Part of Dublin to Belfast rail line collapses

Hungerford

fh041205 wrote: »

So if the system here was axle counters the entire bridge could collapse into the estuary and NOBODY would know until a train plunged in?

Correct. Axle counters only care about the number of axles in and out at each end of a section. They can't detect broken rails.

We know that the circuit on the bridge was broken because IE have stated that publicly.

Hungerford

Bond-007 wrote: »

Are they less safer that track circuits?

Like all technologies they have advantages and disadvantages.

The big advantages are that they are cheaper in general and they are ideal for signalling systems in damp places such as the Severn Tunnel in Wales. They can also reduce the instances of broken rails compared with track circuits.

The big disadvantages are that the axle counters can sometimes 'forget' that axles have passed over them, they provide no indication of broken rails and they have real difficulties keeping track of shunting movements where trains have to reverse out of the section.

My point was that they wouldn't have been able to detect the collapse as the track circuit system appears to have done.

Hungerford

yachtsman wrote: »

Its time we heard from the Executive Chairman Dr. John Lynch, the companys top earner. The Chairman should engage in a public debate on the direction he has brought our railways during his term and what he is going to do in his remaining time to rebuild public confidence. Lets hear from the decision maker.

Not going to happen. Dr Lynch has a strong aversion to the media. In recent times, he has only done one soft focus feature with a non-specialist journalist in the Indo.

murphaph

What qualifies Dr. John Lynch to run Ireland's national transport operator? I have no idea about the man's background.

Terrontress

Few people have mentioned the numbers of people on Northern Commuter trains at rush hour. If a northbound train had come off the track, the number of people onboard would have ensured nobody had a chance.

Judgement Day

murphaph wrote: »

What qualifies Dr. John Lynch to run Ireland's national transport operator? I have no idea about the man's background.

He is an FF hack who was Director General of FAS - best known these days for all the expense abuses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_F%C3%81S_expenditure_controversy

according to Rail Users Ireland he is paid €300,000.00 per annum:
http://www.railusers.ie/blog/19012009.php

and presumambly worth every cent of it. His forté is appearing at every possible CIE photo opportunity with his 'friend' Noel Dempsey - apart from this it is difficult to see what he does to earn his massive salary. Lucky it's not performance linked.

stevenmartin99

Its now 4pm and Irish Rail have still not given out much new information on the setup for tommorrow..

Use the buses.
Heres the timetables (standard)..
Extra busses will be put on...

but at least they have said rail tickets will be accepted.

nearly 48hours and this is the best they can do... The Rail wont be back running before Xmas if this is what we put up with.

Do they realise between 6 and 10am there is only 9 33 buses to the city. Thats about 900people at full capacity... And there is 11 trains between those times..

at a rought guess ( 8 carraiges? 50 per carraige? = 400)

thats 4400 people that need to get to the city... About na third ill go by car and a third are from drog+dun so they will use bus eireann but that still leaves 1500 poeple which is an extra 15buses in those 4 hours..

iv been optimitic on some of those figures too i think.

I dont see this ending pretty

musicfan

stevenmartin99 wrote: »

Its now 4pm and Irish Rail have still not given out much new information on the setup for tommorrow..

Use the buses.
Heres the timetables (standard)..
Extra busses will be put on...

but at least they have said rail tickets will be accepted.

nearly 48hours and this is the best they can do... The Rail wont be back running before Xmas if this is what we put up with.

Do they realise between 6 and 10am there is only 9 33 buses to the city. Thats about 900people at full capacity... And there is 11 trains between those times..

at a rought guess ( 8 carraiges? 50 per carraige? = 400)

thats 4400 people that need to get to the city... About half i think will go by car leaving a need of 2200 - 22buses!!

thats not including anyone on the belfast line that might come to skerries to use 33 bus.

The people from Dundalk, Drogheda, Laytown & Gormanstown are being told to use the bus from Drogheda Train Station. So the only people that are being told to use the 33 is for people from Balbriggan and after that. Those morning trains are mostly full by the time they get to Balbriggan so the people that fill the seats on the trains should take the bus from Drogheda and wont be going onto Skerries to use the 33.

It mighn't be as bad as you think

lostexpectation

i dont understand how you could not use track circuits (as well as axle counters)

Hungerford

lostexpectation wrote: »

i dont understand how you could not use track circuits (as well as axle counters)

Because if you have one, the other is redundant - you have to remember their primary function is to detect if a train is in a section, not detecting broken rails.

Captain Chaos

stevenmartin99 wrote: »

at a rought guess ( 8 carraiges? 50 per carraige? = 400)

At rush hour in the mornings and evenings, its double that. There's about 50 seats per coach. You are looking at around 800-1000 people per 8 car train.

maly07@poczta.o

batman2000 wrote: »

I was on the North train from Pearse and travelled over the viaduct at 18.10, while going over the train dipped and rocked to the left....I consider myself lucky

I was on the same train as you Batman. I don't remember feeling the train rocking but I did notice a current, almost like a huge whirlpool, where the water was really gushing in under the viaduct. I have been travelling on that track for years and thought it was really unusual cos I had never noticed anything like it before. I am no engineer but think its possible this might have been caused by an already partial collapse of the bridge when the northbound train passed over it. If this is the case at least 2 trains passed over a bridge that had already started to give way and its not enough to have just a warning system on the tracks but they need to monitor the structures underneath also.

Rashers72

Still no sign of the details on all these enhanced bus services for Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush, Lusk and Donabate.
If they leave it any later, of course there will be no in IE to answer the phones.
But more importantly, if the frequency and capacity are way off the mark, it leaves passengers with very little time to start organising alternatives.
Those coming in from Drogheda seem to have done ok, but I would be interested to see if they feel the same way.
It's a waiting game for the rest of us.

lostexpectation

new bit of info

driver saw water up between the rails on his side?

http://ww.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=61743589&postcount=3

http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2009/aug/23/rail-collapse-fears/

The first inkling I had that something was wrong was when I noticed water splashing up to a high level. In that location, it's not a normal thing to happen, so I looked at the northbound line and saw that the viaduct was giving way and that the track was hanging.

the guy isn't a hero, it wasn't a miracle, he was lucky

lostexpectation

Hungerford wrote: »

Because if you have one, the other is redundant - you have to remember their primary function is to detect if a train is in a section, not detecting broken rails.

ok don't be silly, what i meant was i don't know how you could run a train service without a track circuit to detect line breaks

romeromerome

I was speaking to an IE member of staff in Skerries train station this morning and when asked what would be happening tomorrow morning regarding a shuttle service or anything else was given a flyer with the normal 33 bus timetable but with 12 extra buses through out the day.

In true IE fashion when he handed me the flyer he had the good grace to admit that it was a bit crap and said "sure not that 12 extra throughout a whole day is going to do any good but sure they don't listen to us". Nice guy- wasn't his fault I suppose.

He did tell me about the 33x and how it goes from bal, to skerries, to rush, to lusk, on the M1 and then through the port tunnel but didn't know their times or if there were extra buses being put on.

Has anyone heard of any private buses running from Skerries? Because there's a beefy gap in the market if someone was to step in.

uncle betty

lostexpectation wrote: »

ok don't be silly, what i meant was i don't know how you could run a train service without a track circuit to detect line breaks

Do you mean a monitoring device ?

''Track circuit'' is really not a general term for any kind of circuit you'd clap onto a track.

You could consider it to be a proper noun for a very distinct component of a signalling system.

I don't know what the technical problem would be with such a device, for sure. Especially given that our system is of continuous welded rail.

AlekSmart

Has anyone heard of any private buses running from Skerries? Because there's a beefy gap in the market if someone was to step in.

There`s NO "beefy-gap" in the market at all.

Dublin Bus currently have more than enough excess capacity,both vehicular and staff to supply a FULL Bus replacement service for this occurence.( Anybody spot an opening for 120 Withdrawn servicable double-deck buses currently languishing in BAC garages... )

However,this will not be happening UNLESS the company recieves a dispensation from the Department of Transport to operate such a service.

Given the appalling track record of the Department of Transport and it`s many and varied Ministers the affected commuters really do need to make their own alternative arrangements as the Department will currently be mired in awful agonising over Bus Atha Cliaths "Dominant Position" in the marketplace...this will extend to deep soul-searching as to whether it can permit BAC to route ANY extra 33X`s via the Port Tunnel as it may cause offence to some other operator.

At this point one can see the point of operators such as the Patton Flyer,who after being on the recieving end of Departmental shilly-shallying simply told Minister Dempsey,his Secretary General,An Garda Siochana and the assembled Department to sod-off and proceeded to operate his unlicenced service anyway.........and has`nt looked back either !!

Unlike many other developed countries who would already be working on rebuilding the damaged infrastructure,we Irish will be fannying about for a few months in search of a "suitable" consultant to confirm that the viaduct IS actually collapsed :mad:

Davy

What will all the commuter drivers be doing for the months ahead while this bridge is replaced?

karlr42

Track circuits are essential in electrified DARTarea because they transmit the status of the signal ahead and the speed limit for the current section. If you have ever been on a DART where it brakes to a complete stop while entering a station and then has to accelerate to the end of the platform, it's because the track circuit transmits a slow speed limit just before entering a station(for safety) and if the driver can't brake to that limit fast enough, the train will do it.
I sincerely doubt IE is in the business of replacing track circuits altogether, it would be a hugely retrograde step. In the current signalling(CAWS) used in most of Ireland, the aspect of the singal ahead of the train is continously displayed to the driver in-cab, and any change is immediatly transmitted, all by way of the track circuit.
Removing this system would leave us with something akin to the British system, where the driver must remember the signal aspect last displayed and is not aware of any changes to the current aspect until he can physically see the signal. We are lucky to have such an advanced system in Ireland, it would be foolish to remove it or compromise it. Though this IE we are talking about..

romeromerome

By beefy gap in the market I mean that there has to be a few people like me who dont have annual tickets (so don't really have to go by dublin bus to get any value out of the huge amount they've spent) and who would pay a little extra just so they don't have to go on a 33?

I know they have the numbers of drivers, buses etc to fill a more frequent 33 service but no matter how many 33's there are it's still a highly unpredictable service and my work means I have to be in at a strict time.

I was just wondering if there was any enterprising bus owners in the skerries area that would be willing to provide this service or would they have to get some fancy clearances to do so?

sk8board

romeromerome wrote: »

I was speaking to an IE member of staff in Skerries train station this morning and when asked what would be happening tomorrow morning regarding a shuttle service or anything else was given a flyer with the normal 33 bus timetable but with 12 extra buses through out the day.

In true IE fashion when he handed me the flyer he had the good grace to admit that it was a bit crap and said "sure not that 12 extra throughout a whole day is going to do any good but sure they don't listen to us". Nice guy- wasn't his fault I suppose.

what a joke. I can't imagine anyone in Rush or Lusk are going to spend the next 3 months watching as full 33's drive past. Surely they have the common sense to put buses starting at EACH town. Surely this is a glaringly obvious solution.

Also, I notice they are not going to put a seperate stop in place in the city center for the 33, they are going to get EVERYONE to queue 'at the normal 33 stop' on lower abbey street!

So, even if they have the common sense approach to the morning services from each commuter town, no-one is going to sit in a queue of up to 10-20k possible commuters (on top of the normal bus levels) on abbey street beteen 4-7pm.

Its the car for me for sure, as I ponder all the while why I continue to persevere with public transport, when all you get for the annual pre-paid ticket is hardship and a string of unacceptable let-downs and stupidity.

romeromerome

sk8board wrote: »

Also, I notice they are not going to put a seperate stop in place in the city center for the 33, they are going to get EVERYONE to queue 'at the normal 33 stop' on lower abbey street!

:eek: For the love of all things holy. It's like they've looked at the model they use for oxegen or electric picnic.

red menace

I drove into the city centre at half 12 today.
Traffic crawled all the way from Junction 5 almost to the M1 bridge over the estuary and then mysteriously sped up again.
Almost as if traffic was slowing down to look across to the rail bridge.

Eiretrains

sdonn wrote: »

I didn't want to risk climbing on top of it as some of the eiretrains folk have done in the past.

I can actually say the images of the viaduct on Eiretrains did not involve any climbing on the embankment, or the structure, it's actually viewed from the adjacent Malahide Marina.;)

Chris_533976

Someone on SA did a good job

positron

musicfan wrote: »

The people from Dundalk, Drogheda, Laytown & Gormanstown are being told to use the bus from Drogheda Train Station. So the only people that are being told to use the 33 is for people from Balbriggan and after that. Those morning trains are mostly full by the time they get to Balbriggan so the people that fill the seats on the trains should take the bus from Drogheda and wont be going onto Skerries to use the 33.

It mighn't be as bad as you think

I hope so too, but I am not that sure to be honest..! How on earth are they going to accommodate the thousands of commuters from Dundalk, Drogheda and Laytown into a handful of buses?

PS: May be they are getting help from Japan..!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STNWc7Rlpfk

uncle betty

Davy wrote: »

What will all the commuter drivers be doing for the months ahead while this bridge is replaced?

Getting their PADI tickets, and a fast-track degree in civil engineering.

What do you want them to do ?

Hungerford

lostexpectation wrote: »

ok don't be silly, what i meant was i don't know how you could run a train service without a track circuit to detect line breaks

You can - most of the Irish railway network doesn't have them. The only routes that have them are Dublin - Cork [with holes at Limerick Junction, Portarlington and Portloaise], Dublin - Limerick [with the same holes], Dublin - Belfast, the DART and Dublin - Athlone.

Hungerford

karlr42 wrote: »

Removing this system would leave us with something akin to the British system, where the driver must remember the signal aspect last displayed and is not aware of any changes to the current aspect until he can physically see the signal.

In fairness to the British system though, they have Automatic Train Protection (ATP) on a lot of their lines, which will automatically apply the brakes if a driver goes through a red signal or goes over the speed limit.

We only have ATP on the Dart system. CAWS doesn't do anything in those situations.

We are lucky to have such an advanced system in Ireland, it would be foolish to remove it or compromise it. Though this IE we are talking about..

The move away from track circuits only seems to have occured in the last couple of years. I was shocked that they removed the circuiting at Portarlington and Portlaoise.