Midleton Railway daftness

Chris_533976

Was getting the train the other day when I noticed that a big sign in Kent station said "Services to Midleton BY 2008". Well done lads The sign was quite new too, which added to the wtf-ness.

Although I must give a mention to the ticket collector and a random passenger the other day who both simultaneously had a go at a group of schoolboys who were yelling PENIS at the tops of their voices for 10 minutes. The lads were offered the choice of shutting up or walking

Victor

Chris_533976 wrote: »

Was getting the train the other day when I noticed that a big sign in Kent station said "Services to Midleton BY 2008". Well done lads The sign was quite new too, which added to the wtf-ness.

Pic please.

Chris_533976

Wish I had the camera with me, but I doubt I'll be in Kent anytime soon


Someone get a pic if you're there, its just inside the main entrance on the right, behind the double doors. Theres two of them.

Navan Junction

Whats the latest with Midleton

Chris_533976

Last I've seen, rail is clear, temporary fencing is up at Glounthaune, a high quality luxury blue rope has been put up near the track but no workmen floating around at all.

Great for a project that is apparently finished according to the signage!

invincibleirish

Navan Junction wrote: »

Whats the latest with Midleton

According to this www.rte.ie/news/2004/0521/rail.html should be up and running sometime 2007, woohoo!, anyday soon,i mean its only a renewal of 10km of single track and a couple of choo choos, it wouldnt need to take any longer surely without valid reason?






Oh wait, this is Ireland.

deRanged

I use Glounthaune station daily and I've yet to see anyone working on the line.
The Glounthaune Midleton railway project office is in Glounthaune (the station is unmanned).

The last time I was talking to an IR employee, he said they were to upgrade all the platforms on the Cobh line and install ticket machines in the unmanned stations. This was supposed to happen last summer, before the opening of the Midleton line.

DWCommuter

Navan Junction wrote: »

Whats the latest with Midleton

Better than Navan, but weaker than the WRC.:D Looks like Government priority is not based on commuting needs. The interconnector still awaits. I'm currently compiling a brochure for Dail Eireann that outlines the meaning of immediacy in terms of rail projects. I heard that the blind ears on Kildare street are already lighting the fire!!!;)

Pineapple stu

The major work is going to kick in a few weeks.

hunnymonster

Sorry to drag up an old post, but is this the reason I appear to have a bus ticket not a train ticket this month? Between strikes, timetable changes and work going on, I can't seem to figure out what is going on with the Cobh train these days.

invincibleirish

hunnymonster wrote: »

Sorry to drag up an old post, but is this the reason I appear to have a bus ticket not a train ticket this month? Between strikes, timetable changes and work going on, I can't seem to figure out what is going on with the Cobh train these days.

it all bodes well for the future, when the Midleton line opens,be it this year, next year or the year after then will it be subject to the same difficulties currently being experienced?

Just what we need when the country needs evidence high expense rail projects are worth it, a new service paralysed by strikes.

deRanged

I think most of the current disruption is down to the work at tivoli. I've not seen many problems outside of the strike though I've been getting the later trains in the morning.

They have been putting up what look like new mile markers all along the track, but that seems not to interfere.

They're working away on the midleton line, I look forward to seeing track being laid. I should then have twice as many replacement busses at Glounthaune

spacetweek

NOt to be too anal here but "By 2008" means they have until the end of the year. They did actually say they intend to be finished by the end of this year, with services starting at the beginning of 2009.

invincibleirish

spacetweek wrote: »

NOt to be too anal here but "By 2008" means they have until the end of the year. They did actually say they intend to be finished by the end of this year, with services starting at the beginning of 2009.

does the year really matter?

IE have had this pencilled in for since 2004, if they manage to open it by 2010 it will be an achievement. 6 years to open 13km of single track & 2 Stations:rolleyes:.

hunnymonster

deRanged wrote: »

I think most of the current disruption is down to the work at tivoli. I've not seen many problems outside of the strike though I've been getting the later trains in the morning.

deRanged, do you know what they are actually doing at tivoli?

Either early morning (into Cork) or mid evening (usually 8pm train from Cork) have been leaving/arriving from platform 0 (the car park!) Because the road is closed the bus first goes to Little Island, then Galuthaune but then has to double back to get onto Dual carriageway and head for Cobh's cross. It doesn't actually take that much longer but I get very travel sick on busses. the EI website has no information and if I ring Kent station there is noone to answer customer enquiries so I have no idea which trains are actually going to be trains and which will make me throw up!

deRanged

hunnymonster wrote: »

deRanged, do you know what they are actually doing at tivoli?

isn't it general prep work for the new bridge and crossings?
they've put in hefty walls alongside the track to mark off the apartments. it also looks like there's an access road so they can close some of the ancient crossings.
that's what it looks like to me anyway (but I'm a computer scientist so ...)

they had a platform in the river a couple of months ago that looked like it was taking core samples.

I have no idea which trains are actually going to be trains and which will make me throw up!

I cheat, - I know from walking my dog in the mornings if the train is gone down, I've got flexi-time and I don't get travel sick.

Judgement Day

The real 'daftness' in the reopening of the Midleton rail line is the cost - 130 million Euros I understand - and this line was still in acceptable operating condition for passenger trains as recently as 1988! In that year it was in CIE parlance 'mothballed' but instead of maintaining the line in some reasonable condition they effectively abandoned it. Even if a million a year had been spent on the upkeep of the line - which actually extends to Youghal - it would still have only come to 20 million over the twenty years! Instead due to CIE/IE's stupidity they have to build what is to all intents and purposes a 'new' railway on the right of way of the old line.
CIE/IE have no interest, or indeed, ability to operate railways and the operation of the new line should have been put out to tender like the Luas. God help us, can you imagine what the new service will amount to - a two piece railcar like that operating on the Cork/Cobh line? It would have been far cheaper to buy some new 'state of the art' buses for Bus Eireann and let them operate a revamped Midleton/Cork service. Anybody any thoughts on this?
Incidentally, will the new stations at Carrigtwohill and Midleton have the CIE/IE Fastrack service? If they do presumably the parcels will be carried by private road operator as they are on all other lines where the wretched railcars operate!!!

deRanged

Judgement Day wrote: »

- a two piece railcar like that operating on the Cork/Cobh line?

they will use existing railcars like those and buy new ones too, in phase two.

and some up to date photos from today (click to get to larger sizes):





more here including links to the docs for the handover to IR of the first section (500m extending from Glounthaune station).

Judgement Day

Excellent photographs and very informative. A lot of progress since I was on the Cobh train on June 20th. As a railway enthusiast I welcome the reopening of the line to Midleton, indeed the whole branch should be done, but I still question the cost and the wisdom of CIE/IE being the operators.

BanzaiBk

Nice info there, deRanged.

loyatemu

Judgement Day wrote: »

The real 'daftness' in the reopening of the Midleton rail line is the cost - 130 million Euros I understand - and this line was still in acceptable operating condition for passenger trains as recently as 1988! In that year it was in CIE parlance 'mothballed' but instead of maintaining the line in some reasonable condition they effectively abandoned it. Even if a million a year had been spent on the upkeep of the line - which actually extends to Youghal - it would still have only come to 20 million over the twenty years! Instead due to CIE/IE's stupidity they have to build what is to all intents and purposes a 'new' railway on the right of way of the old line.

You have a point, but you're blaming the wrong people. There are a number of former lines around the country that are technically mothballed but in reality most of them will never reopen.

Irish Rail have historically had to operate on very tight budgets - I'd rather they spent their day-to-day budget running trains than maintaining lines that may never be used again.

The reopening of Midleton was a political decision, and the funding is I presume coming from the government. No mothballed line has ever been reopened before (um, actually maybe Ennis counts here).

Besides, for 120m we're getting an entirely rebuilt line and stations, which would not have been the case if they'd been "routinely maintained" - more likely we would have seen a token service like on the Nenagh line.

KC61

Judgement Day wrote: »

The real 'daftness' in the reopening of the Midleton rail line is the cost - 130 million Euros I understand - and this line was still in acceptable operating condition for passenger trains as recently as 1988! In that year it was in CIE parlance 'mothballed' but instead of maintaining the line in some reasonable condition they effectively abandoned it. Even if a million a year had been spent on the upkeep of the line - which actually extends to Youghal - it would still have only come to 20 million over the twenty years! Instead due to CIE/IE's stupidity they have to build what is to all intents and purposes a 'new' railway on the right of way of the old line.
CIE/IE have no interest, or indeed, ability to operate railways and the operation of the new line should have been put out to tender like the Luas. God help us, can you imagine what the new service will amount to - a two piece railcar like that operating on the Cork/Cobh line? It would have been far cheaper to buy some new 'state of the art' buses for Bus Eireann and let them operate a revamped Midleton/Cork service. Anybody any thoughts on this?
Incidentally, will the new stations at Carrigtwohill and Midleton have the CIE/IE Fastrack service? If they do presumably the parcels will be carried by private road operator as they are on all other lines where the wretched railcars operate!!!

The Cork/Midleton route will operate as per the Cork/Cobh route with an hourly off-peak service, and half-hourly at peak, giving a half-hourly service from Cork to Glounthaune in off-peak and every 15 minutes during peak periods.

It will be operated by 2600 Class railcars, probably in two car formation, with maybe a four-car train in the peak.

As Loyatemu states, effectively a new railway is in the process of being built, with the entire line being completely relaid and new stations built and new signalling installed.

It certainly would not have met the Health and Safety requirements of today when the last passenger train ran on it. The line closed to regular passenger traffic back in the 1960s, and only ad hoc specials ran on it after that. There is no way IÉ would even consider operating a train on it nowadays even if the line was still in the condition it was when the last passenger train operated.

As the new stations will be unstaffed, there will be no fastrack service.

Judgement Day

Rather than go over my whole arguement again here I will pick you up on the Fastrack point. The reason that there will be NO Fastrack parcels service is that there will be no guards on these trains - it wouldn't matter if there were 100 people staffing Midleton and Carrigtwohill!! This is another example of the totally inept management in CIE/IE which has allowed a situation to develop whereby removing guards from railcars has lead to a refusal by the checker and driver to handle any parcels and even internal CIE/IE mail now travels by private courier. What a shambles!!!!:):):):)

KC61

Judgement Day wrote: »

Rather than go over my whole arguement again here I will pick you up on the Fastrack point. The reason that there will be NO Fastrack parcels service is that there will be no guards on these trains - it wouldn't matter if there were 100 people staffing Midleton and Carrigtwohill!! This is another example of the totally inept management in CIE/IE which has allowed a situation to develop whereby removing guards from railcars has lead to a refusal by the checker and driver to handle any parcels and even internal CIE/IE mail now travels by private courier. What a shambles!!!!:):):):)

I accept what you're saying, but as I say given the stations are unstaffed, the fastrack issue doesn't arise in the case of the Midleton branch.

Judgement Day

Thanks for that I'm not trying to cause a row just pointing out some facts. Going back to the point I was making about costs etc. I quite accept that the line as it was in the 1980's wouldn't pass current Health & Safety regulations but my point was if the line had been properly looked after when it was 'mothballed' re-opening could have been achieved for a fraction of the cost. CIE/IEs malaise is caused by 'everybodys business being nobodys business' ie no one is held responsible for wasting public money - don't mention the electronic voting machines, PPARS etc.etc.:):)

KC61

Judgement Day wrote: »

Thanks for that I'm not trying to cause a row just pointing out some facts. Going back to the point I was making about costs etc. I quite accept that the line as it was in the 1980's wouldn't pass current Health & Safety regulations but my point was if the line had been properly looked after when it was 'mothballed' re-opening could have been achieved for a fraction of the cost. CIE/IEs malaise is caused by 'everybodys business being nobodys business' ie no one is held responsible for wasting public money - don't mention the electronic voting machines, PPARS etc.etc.:):)

Again you make a very good point, but I think that again you have to look at the political realities that were prevailing at the time. During the 1980s and 1990s until the Knockcroghery incident in 1997 there was little or no political will to invest in the railways that were operational, let alone in the ones that were under "care and maintenance". If anything, the management of the time were given a doctrine from their political masters that railways should be closed rather than opened.

To therefore have expected CIÉ/IÉ to have maintained the line to an acceptable standard is not realistic. They could barely keep the existing infrastructure intact let alone the mothballed lines. To a serious degree, the company was at the behest of their political masters who were not interested in providing the necessary funds. It took an incident that mercifully was not fatal (Knockcroghery) to make the politicians wake up and smell the coffee.

Unfortunately like most things to do with public transport in this country, what should happen and what does/did happen are invariably at different ends of the spectrum and you can bet your bottom dollar that in 99% of the variances the cause is political interference.

deRanged

KC61 wrote: »

To therefore have expected CIÉ/IÉ to have maintained the line to an acceptable standard is not realistic. They could barely keep the existing infrastructure intact

it's a miracle they kept the Cobh line open at all. I started using that line daily in '89 and every day was an adventure. Trains that were late were standard, wonky carriages, broken doors and other problems were the order of the day.
The new railcars certainly have their problems (main one I see is doors simply not opening) but the improvement in the service is fantastic. It's reflected in massively improved passenger numbers and I'm confident that the new line will further improve things. Add in the new political support for public transport and park and ride and I think we're finally moving towards decent public transport infrastructure.
Forget the 80's and 90's. They're in the past - look to the future. I'm no Irish Rail fan or apologist, noone who's used as many trains as I have could be. I'm a huge fan of proper rail systems though, and that's what I see coming along.