the same time the displays were advising of 20 min delays to DARTs due to a signal failure at Sandymount. And there was also a 20 minute delay to the northbound suburban services.
From 8am to 9.15am, they were making the same announcement, which was to make alternative travel arrangements. They also advised delay was up to 1 hour, constantly.However, options were limited from Rush and Lusk, and the earlier 33 from Balbriggan, through Skerries, Rush, Lusk to Swords/City centre had broken down in Skerries. And the delays were actually 1.5 hours.
I rang Connolly information a fair few times, and to be fair they told me the truth - i.e. engineers had to be sent by taxi from Connolly to Rush+Lusk, and I seen them arrive at 09.15am.
Train eventually left at 09.25am, but then got stuck directly behind a southbound DART from Howth junction to Connolly. Arrived in about 10.10/10.15am.
I got a taxi from Connolly to try and catch the end of my 9am meeting, which promptly ended 2 minutes after I arrived.