No trains between Connolly and Grand Canal Dock - 6 February 2009

godtabh

Any one know what the story is?

Its a death trap out there if you need to Grand Canal Dock and on wards

Alun

According to the IR website it's due to a "machine" breaking down at Pearse. Any idea what this mysterious machine might be?

Drummerboy2

Total joke. Why they had to close the two busiest stations in the city is beyond me. They could have at least, kept one line open. I seen a couple of people having falls as they trudged down Pearse Street to Grand Canal Dock.

munchkin_utd

from IE Website:

DART and Commuter services have now resumed through Tara St. and Pearse St. Stations
by Corporate Communications

DART and Commuter services have now resumed through Tara Street and Pearse Stations after an earlier closure, due to the failure of a maintenance machine working at Pearse Station

Iarnród Éireann apologises for any inconvenience caused

kingshankly

Drummerboy2 wrote: »

Total joke. Why they had to close the two busiest stations in the city is beyond me. They could have at least, kept one line open. I seen a couple of people having falls as they trudged down Pearse Street to Grand Canal Dock.

Both lines were blocked due to a failure of an on track machine . It's back open just there now

thebman

Why were the roads and foot paths so icy to begin with? Why weren't they gritted properly?

Loads of ice patches all over the place. One foot slipped about 3 times on me walking to Grand Canal. I didn't fall or anything as I was able to support myself with my other foot but everyone else around seemed to be in the same boat.

Ridiculous at peak times TBH. What the hell failed?

Cookie_Monster

Was it frozen to the track or some other element of it frozen perhaps

positron

0758 from Drogheda rolls into Connolly 20 mins late this morning, half the people got off, half still in the train to continue the journey. Driver comes on PA for the first time, "this train is terminating at this station, apologies to any.. eh.. passengers.. err.. I didn't know..".

He didn't know?! WTF?

Then there was some two thousand people trying to get out Connolly station, which took another 15 minutes, there was not a single announcement from IrishRail on what's going on. People looking around bewildered, slipping on the slush, loads of people walking down towards Tara, others joining the queue at the taxi rank.

I am not raging - I am just disappointed!

Run_to_da_hills

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Was it frozen to the track or some other element of it frozen perhaps

They probably forgot to put antifreeze into the rad. :pac:

Cookie_Monster

positron wrote: »

Driver comes on PA for the first time, "this train is terminating at this station, apologies to any.. eh.. passengers.. err.. I didn't know..".

Legend! Lol

Good old IR strikes again:rolleyes:

kingshankly

Communication within Irish rail is not great so I would have no doubt drivers only found out trains were terminating in Connolly on arrival

zagmund

I heard it on the radio this morning and immediately decided to get the bus instead, but for some reason the traffic people in RTE didn't seem to put two and two together on this one and realise there would be chaos at GCD & to a lesser degree Connolly.

My first thoughts were - the nearest bus routes to GCD aren't exactly high frequencty routes. A single DART off loading there would fill a lot of buses. All the northbound rush hour DARTs off loading there was only going to be a recipe for disaster.

Second thoughts - all those DARTs are going to back up all the way to Landsdowne or Sandymount or even further as IE struggle to work out what to do with all the trains. Then I thought it would be OK - there's probably more spare track and points betweeen GCD & Pearse than anywhere else on the 'network' so they could shuffle them around there. There's even a spare platform. They used to have a spare platform or two at Pearse as well for that matter. Anyhoo . . . from the sounds of posts on other forums they didn't do the shuffle, so trains did back up al lthe way to Sandymount.

But it's OK - they trotted out the usual "Dublin Bus will be honouring . . ." - lads, the train drivers didn't even know about the problem, how do you expect the bus drivers to know about it ?

z

godtabh

positron wrote: »

0758 from Drogheda rolls into Connolly 20 mins late this morning, half the people got off, half still in the train to continue the journey. Driver comes on PA for the first time, "this train is terminating at this station, apologies to any.. eh.. passengers.. err.. I didn't know..".

He didn't know?! WTF?

Then there was some two thousand people trying to get out Connolly station, which took another 15 minutes, there was not a single announcement from IrishRail on what's going on. People looking around bewildered, slipping on the slush, loads of people walking down towards Tara, others joining the queue at the taxi rank.

I am not raging - I am just disappointed!

There was plenty of announcements in Connolly stating that there was a line closure between Connolly and Grand Canal dock, that DB would honour tickets and to go to O’Connell Street to get the 3 bus to Grand Canal Dock.

positron

kearnsr wrote: »

There was plenty of announcements in Connolly stating that there was a line closure between Connolly and Grand Canal dock, that DB would honour tickets and to go to O’Connell Street to get the 3 bus to Grand Canal Dock.

Define plenty.

There was none the 15-20 minutes I was there, which affects so many hundreds of passengers who have paid hard earned money for the service.. I never heard it, and my partner who have to get to Blackrock ended up getting a taxi.

liverbird

I was on the 7.50 balbriggan - connolly train. Driver gave 4/5 announcements detailing and apologising for the delays. We trundled into Connolly at 9.15am.

Then connolly tannoy again apologised to customers for the train failure in pearse and gave details of the No 3 on O'Connell St to get commuters to GCD.

My only irk was the ticket barriers should have been opened to allow us through quicker.

positron

Barriers were open when we were coming out, probably 10 mins after you. However, no announcements what so ever!

godtabh

positron wrote: »

Define plenty.

Maybe something like this?

liverbird wrote: »

I was on the 7.50 balbriggan - connolly train. Driver gave 4/5 announcements detailing and apologising for the delays. We trundled into Connolly at 9.15am.

Then connolly tannoy again apologised to customers for the train failure in pearse and gave details of the No 3 on O'Connell St to get commuters to GCD.

My only irk was the ticket barriers should have been opened to allow us through quicker.

Either way there was enough announcement to know that there was a problem and what do if I wanted to continue my journey past GCD.

Cookie_Monster

@ kearnsr

Are you actually defending IE?:pac:


How long were stations closed altogether?

godtabh

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

@ kearnsr

Are you actually defending IE?:pac:


How long were stations closed altogether?

Poople on here siad that IE didnt give out any infomration. That wasnt the case.

positron

kearnsr wrote: »

Poople on here siad that IE didnt give out any infomration. That wasnt the case.

You trying to call me something there?

Look, its very simple. I came thru Connolly station this morning and there was no public announcements while I was there. They might have done it before, and after - but none while I and another few hundred people were at the station. I am sure you will agree a PA that misses hundreds of people is not much of a PA or in other words, they were doing PA, but did such a poor job that there was a 15 mins gap in between announcements, where hundreds of people walked by clueless. It still doesn't look very professional to me! :rolleyes:

MiniD

I wasn't much fun for bus passengers either. There were over 100 people on O'Connell Bridge waiting for a bus to GCD/Ballsbridge. It was a similar situation on Lr. Grafton Street.

Every bus was full coming from the 7 terminus on Upper O'Connell Street, the number 4 was full, and the scheduled 08.40 number 45 from Eden Quay was a no show.

A total joke. The line that "Dublin Bus will honour all train/Luas tickets" now just fills me with fear.

KC61

Given the road conditions in the bulk of south and southeast Dublin, the no-show of the 45 is not really surprising as it was probably running rather late on its inbound journey.

There are no spare buses available in the Dublin Bus fleet in the morning peak, and given the conditions I would imagine that more people were using the bus than normal, so it's not really too surprising that the 4 and 7 were full.

Cookie_Monster

KC61 wrote: »

There are no spare buses available in the Dublin Bus fleet in the morning peak.

I spent 3 years going to college at rush hour past Donnybrook depot and every single day there were at least 5+ busses parked up in the yard, varying between single, double decker and tri axles.
Always wondered why they could't just stick them out on the roads.

Granted there will always be a certain number off the road in maintainance/overhaul etc but you could also see some of these inside the garage...

There'll be 120 spare ones soon enough:p

KC61

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

I spent 3 years going to college at rush hour past Donnybrook depot and every single day there were at least 5+ busses parked up in the yard, varying between single, double decker and tri axles.
Always wondered why they could't just stick them out on the roads.

Granted there will always be a certain number off the road in maintainance/overhaul etc but you could also see some of these inside the garage...

There'll be 120 spare ones soon enough:p

And those 5+ would also be in for maintenance, or cover for a bus breakdown. The point is that there would not be spare drivers available to drive them as they would be driven by maintenance staff to wherever the breakdown was.

FIRE

I was on the 6.18am train from Raheny. It was 12 mins late....Bad weather...so no problem I thought.

Then while waiting there was an announcement saying about this magical "MACHINE" that had broke down...I imagined a ticket machine broke


So get on train and about 2 stops down, the driver said he had been just informed that we were terminating at Connolly, Why didnt they tell him first?

Anyway knew the buses would be mad so just walked to Baggot Street. 20 minutes.

Only got the train cause I couldnt drive in!!!


Will Minister Dempsey give assurances that the "MACHINE" won't break down again while he's asking people to use public transport.

MiniD

KC61 wrote: »

Given the road conditions in the bulk of south and southeast Dublin, the no-show of the 45 is not really surprising as it was probably running rather late on its inbound journey.

There are no spare buses available in the Dublin Bus fleet in the morning peak, and given the conditions I would imagine that more people were using the bus than normal, so it's not really too surprising that the 4 and 7 were full.

No disputing the road conditions, the circumstances were against everybody this morning.

I wouldn't agree with your view of no spare buses being available in morning peak. The amount of out of service buses heading back to Donnybrook depot between 8am and 10am is quite high. I understand the bulk of these are euro duties returning to the depot, but a bit of creative organisation could easily help shift some of the crowds as far as the RDS.

godtabh

MiniD wrote: »

No disputing the road conditions, the circumstances were against everybody this morning.

I wouldn't agree with your view of no spare buses being available in morning peak. The amount of out of service buses heading back to Donnybrook depot between 8am and 10am is quite high. I understand the bulk of these are euro duties returning to the depot, but a bit of creative organisation could easily help shift some of the crowds as far as the RDS.

I’m sure the work practices of the unions wouldn’t allow this. Things may change now if they want to keep their jobs.

KC61

MiniD wrote: »

No disputing the road conditions, the circumstances were against everybody this morning.

I wouldn't agree with your view of no spare buses being available in morning peak. The amount of out of service buses heading back to Donnybrook depot between 8am and 10am is quite high. I understand the bulk of these are euro duties returning to the depot, but a bit of creative organisation could easily help shift some of the crowds as far as the RDS.

Buses don't start going back to the depot off EURO duties until 9-30 or 10am, and certainly not 8am.

There may be some of the Bray based buses going to Donnybrook for refuelling/cleaning, but they are on a tight schedule and are back out again immediately afterwards.

Some buses (for example on the 15 group) work out empty from town to their outer terminus around 8am having already worked inbound from the outer terminus to keep the peak flow going. That might be what you're seeing.

There are certainly no buses going into the garage for storage before 9am.

parsi

thebman wrote: »

Why were the roads and foot paths so icy to begin with? Why weren't they gritted properly?

Loads of ice patches all over the place. One foot slipped about 3 times on me walking to Grand Canal. I didn't fall or anything as I was able to support myself with my other foot but everyone else around seemed to be in the same boat.

Interesting question.

I was in Citywest Hotel on Wednesday (drove up from Cork) and despite it being the day after the snow and the fact that there were around 1000 people expected they hadn't bothered their barney to clear the road, the car-park or the footpaths.

MiniD

KC61 wrote: »

There may be some of the Bray based buses going to Donnybrook for refuelling/cleaning, but they are on a tight schedule and are back out again immediately afterwards.

I said between 8am and 10am. You could be right, but there are lots of buses heading back to Donnybrook before 9am. You can spot these on Nassau Street / Mount Street any weekday morning. For example, an 84X arrives into the city centre, then heads back to Donnybrook depot "As Seirbhis".

Collecting passengers and doing a short run to the RDS would add an extra 10 minutes to their journey back to the depot. Isn't this what Dublin Bus should be doing, maximising loadings to get the most from their buses? With the proposed cuts to the 7 and 45, there needs to be extra capacity given to this corridor at peak times. Occasionally a street inspector will lay on a short working, but it's not guaranteed.

321654

positron wrote: »

0758 from Drogheda rolls into Connolly 20 mins late this morning, half the people got off, half still in the train to continue the journey. Driver comes on PA for the first time, "this train is terminating at this station, apologies to any.. eh.. passengers.. err.. I didn't know..".

He didn't know?! WTF?

Then there was some two thousand people trying to get out Connolly station, which took another 15 minutes, there was not a single announcement from IrishRail on what's going on. People looking around bewildered, slipping on the slush, loads of people walking down towards Tara, others joining the queue at the taxi rank.

I am not raging - I am just disappointed!

positron wrote: »

You trying to call me something there?

Look, its very simple. I came thru Connolly station this morning and there was no public announcements while I was there. They might have done it before, and after - but none while I and another few hundred people were at the station. I am sure you will agree a PA that misses hundreds of people is not much of a PA or in other words, they were doing PA, but did such a poor job that there was a 15 mins gap in between announcements, where hundreds of people walked by clueless. It still doesn't look very professional to me!

I was on that train. The driver announced it loads of times (about every 5 minutes) before getting to Connoly. He also said that if anything changed before we got there he would let us know and the train would continue. There were announcements in the station too.