DART system near breaking point?

El Stuntman

OK, so I posted this thread a few weeks back about overcrowding on DARTs. I've since been trying to take more notice of the rush-hour DART service being provided and consider how good/bad it really is.

This is purely my own anectodal experience but I'm sure many others share similar fun and frolics.

I try to get the 8.12 DART every morning from Raheny to Lansdowne.

For 6 out of the last 6 weekday mornings, I have been on the platform at the appointed time.

Gripe 1: the train has been late every single morning by more than 6 minutes and has taken at least 32 minutes to get to Landsdowne (according to IE's own timetable, it should take 22 minutes).

Gripe 2: for 3 of those 6 mornings, IE have kindly provided us with a 6-car DART. This morning, they outdid themselves and provided a 4-car DART! So on only 2 out of 6 mornings, has there been the full 8-car DART available.

Gripe 3: resultant dangerous overcrowding. As a result of Gripe 2, the DARTs (if you can get on in the first place) are dangerously packed. My previous thread about fainting etc confirms this - it is worse than a rugby scrum most mornings. Luckily for me, I'm relatively tall and fit but I can see people going beetroot red in the face, sweating profusely in the crush and I fear that a fatality may well result. I am not over-exagggerating this, the crush is truly frightening.

Gripe 4: missing trains. Again a result of Gripe 2. I've not been able to get on the "8.12" (lol - not) train 3 out of the 6 mornings and have had to wait an additional 10 minutes or so for the next (equally overcrowded) one. There was a hysterical woman at Clontarf Road this morning who was screaming that she had just missed 3 trains as she simply hadn't been able to get on.

---

phew!

Questions:

1. Why the hell do IE not have all DARTS as 8-car at peak rush-hour? They inconvenienced passengers for two years building the platforms up to 8-car capacity and now they're not using them!
What the hell is going on - are IE short of carriages? Does the IE maintenance team not get enough stock onto the lines?
Or is IE simply too damn inefficient to run a proper train service?

2. Overcrowding. I am really worried for passenger safety and fear that someone will be badly injured as a result. What are IE doing about this?
An obvious solution would be to take the seats out of all DART trains and make them standing room only....

3. Capacity: is there any scope at all to get more DARTs on the tracks? (I'm guessing not due to sharing the rails with intercity and commuter trains already)

can some of our train buffs here shed some light on what is going on? and, more to the point, what can be done and what is being done to ameliorate the situation?

a very disgruntled passenger :mad:

markpb

El Stuntman wrote:

1. Why the hell do IE not have all DARTS as 8-car at peak rush-hour? They inconvenienced passengers for two years building the platforms up to 8-car capacity and now they're not using them!

I had an answer written for this but this article (http://www.railusersireland.org/campaigns/whereismydart) on P11/RUI probably makes more sense.

Overcrowding. I am really worried for passenger safety and fear that someone will be badly injured as a result. What are IE doing about this?
An obvious solution would be to take the seats out of all DART trains and make them standing room only....

The newest Dart carriages have a lot less seating and I think it was planned during the refurbishment mentioned above that seats would be removed from the older carriages. There will always be a need for seats for older or disabled people.

Capacity: is there any scope at all to get more DARTs on the tracks? (I'm guessing not due to sharing the rails with intercity and commuter trains already)

I think you answered your own question there. The Dart was a great kludge in the 80s that allowed Dublin to get a metro service without spending much money because it used existing lines. Now we're stuck with too many trains of different speeds sharing track on a line with a victorian signalling system.

can some of our train buffs here shed some light on what is going on? and, more to the point, what can be done and what is being done to ameliorate the situation?

How did you manage to avoid the FF brainwashing about how Transport21 is going to revolutionise transport in Ireland?!

Basically the plans are
- (hopefully) refurbish the Darts so they can actually run 8 cars long
- resignal the city centre so it can handle more trains per hour
- build a tunnel from near the docklands station to near heuston stopping the loop line bridge from being a major pinch point


My girlfriend recently took up a job near Lansdown road and has discovered that it's faster to take two (or even three) buses between Coolock and Ballsbridge than it is to take the Dart. Only in Dublin could you say that.... If you can, try getting the 27X (Clare Hall, Fairview, City Centre, Ballsbridge, Donneybrook, Belfield) instead, it might be faster.

El Stuntman

markpb wrote:

I had an answer written for this but this article on P11/RUI[/url
probably makes more sense.

thanks mark, that's very good. I particularly enjoyed the phrase "crush loading levels are common, particularly on the northside, they have not eased, they have gotten worse"

so I'm not paranoid!

dammit, I'm dusting off my bicycle tonight seeing as P11/railusersireland don't see the problem being fixed before end 2008, can't take any more of this.

markpb wrote:

How did you manage to avoid the FF brainwashing about how Transport21 is going to revolutionise transport in Ireland?!

I also don't believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or Ministers for Finance without bank accounts who keep getting handed packets of cash by mysterious benefactors....

ixoy

El Stuntman wrote:

Gripe 2: for 3 of those 6 mornings, IE have kindly provided us with a 6-car DART. This morning, they outdid themselves and provided a 4-car DART! So on only 2 out of 6 mornings, has there been the full 8-car DART available.

Interesting - I was on the "08:12" (yeah right) from Portmarnock today and instead of our 8-carriage train, we had a 6-carriage and people had to crush their way on. It delayed our train by ten minutes as we stopped at each station for ages so people could wedge themselves into the gap and for many to be left behind.
Now you're telling me that the train before that (yours) was also under stocked! How the hell were people meant to manage at the later stations!

El Stuntman

ixoy wrote:

Now you're telling me that the train before that (yours) was also under stocked! How the hell were people meant to manage at the later stations!

they didn't, maybe 40% at Raheny got onto the "8.12" (not including me) making it absolutely jam-packed therefore I'm assuming no-one at Harmonstown/Killester/Clontarf Road was able to get on that at all

I just about squeezed onto the "8.19" :rolleyes: and nobody at Harmonstown/Killester/Clontarf Road was able to get on it (bar one crazy f**ker who literally rugby barged his way in).

ridiculous - and also dangerous :mad:

ixoy

El Stuntman wrote:

I just about squeezed onto the "8.19" :rolleyes: and nobody at Harmonstown/Killester/Clontarf Road was able to get on it (bar one crazy f**ker who literally rugby barged his way in).

So essentially where we should have had two 8-carriage DARTS, we got a 4- and a 6-carriage: that's 10/18 or nearly HALF the required capacity at rush hour. Well at least they apologised for the problems, eh? Oh wait a minute...

godtabh

I posted a similar thread on over crowding on trains but cant find it with search.

The baisc responce was what can be done? And due to the low ferquency of accidents meant its not a massive h&S issue

markpb

kearnsr wrote:

The baisc responce was what can be done? And due to the low ferquency of accidents meant its not a massive h&S issue

Only slightly tongue in cheek but I would have thought that an absolutely jammed train would be safer under emergency braking than a slightly busy one because there's absolutely nowhere for people to go

El Stuntman

markpb wrote:

Only slightly tongue in cheek but I would have thought that an absolutely jammed train would be safer under emergency braking than a slightly busy one because there's absolutely nowhere for people to go

I'm thinking more of crush injuries myself rather than derailing-type accidents

godtabh

El Stuntman wrote:

I'm thinking more of crush injuries myself rather than derailing-type accidents

For me it would be the above in the event on an accident.

Because the train is packed with people the full impact of the crash would be transfered into the people.

El Stuntman

kearnsr wrote:

For me it would be the above in the event on an accident.

Because the train is packed with people the full impact of the crash would be transfered into the people.

I see what you're saying but my point is that the trains are now so dangerously packed (seems to be a morning rush hour issue for some reason only, evening is fine in my experience) that older/younger/infirm passengers are in serious danger and awful discomfort in the crush

murphaph

As a short term measure they could pull out all but a handful of seats. It's anothr example of our political leaders, in conspiracy with the likes of CIE actively failing the public.

There should be spare DARTs lying around. The Maynooth line is to be electrified ahead of the delivery of the Interconnector. Why not order the shagging DARTs NOW! And order MORE than they think they need.

There's a lead time of something like 18 months on DART units. We've have economic boom for what, 15 years? The German ambassador was right.

godtabh

murphaph wrote:

As a short term measure they could pull out all but a handful of seats. It's anothr example of our political leaders, in conspiracy with the likes of CIE actively failing the public.

Whats the conspiracy?

murphaph wrote:

There should be spare DARTs lying around. The Maynooth line is to be electrified ahead of the delivery of the Interconnector. Why not order the shagging DARTs NOW! And order MORE than they think they need.

So were do you think they should get the money from? Money has been budgeted for these works but thats for next year or the year after. What do you think should suffer or be put on the back burner so you can get your DARTs?

murphaph wrote:

There's a lead time of something like 18 months on DART units. We've have economic boom for what, 15 years? The German ambassador was right.

Have IR not but any darts over the last 15 years or just not enough to keep you happy?

In what way was the German ambassafor right?

markpb

kearnsr wrote:

Whats the conspiracy?

The government don't feel public transport is an important (read: voting) issue so they haven't invested much time or money into it. Whatever about the flurry of PR releases about T21, with the notable exception of the Luas, public transport in Ireland has gone backwards instead of forwards.

If an executive of Irish Rail or DB complained publically about the lack of investment, the government wouldn't re-instate them and they'd lose their cushy position. So they remain silent, the government remain blameless and everyone wins. Everyone except the passenger.

So were do you think they should get the money from? Money has been budgeted for these works but thats for next year or the year after. What do you think should suffer or be put on the back burner so you can get your DARTs?

Quite simply, the road network. It's been a long time since other civilised countries believed that building new roads was the way to solve congestion in cities. The Irish government flounders around extending the M50 and building roads all around the country but hasn't given the same level of investment into public transport which, for cities, would have a much greater benefit.

Have IR not but any darts over the last 15 years or just not enough to keep you happy?

The question is have they bought enough and the answer (signalling and terminal capacity issues aside) is a definite no.

murphaph

kearnsr wrote:

Whats the conspiracy?

If there's no conspiracy to deny the public of a quality integrated ticketing system with convenient connections after 50+ years of a CIE monopoly then it's a hell of an accident.

kearnsr wrote:

So were do you think they should get the money from? Money has been budgeted for these works but thats for next year or the year after. What do you think should suffer or be put on the back burner so you can get your DARTs?

I don't use the DART for the record. I don't know kearnsr, perhaps we could have not wasted so much money on PPARS, electronic voting, tribunals of enquiry into all manner of corruption and the list goes on. Are you really this naive? Do you know how our shambles of a 'democracy' actually works. Here's a quick overview: Government manifesto gets chucked out the window every election as the independents and minor parties get their deals cut. "you need a new hospital ward to keep your constituents happy mr. independent TD from ballygobackwards?"-"yes"-"sure, we'll cut a few DART carriages and we'll have enough, screw the urban areas, sure they only generate all the money" and so on. If you think these people are solely in it for the betterment of the nation you are mistaken. It's such a warped version of democracy that you can have a government TD representing you, but the area represented by the hot-headed independent gets the good stuff. The civil service appears totally unaccountable. See the 25X thread.

kearnsr wrote:

Have IR not but any darts over the last 15 years or just not enough to keep you happy?

NO! If PEOPLE ARE LEFT BEHIND ON 2 SUCCESSIVE DARTS THEN THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH IN SERVICE!! It's because you (and people like you) are so willing to accept this sh!te excuse for a transport system that we get it! If even 20% of the electorate took their eyes off their plasma tellies and told the politicians what they expected fromt them we'd get better.

kearnsr wrote:

In what way was the German ambassafor right?

He spoke of the comparison between the german Wirtschaftswunder and our celtic tiger and how Germany had ploughed their money into their transport network and how we have wittled ours away on fcuk all. Basically.

Look, if you want to believe that Irish Rail and the Dept.of Transport and the government are doing their best to improve public transport and get people out of their cars then go right ahead. The truth is very different.

godtabh

markpb wrote:

The government don't feel public transport is an important (read: voting) issue so they haven't invested much time or money into it. Whatever about the flurry of PR releases about T21, with the notable exception of the Luas, public transport in Ireland has gone backwards instead of forwards.

I would disagree with that. Over the las number of years there has been:

• an increase in bus routes & frequency
• an upgrading and introudction of many QBC with lots more to come
• increase in capacity at dart station to allow for longer trains
• investment in the upgrading of signals
• the introduction of new lines to suburan routes
• the introduction of new trains/darts
• increase in frequency of both dart, suburban and intercity routes

I could go on but I wont.

They may not meet your requirements but taking in to what budget they had what else could they have done?

markpb wrote:

If an executive of Irish Rail or DB complained publically about the lack of investment, the government wouldn't re-instate them and they'd lose their cushy position. So they remain silent, the government remain blameless and everyone wins. Everyone except the passenger.

So you think its a cushy postion running Irish Rail/ Dublin Bus? Dint make me laugh.

And I dont belive for a second that its that clear cut. Just because its not in the public domain at the moment it doest mean that discussions on extra money doesnt happen.

What about price increases on tickets for investment? You would probably be the first on here complaining about it.

markpb wrote:

Quite simply, the road network. It's been a long time since other civilised countries believed that building new roads was the way to solve congestion in cities. The Irish government flounders around extending the M50 and building roads all around the country but hasn't given the same level of investment into public transport which, for cities, would have a much greater benefit.

But its not that simple is it. In order to keep our county competitive we need these networks to allow easy movemnt of people and goods.

If you go down to a estate/street level you'll find that any new planning application submitted genearly have provisions for public transport in the form of a developer paid system to establish the route or a managment fee paid by the residents for trasnport to/from the local hub.

markpb wrote:

The question is have they bought enough and the answer (signalling and terminal capacity issues aside) is a definite no.

Its not as if the goverment/IR say "ah sure we have an extra €20m left over but lets no bother buying a few more darts it will really piss off Markpb"

The country has to be run in an efficient way were spending has to be justified and the books balance as best they possible can becasue again if they didnt you would be the first person on here complaining if there was a short fall which meant higher taxes for us.

markpb

kearnsr wrote:

I would disagree with that. Over the las number of years there has been...I could go on but I wont. They may not meet your requirements but taking in to what budget they had what else could they have done?

I'm going to assume you don't use DB because you'd know that:
- there aren't enough buses
- the bus lanes are rubbish (there are no proper QBCs in Dublin)
- there are no bus priority systems
- there is practically no enforcement of bus lanes
- dwell time is huge
- there's no integrated ticketing between operators
- there is no planning or co-operation between operators

Similarly for the Dart, the growth in IC and suburban traffic has meant that there's even less signalling time for Darts which have also grown. How many threads about people who can't get on trains do we need here?

What about price increases on tickets for investment? You would probably be the first on here complaining about it.

Yes and no. No I don't complain because I understand it's a necessity. Yes because I know the prices have gone up because of the incredibly low level of subvention in Ireland compared to other countries.

But its not that simple is it. In order to keep our county competitive we need these networks to allow easy movemnt of people and goods. If you go down to a estate/street level you'll find that any new planning application submitted genearly have provisions for public transport

Congestion in cities hurts both people living in the cities and companies trying to get goods out of those cities in the first place. Let me be quite clear: more roads generate more traffic. You cannot build your way out of congestion, only better planning and better public transport can do that. I could point out plenty of places where it's quite clear the planning process never even dwelled on public transport but I won't because it gets tedious.

Its not as if the goverment/IR say "ah sure we have an extra €20m left over but lets no bother buying a few more darts it will really piss off Markpb"

I'm not that deluded Like I said before, the government don't consider public transport to be an important voting issue so they don't concentrate on it.

The country has to be run in an efficient way were spending has to be justified and the books balance as best they possible can becasue again if they didnt you would be the first person on here complaining if there was a short fall which meant higher taxes for us.

You make an awful lot of assumptions about me. I'm fully in favour of higher taxes if they mean a better level of services. If you want me to pay 2% extra in PAYE in return for a proper metro system in Dublin I'd vote. If you want me to pay 1% extra after graduating for better university facilities, I'd be all for it.

Do you live in Dublin or Cork or any other city in Ireland? Do you commute by public transport? Do you think that after ten years of record growth, our cities have an adequate level of public transport?

godtabh

markpb wrote:

I'm going to assume you don't use DB because you'd know that:
- there aren't enough buses
- the bus lanes are rubbish (there are no proper QBCs in Dublin)
- there are no bus priority systems
- there is practically no enforcement of bus lanes
- dwell time is huge
- there's no integrated ticketing between operators
- there is no planning or co-operation between operators

You made the point that public transport has gone backwards. With out the investment that have been made I would say it was an awful lot worse. Go back 10 years and you are saying that we had a better public trasnport network?

Why are bus lanes rubbish? And there is plenty of proper bus lanes in dublin i.e along the N4, Blackrock QBC, Stilorgan QBC etc.

What do you mean by dwell time? At junctions at set downs? Its a bit unclear

The last two items are difficult due to the fact that you have private operators dealing with public companies. I would expect difficulties in both universal ticketing and planning due to each others on vested interest.

I've gotten the bus every day from school/college/work over the last 10 years and in the last 6 months have been getting the train.

markpb wrote:

Similarly for the Dart, the growth in IC and suburban traffic has meant that there's even less signalling time for Darts which have also grown. How many threads about people who can't get on trains do we need here?

Isnt that down to the physical size and lack of carriages rather than signalling?

markpb wrote:

Yes and no. No I don't complain because I understand it's a necessity. Yes because I know the prices have gone up because of the incredibly low level of subvention in Ireland compared to other countries.

There botht he same thing as in each case it comes out of your pocker either through higher taxes or increased fairs.

markpb wrote:

Congestion in cities hurts both people living in the cities and companies trying to get goods out of those cities in the first place. Let me be quite clear: more roads generate more traffic. You cannot build your way out of congestion, only better planning and better public transport can do that. I could point out plenty of places where it's quite clear the planning process never even dwelled on public transport but I won't because it gets tedious.

Thats why the likes of the port tunnel and the outter distrubutor roads are buil in order to allow traffic to by pass the city so I do belive you can built yourself out of congestion. It doesnt work in all situations.

Building roads to redistribute traffic is more appropiate with traffic calming measures put in place in other areas is what is required.

markpb wrote:

I'm not that deluded Like I said before, the government don't consider public transport to be an important voting issue so they don't concentrate on it.

If the goverment didnt think it was that important why go ahead with T21 on such a scale. It could easily been a lot smaller. It would seem to me a lot of effort for something they werent interested in.

markpb wrote:

You make an awful lot of assumptions about me. I'm fully in favour of higher taxes if they mean a better level of services. If you want me to pay 2% extra in PAYE in return for a proper metro system in Dublin I'd vote. If you want me to pay 1% extra after graduating for better university facilities, I'd be all for it.

Personally I think spending is ok and wouldnt change it. With the new public precurment procedures and tighter regins on cost control during construction progress more bang for buck.

markpb wrote:

Do you live in Dublin or Cork or any other city in Ireland? Do you commute by public transport? Do you think that after ten years of record growth, our cities have an adequate level of public transport?

I live in Dublin. I've first hand experience with all that is associated with public trasnport in this city and can compare it to public transport in many other cities.

While I'm not happy at the levels of public transport I live in the real world and realise that Ireland will never ever nor get close to having the perfect public transport system.

I've yet to see a solution that can be delivered (without crippling the country) and that can bring us close to this situation.

This is gona go around in circles again so I'm bowing out

markf909

Thats why the likes of the port tunnel and the outter distrubutor roads are buil in order to allow traffic to by pass the city

Whats the name of the road it feeds into?

I do belive you can built yourself out of congestion.

Oh yeah the M50, thats it. The one that will be at capacity even when the 3rd lane comes on stream.

What should we do, double deck it? Build the M51?
I'd be interested to hear about how more roads are the answer.

As an aside:
Interesting to not that the whole M50 upgrade gig (I'm fully in favour) costs around €1bn. However the Herald last Friday were apoplectic that €35m of that was being spent on ensuring the Luas gets diverted at the N7 junction.

Public transport gets so much bashing from the media its no wonder the politicians don't care.

murphaph

kearnsr wrote:

While I'm not happy at the levels of public transport I live in the real world and realise that Ireland will never ever nor get close to having the perfect public transport system.

I could attack each of your badly made points one by one but this is the nub of the issue. As I said already, it's you and people like you (the majority unfortunately) who persist with this attitude that lets the politicians and civil 'servants' off the hook.

godtabh

murphaph wrote:

As I said already, it's you and people like you (the majority unfortunately) who persist with this attitude that lets the politicians and civil 'servants' off the hook.

I my have made assumptions earlier but so have you.

You assume I voted for the goverment. I didnt.

Please provide a solution that works.

markpb

kearnsr wrote:

I my have made assumptions earlier but so have you. You assume I voted for the goverment. I didnt. Please provide a solution that works.

He didn't say you voted for them, he said you defended them

- Set up the DTA to regulate all public transport services in Dublin under one banner and with integrated ticketing

- Move from kerb side bus lanes to segregated contra-flow median bus corridors on all reasonable arterial routes

- Identify construction sites in or near the city centre and work with the developers to put underground bus stations for terminal capacity. Convert as many buses as possible to far-side terminating routes and close off some city centre roads to improve throughput

- Electrify the Maynooth line immediately so it's ready to go at the same time as the Interconnector and KRP upgrade

- Expand all luas/metro lines continuously as other cities do, not big bang followed by years of consultation and another big bang

El Stuntman

I take it that it's totally unfeasible to 4 track the DART's original line?

loyatemu

I'd say it'd be possible on the northside to put in a 3rd track - vastly expensive though (you'd have to rebuild all the stations). Southside, no chance.

El Stuntman

loyatemu wrote:

I'd say it'd be possible on the northside to put in a 3rd track - vastly expensive though (you'd have to rebuild all the stations). Southside, no chance.

that's what I thought alright

bicycle tyres to be repatched tonight, sigh

murphaph

kearnsr wrote:

You assume I voted for the goverment. I didnt.

Where did you get that from? and what has it got to do with this thread? FF would deliver a quality system if we made them. If everybody in Dublin rang/wrote to the DoT everyday for a week we'd see integrated ticketing introduced.

kearnsr wrote:

Please provide a solution that works.

Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid and in fact most every decent city in Europe has provided the solution already. We just need to copy them.

aliveandkicking

kearnsr wrote:

While I'm not happy at the levels of public transport I live in the real world and realise that Ireland will never ever nor get close to having the perfect public transport system.

Why not?

armada104

From RUI:
"June 2007 - Iarnród Éireann withdraw all 10 Alstom DART coaches"

Eh, why?

Transport21 Fan

Until up to about 1910 Dublin had one of the best public transport systems in the world. It was used back then as the benchmark for other systems in the UK. The rest of the country was also very well served by public transport considering our rural nature and population.

The rot began I think with the 1913 lockout and the Dublin United Transport/Tramways tram drivers refusing to join the strike. This created a resentment towards the well-run DUT organisation among nationlist circles. The entire transport system was wrecked by war between 1916 and the early 1920's. In the early years of independence, a lot of money was spent by the Free State Government to keep the public transport system going. Unfortunately Dev came on the scene and investment in such foreign concepts as public transport collapsed. Later on, a mini-revival took place under Todd Andrews. After he left, gombeen politics wanted its revenge for West Cork which led to the situation were the Western Rail Corridor was kept open for 12 passengers a day while the Dublin tram system which carried millions annually was closed. A general sense of negativity arose among CIE management and employees and public transport, and in particular railways were looked upon as nothing more than employment or social welfare. This is were the CIE union mindset we have today comes from. It comes from entire families being employed by the railways in rural areas and they getting a free house as long as the opened the gates for trains a few times a day. This is in itself was not such a bad thing back in them impoverished days, but Ireland is not like that anymore and we have to get away from the CIE union mindset that public transport is about a job for life and little else.

The only way back to world class public transport system is to forget the past and start afresh. This means an end to all things CIE. We need regional transportation bodies and a complete removal of any centralised control or regional political interference. Easier said than done, but certainly not impossible.

But it going to be about more than money. At some point the Government might be forced to have to have a showdown with the CIE unions ala a 'Iron Lady's' 1985 Miners Strike. Hopefully it won't come to that and the DART drivers will stop listening to bearded dregs in Liberty Hall and finally get with it. Then we'll see an end to the crazy padding on the DART.

ixoy

In the mornings, is there some sort of system to decide where all the DART rolling stock should be? I ask because for the last three mornings my DART (08:09 from Malahide) has had 6 carriages whereas everyweek before that it has had 8 (this was, after all, one of the things that kicked off this thread).

So is it possible they've decided that we now only need a six-carriage train (clearly nonsense, since it's full after two stops and people can't get on after four) or are there carriages out of service?

El Stuntman

in farness to IE, the 8.12 from Raheny today was only 2 minutes late, had a full 8 carriages (the nice new ones) and took exactly the timetabled 22 minutes to get to Landsdowne

so the system can work

it's the apparently random nature of it that drives commuters nuts. You never guaranteed that the train will be on time or you will be able to get on

If 1 8.12 train per month was late or didn't have 8 carriages, then I could handle it - it's the fact that there's a problem 50% of the time that is so hard to take. And always, always on a Monday morning - now why could that be?

No wonder people drive....:mad: