CIE/Irish Rail - accountable to nobody!

KC61

dowlingm wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0114/rail.html
Is this a li... er... an economy with the truth? My understanding was that there is a parcels compartment on 22Ks. Could this be the same spokeswoman who said on radio there was no way P11/RUI's suggestion of a late Portlaoise could be run just before it was announced?

I think what she said at the time regarding Portlaoise was that the set rosters were changing regularly (which was true) and that the empty train was not always operating to Portlaoise (which was also true), and hence they had not introduced the train into regular passenger service.

The rosters then subsequently changed which facilitated the introduction of the service. In fairness, the rosters appear to be changing every two-three weeks as more of the new trains come into service. The 6 car sets are now gradually displacing the Mark 3 sets and also some of the 2 x 3 car sets on some services.

dowlingm

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

I'm sure there are some situations where the weight/ axle load of a 201 may rule it out in favour or 2x141's maybe?

True about the 201 weight issue Cookie, I said as much myself up the page a bit and well spotted that the photo is actually 141+181 although there's not much difference between them physically. However I'm not sure if there is anywhere that a 071 can't go on the current network? Either way, it's really only a question of retaining the minimum necessary for IE operations, not simply retaining every 141/181 for the benefit of loco watchers. We should be looking to electrification in the long run over the core network - Dublin suburban, Cork-Dublin, Dublin-Belfast which would reduce the number of locos required even further.

monument

It's not the first time, and is unlikely to be the last time the following is said here:

It's a political issue.

In Ireland it was chosen that road was the way. Remember there's a road transport lobby, there no rail transport lobby to balance that.

The problem with rail transport and it being a political issue is you have to take the long term view. There's massive environmental*, and safety benefits to using rail to transport goods. There's also benefits of avoiding congestion or on the other hand avoiding have extra road building and maintenance costs. If you compare rail's costs to road transport's real costs, then rail starts to look a lot more attractive.

Of course, somebody is likely to say the grip hold that unions have on rail killed its chances. That's debatable, but they likely had at least some affect.

* = as in 'environmental' in the broadest meaning of the word, less emissions, less road traffic etc

corktina

well if you want an improved passenger network then there arent too many paths available for freight. Much of the countrys lines are single track and most of the double track bits have an hourly service which means most freight would have to move at night. Im afraid there isnt really any chance of long-haul freight being available as Dublin (where it would most likely start or finish at) is roughly half way up the country, plus there would be little chance of a return load meaning lots of empty running.

Freight doesnt stack up in ireland, forget it.

dowlingm

corktina - I'm sure there are a lot of European countries that can manage a freight service within those parameters. With the improvements in places like Limerick Junction, Portarlington, Kildare Route Project and removal of manual LCs we should surely be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, at least a little bit.

Ham'nd'egger

dowlingm wrote: »

corktina - I'm sure there are a lot of European countries that can manage a freight service within those parameters. With the improvements in places like Limerick Junction, Portarlington, Kildare Route Project and removal of manual LCs we should surely be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, at least a little bit.

Other countries have heavy ore traffic, mass industry and massive international trade to deal with on rail; Ireland hasn't got this. Much of the freight traffic in Ireland is smaller loads and it just isn't practical to move it from truck/van to rail head, onto a train and then back onto a truck for final delivery; more often than not it takes longer that way.

Certainly there is scope for more to be moved by rail but unless the State allows Irish Rail in the absence of private rail carriers to move it with incentive/subsidy, it isn't a tangible reality.

Cool Mo D

The reality of it is that when Irish Rail were carrying freight, they were using their Government money to subsidise it. Money that could have been used to improve the experience for the passenger instead of subsidising businesses. There is no point in carrying freight if it doesn't make a decent profit - heavy freight trains damage tracks more than passenger trains, driving up maintenance costs, and lowering line speeds for express passenger trains. The only way rail freight is good for passengers is if it is making a decent profit, to be ploughed back into the rail network.
Add to that the fact that rail freight is only competitive with road in Ireland for very large, very regular, long distance loads, and is in the stone age when it comes to the logistics side of it, and the load will almost inevitably be loaded back onto a truck at some stage anyway, it is not at all surprising that rail freight in Ireland is dying.

dowlingm

Hamndegger wrote: »

Other countries have heavy ore traffic, mass industry and massive international trade to deal with on rail; Ireland hasn't got this. Much of the freight traffic in Ireland is smaller loads and it just isn't practical to move it from truck/van to rail head, onto a train and then back onto a truck for final delivery; more often than not it takes longer that way.

Certainly there is scope for more to be moved by rail but unless the State allows Irish Rail in the absence of private rail carriers to move it with incentive/subsidy, it isn't a tangible reality.

Ham - was only referring to the technical ability, not the economic one. Your points are well taken. However, it is difficult to create an economic reality if there is a defeatist attitude taken to it technically.

Cool Mo D - true to an extent but that just means that IE should not permitted to lay CWR and rely on it being "better than jointed" to avoid doing aggressive maintenance to it.

Judgement Day

Both Ham'nd'egger and Cool Mo D sound like they are from CIE/IE management with their defeatist attitude and remind me of one very senior CIE manager in the 1980's who I remember saying that if the railways were being built today they wouldn't be any built in Ireland.

If what's left of our rail network is to justify the massive subsidies it receives it must attract as much traffic as possible - not just passengers! What do either of the aforementioned individuals think of the impending abandonment of Fastrack? I would be interested in their opinions.

If the Government is serious about reducing our Carbon Footprint or reducing our dependency on imported oil it must get freight back on the rails. This can be done in many ways and a small start would be to direct that all State agencies and semi-states investigate returning to the railways. In the past the mails were carried by train and An Post now make a virtue of the the fact that they have abandoned the railway. Even the RTE Guide used to be sent by train. The ESB used to have depots at railway stations, Bord na Mona sent their products by rail. These days even CIE/IE internal mail has to be carried by private courier!

However, for these agencies to use CIE/IE again would require a major shake-up from top to bottom of the way the railway is operated. A clear-out of management and a sorting out of industrial relations once and for all - I am thinking here of Ronald Reagan and his handling of the US Air Traffic Controllers in 1981!

Cool Mo D

It's not a "deafeatist" attitude. I just don't see that there's much to gain for Irish Rail by carrying freight. They should focus on getting passenger transport right as their first priority - I can even give them a few pointers: Integrated timetables to make transfers easy; a transparent fare structure; a proper timetable for DART (no 40 minute gaps followed by 3 trains in 20 minutes) commuter and intercity, with regular services no padding, good speeds, and late services, and good customer service from staff who know how to do their jobs, and at least act as if they like to help the customer.
Rail freight is all well and good, but it is not a public service, so it should be run like a business, and make a profit. Otherwise, it should be scrapped.

parsi

The idea of freight is good but where are the flows ?

Even the rest of Europe has dropped everything in favour of ever longer block trains.

For flows you need either the start point or end point to be high volume. Cement traffic was (by other standards) fairly small and still involved trans-shipment at depots. Fert traffic was the same. Shale was similar. Acronynitrile and Ammonia at least had the dubious benefit of being "safer by rail".

We hardly manufacture anything so there's sweet all to put on the trains and I don't see any private freight guys banging down the door (or flying media kites) looking for open access..

The only other way is for freight to be designated as environmentally preferable and thus heavily subsidised - in these days of "paying your way" this is unlikely to happen.

Judgement Day

I beg to differ - while I acknowledge that freight by rail in Europe is down to about 10% of all movements it is on the way back and there are a wide variety of services available - see example from the DHL website:

Rail Freight is unavailable in ireland - however we can assist with Rail Freight within Europe. DHL Freight moves single wagons, wagon groups or complete trains. Intermodal solutions also play a very important role where DHL Freight offers block trains and mixed trains.

DHL RAILEUROPE moves your goods by rail from siding to siding as well as entire train compositions across Europe.

The right rolling stock is available for every type of freight: low-bed wagons for heavy or bulky goods; sliding-wall, high-capacity wagons or open flatcars for large consignments; tank wagons for liquid products; silo wagons for granular products.

Value-added services include truck transfer from terminal to train and in reverse, and transport of chemicals with special safety provisions.


We the almost total eradication of freight by rail in Ireland there is now the opportunity for somebody, other than CIE/IE, to have a go starting from scratch. No old style goods depots or handling methods or, indeed, staff, locos or wagons! EU law deregulation will surely lead to some company with vision coming into Ireland - I hope so.

What about an express parcels service Belfast/Dublin/Cork utilising some of the withdrawn MkIII stock? Given the amount of registered hackers and cowboys on the road there must be enough traffic on this route for a 'profitable' service.

Ham'nd'egger

Judgement Day wrote: »

Both Ham'nd'egger and Cool Mo D sound like they are from CIE/IE management with their defeatist attitude and remind me of one very senior CIE manager in the 1980's who I remember saying that if the railways were being built today they wouldn't be any built in Ireland.

If what's left of our rail network is to justify the massive subsidies it receives it must attract as much traffic as possible - not just passengers! What do either of the aforementioned individuals think of the impending abandonment of Fastrack? I would be interested in their opinions.

If the Government is serious about reducing our Carbon Footprint or reducing our dependency on imported oil it must get freight back on the rails. This can be done in many ways and a small start would be to direct that all State agencies and semi-states investigate returning to the railways. In the past the mails were carried by train and An Post now make a virtue of the the fact that they have abandoned the railway. Even the RTE Guide used to be sent by train. The ESB used to have depots at railway stations, Bord na Mona sent their products by rail. These days even CIE/IE internal mail has to be carried by private courier!

However, for these agencies to use CIE/IE again would require a major shake-up from top to bottom of the way the railway is operated. A clear-out of management and a sorting out of industrial relations once and for all - I am thinking here of Ronald Reagan and his handling of the US Air Traffic Controllers in 1981!

Believe me, I'd rather see as much freight sent via rail as possible for many reasons but so long as rail freight has to make a profit as a stand alone entity, it hasn't much hope in Ireland.

Freight used to be profitable well into the 1990's but even with the older accounting practices and rules in place, there was a lot of other companies giving their business but some of these lines are non runners for many reasons outside of Irish Rail's doing. Beet, IFI, Bell Ferries, Guinness, Bulmers, Asahi, Molasses, Coal, Gypsum, An Post, newspapers, Kerry Foods, Grain, Asbestos, Bord na Mona have all been lost and won't be back soon. Cement has lessened big time as has shale while Zinc is on a cyclical tightrope for now. Only Timber and Norfolk have being growing in the last 3 years but are liable to be lost given circumstances.

Fast Track is sad to see gone but IMO it's partly a victim of cutting ones cloth to suit; get new railcars that can't deal with the loads and forget about loco haulage and the possibility of freight. The clear intention is for road haulage as much as possible and has been for yonks. Railway has to deal with road transport on all levels and even air travel on some routes and this is the reality; it's sink or swim time. You need to look above the CIE board for explanations as to why this is so and seeing as it is they and not Dick Fearns or John Lynch who make the really big calls, as is the way with most of our public transport messes, even outside of CIE matters. The minute they give the nod, freight will be allowed to work in Ireland but until then....

monument

Any time rail freight is mentioned here there is a defeatist attitude, it could be said for a lot of things mentioned here. It's not surprising as it's a bit of a reflection of the country in general.

I don't know how possible rail freight is in Ireland, but some of the reasons given against don't stack...

And for those of you who don't think these matters are a political issue rather than a clear cut profit or not one... how much of the road network improvements we have seen in the last 20 years would have made it on such a bases?

corktina wrote: »

Much of the countrys lines are single track and most of the double track bits have an hourly service which means most freight would have to move at night.

Would passing loops not work?

corktina wrote: »

plus there would be little chance of a return load meaning lots of empty running.

And 'empty running' isn't a problem for road or shipping?

Did know pretty much all those container ships coming from China to Europe are going back empty? Sorry, if I sound narky here, but you look to be making excuses.

Cool Mo D wrote: »

they were using their Government money to subsidise it. Money that could have been used to improve the experience for the passenger instead of subsidising businesses.

Well at the moment the Government is looking at heavy fines for breaching its emissions targets. And, as I said above:

There's massive environmental, and safety benefits to using rail to transport goods. There's also benefits of avoiding congestion or on the other hand avoiding have extra road building and maintenance costs. If you compare rail's costs to road transport's real costs, then rail starts to look a lot more attractive.

Also it's worth noting that the Minister of Transport -- a bit strangely with out prompting -- admitted on the Last Word that the Government subsidise public transport far less compared to other countries.

Cool Mo D wrote: »

There is no point in carrying freight if it doesn't make a decent profit - heavy freight trains damage tracks more than passenger trains, driving up maintenance costs, and lowering line speeds for express passenger trains.

Did you miss my post? I posted part of it again just above this.

Cool Mo D wrote: »

The only way rail freight is good for passengers is if it is making a decent profit, to be ploughed back into the rail network.

What do you mean "good for passengers"? What is that supposed to mean? What about being good for the State and society in general?

corktina

monument wrote: »

"Would passing loops not work? "

passing lops are not the problem, line capacity that they create is.You can only have one trian in each section at a time which severely limits the number of trains you can run.



"And 'empty running' isn't a problem for road or shipping? "

Empty running by road (ship isnt really relevant is it) is minimised by back loads.Thats the difference between profit and loss in logistics.

monument

corktina wrote: »

"Would passing loops not work? "

passing lops are not the problem, line capacity that they create is.You can only have one trian in each section at a time which severely limits the number of trains you can run.

One train in each station is not strictly true, at least on one single track line I use regularly two trains meet at stations -- ie the loop is at the station. Is it not the case cargo trains shouldn't need to take up platform room, as sidings or loops away from station platforms will do for them?

"And 'empty running' isn't a problem for road or shipping? "

Empty running by road (ship isnt really relevant is it) is minimised by back loads.Thats the difference between profit and loss in logistics.

Minimised my how much? Give a guess at percentage and then give a guess at percentage that trains could also do the same, is that possible?

And, yes, I think shipping is relevant. Your statement on empty loads on the way back looks like unmanageable practice to an outsider. But pointing to shipping shows what looks like unmanageable practice to an outsider happens all the time.

Cookie_Monster

monument wrote: »

Minimised my how much? Give a guess at percentage and then give a guess at percentage that trains could also do the same, is that possible?
.

40% of everything that come into Tesco Donabate is back hauled by their own truck delivering to shops around the country, as an example

monument wrote: »

And, yes, I think shipping is relevant. Your statement on empty loads on the way back looks like unmanageable practice to an outsider. But pointing to shipping shows what looks like unmanageable practice to an outsider happens all the time.

Ships don't just sail from Japan to here and back though. They go from port to port so containers may only be empty from here to Rotterdam for instance

monument

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

40% of everything that come into Tesco Donabate is back hauled by their own truck delivering to shops around the country, as an example

Could you explain what impact that has got to do with what is being talked about? And more so, how is that answering the question you quoted?

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Ships don't just sail from Japan to here and back though. They go from port to port so containers may only be empty from here to Rotterdam for instance

How does that contradict what I said?

Did know pretty much all those container ships coming from China to Europe are going back empty? -- and I meant to add empty or a very small percentage of the cargo which comes here.

bk

monument wrote: »

Did know pretty much all those container ships coming from China to Europe are going back empty?

FYI Well up to last year, they weren't empty, they were full of waste material to be recycled in China. Only this year has the demand for recyclable waste collapsed, but it will certainly return.

monument

bk wrote: »

FYI Well up to last year, they weren't empty, they were full of waste material to be recycled in China. Only this year has the demand for recyclable waste collapsed, but it will certainly return.

Full? I don't think so.

In any case it has always been a problem for land transport too. But from what I'm getting from some here is they look to think it applies to rail always, but never to road?

corktina

monument wrote: »

One train in each station is not strictly true, at least on one single track line I use regularly two trains meet at stations -- ie the loop is at the station. Is it not the case cargo trains shouldn't need to take up platform room, as sidings or loops away from station platforms will do for them?



thats not what I said. Trains at the stations arent a problem, its the section BETWEEN the stations that is. depending on the length of the sections there is a limit to how many trains can be run on a single line, ie if it takes a train 30 mins to get from station a to b and in clear then the max service is one train an hour in each direction, and then you have to allow for delays which can throw the entire line into chaos. Remember that "one per hour" is the maximum, if there is nt a train there waiting to cross then the opposing train will have to wait for it OR the late train will have to be held at the preceding station.

Cookie_Monster

monument wrote: »

Could you explain what impact that has got to do with what is being talked about? And more so, how is that answering the question you quoted?

Fine, it translates to roughly 80%+ of trucks running back from deliveries being full or part loaded rather than empty, better?

monument

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Fine, it translates to roughly 80%+ of trucks running back from deliveries being full or part loaded rather than empty, better?

Really sorry if I'm coming across as narky etc here, but that's a useless snippet of info unless you can say what the 80% is make up of, and where are the trucks going or coming from, and how far is there journey etc...

More importantly, my question was about adverages and about getting a genral picture, not just one example which could give a distorted picture.

corktina wrote: »

thats not what I said

Sorry, I miss read 'section' as 'station'.

dowlingm

We're getting into the realm of industrial policy here - that freight flows be analysed and the economic conditions created to encourage rail as their transport mode. A lot of the freight data should be accessible from CSO, you would think? Now, you would think that's what the Dept of Transport and the Department of Industry/Enterprise/whateveryou'rehavingyourself would be doing anyway...

A serious move to freight would have to consider a 32-county context, so both sides of the border could be served by Larne/Balbriggan/Rosslare/Belview with trains shuttling from one to the other in the context of a redeveloped Dublin Port and an intermodal yard near Dublin Airport. In that sense an open-access operator would probably work better than solely IE or Translink but also obstruction from both and the necessity for serious regulatory oversight (something the banking sector shows is not done very well these days).

The problem in one sense is that the Republic has created a road network whose financing essentially depends on projected road traffic - projections which will take a major hit from the current economic situation - and there will be a lot of planted op-eds in the press saying we're courting disaster by encouraging railheads rather than sending artics up and down our M-ways.

The capacity issue is not likely to be single track - Canada has a huge freight industry with trains kilometres long and a lot of it goes single track - it is more likely to be Dublin area capacity. Since the KRP and interconnector seems doomed to be single deck from what I understand, unless IE finds some way to make a quantum leap in signalling and spacing extra freight trains are going to be unwelcome by passengers who couldn't get on the full DART/suburban that just left.

Adding a rail component to DOOR and the Dublin Bay bridge might help - if the Department of Transport had any interest in leveraging the expropriation of land at vast cost for multiple purposes - which history says it doesn't.

corktina

the issue with single track is the desire of the travelling public to have an improved regular interval service. Its very difficult to allow for freight there (except maybe at night) even if it isnt kilometres long....

Judgement Day

A comment on IRN today re.withdrawal of Fastrack

irishtrains2730
it's silly really especially in the current climate of job losses.surely they could make it work in their favour.one day they'll loose money then where will they be?

God help us with idiots like this is any wonder CIE/IE get such an easy ride from 'enthusiasts'?

DWCommuter

Judgement Day wrote: »

A comment on IRN today re.withdrawal of Fastrack

irishtrains2730
it's silly really especially in the current climate of job losses.surely they could make it work in their favour.one day they'll loose money then where will they be?

God help us with idiots like this is any wonder CIE/IE get such an easy ride from 'enthusiasts'?

You really should stop reading that site. Its soul destroying if you care about things, despite the fact that there are some good sensible people over there from time to time.

Judgement Day

I know I should but I am just back from the pub after watching another glorious chapter in Munster's rugby history and that combined with too much Guinness always brings on the urge to surf aimlessly! Did I mention that Munster won - again - who cares about Fastrack, IRN, Rail Users Ireland or Mark G...... the Barry Kenny wannabe!!

DWCommuter

Judgement Day wrote: »

I know I should but I am just back from the pub after watching another glorious chapter in Munster's rugby history and that combined with too much Guinness always brings on the urge to surf aimlessly! Did I mention that Munster won - again - who cares about Fastrack, IRN, Rail Users Ireland or Mark G...... the Barry Kenny wannabe!!

Legend!

Judgement Day

Where Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann go (with up to 600 job losses) Iarnrod Eireann will surely follow but is there anything left to cut?

They are tied into the WRC, Midleton and Navan (Pace) re-openings so apart from further decimation of station staff - outside Dublin - what is left? The sell-off of railway property (Inchicore Works etc) is no longer worthwhile with the current recession so the spotlight will probably fall - once again - on the Waterford/Rosslare and Limerick/Ballybrophy lines.