Irish Rail Usual Bank Holiday Nightmare

foggy_lad

the 16.35 train to waterford is delayed and may well be cancelled due to a train fault. same age old story from irish fail. they had a 6car train sitting at platform 4 due to leave for galway over an hour later but make up silly roster reasons not to use it for the waterford service.

there was also talk of splitting the train making the journey not only uncomfortable but probably dangerous.

carlow and waterford lose out yet again!

are they trying to end the waterford service?

schemingbohemia

what time did the train eventually leave at? and what time did you get to your destination?

foggy_lad

I left and got a private bus to Carlow as irish rail were not equipped to get anyone there! as for times when the journey from heuston into the city centre is added the bus is just as fast and far cheaper than the unreliable train service and far more frequent also!

lord lucan

I was in Newbridge on Sunday waiting for a return service to Dublin. The 13.05 ex-Waterford was due in at 14.57 but never turned up,ended up getting a stopping commuter train from Kildare at 15.21! There was no audible announcement that i heard of a cancellation or delay to the service. Poor show from IE imo.

shaungil

13.23 to Drogheda yesterday left about 5 mins early and then sat outside connolly for 5 mins. Next train was 2 hrs later. Irish Rail what legends.

thankfully arrived early with the two kids

KC61

shaungil wrote: »

13.23 to Drogheda yesterday left about 5 mins early and then sat outside connolly for 5 mins. Next train was 2 hrs later. Irish Rail what legends.

thankfully arrived early with the two kids

A Sunday timetable was operating on DART and commuter services yesterday.

Therefore you caught the 1317 from Connolly - which left on time.

wild handlin

The problem seems to be that the new trains are being flogged day in and day out, leaving little time for maintence, and even tighter for spares - in the event of soemthing failing.

Why won't IE bring back 2 or 3 sets of Mk 3's to allievate this short fall; at least until the next set of units arrive.

foggy_lad

the problem was they had a train sitting idle for over an hour waiting to go to galway and this could and should have been used as soon as a problem became evident. and the waterford train would then have been used to galway

shaungil

KC61 wrote: »

A Sunday timetable was operating on DART and commuter services yesterday.

Therefore you caught the 1317 from Connolly - which left on time.

my bad, IE are as always brilliant;) . Oh wait.....

KC61

shaungil wrote: »

my bad, IE are as always brilliant;) . Oh wait.....

No worries - just clarifying the point!

KC61

wild handlin wrote: »

The problem seems to be that the new trains are being flogged day in and day out, leaving little time for maintence, and even tighter for spares - in the event of soemthing failing.

Why won't IE bring back 2 or 3 sets of Mk 3's to allievate this short fall; at least until the next set of units arrive.

I wouldn't disagree with that comment regarding the Mark 3 sets for a minute.

But I understand that would be fair to say that the current Chief Mechanical Engineer has introduced far more rigid maintenance programmes for the 22K fleet than was previously the case. This means that sets must get back to the depot for scheduled maintenance thereby reducing the risk of failures.

That was a significant problem heretofore with trains not getting the maintenance that they were due.

There is a balancing act between operational requirements and maintenance, but it is important that the trains do get to the depot for their scheduled exams.

KC61

foggy_lad wrote: »

the problem was they had a train sitting idle for over an hour waiting to go to galway and this could and should have been used as soon as a problem became evident. and the waterford train would then have been used to galway

Perhaps the failed set was terminally broken down - neither I nor you know that. While it is not good for any train to be cancelled, there can be knock on effects.

The 1635 is normally operated by two three piece sets, which then split in Waterford, one operating the 0710 and the other the 0740 the following morning. If the iother train was a full six piece with first class (which I suspect it was) then that could not happen and there would have been more cancelled trains.

foggy_lad

KC61 wrote: »

Perhaps the failed set was terminally broken down - neither I nor you know that. While it is not good for any train to be cancelled, there can be knock on effects.

The 1635 is normally operated by two three piece sets, which then split in Waterford, one operating the 0710 and the other the 0740 the following morning. If the iother train was a full six piece with first class (which I suspect it was) then that could not happen and there would have been more cancelled trains.

iirc both trains were 2x3car trains so the galway train could easily have been used rather than irish rail pulling their usual stunt of giving waterford/carlow people the scraps from the plate!

irish rail have always fought very hard against putting a full and proper service on the waterford line especially as far as carlow, many people will remember the not too distant past when irish rail used to send any auld crap down the line to carlow and waterford with many trains bound for waterford not even making it past carlow after they hobbled that far!

remember the frosty mornings when there was no heating or the schorching afternoons when trains were overcrowded with no ventilation(there were regular stories of people fainting and needing to be taken from trains by ambulance) on the much revered old orange carriages and when "technical" faults meant a 40 minute delay at least.

the honest truth is that irish rail have a long history of neglect when it comes to the waterford/carlow line and this even goes to the quality/standard of the hired in busses they use when they fail to provide a rail service!

foggy_lad

this evenings 17:35 train was delayed because of train failure and the 2 x 3car set was split with many passengers having to stand and sit on the floor. the people responsible for these "made in taiwan" "chinese wholesale" train sets should be named and sacked.

Stonewolf

They're Korean actually.

Train failures happen. At least IE didn't leave you all stuck in the middle of nowhere going "Oooh, nothing we can do now, union rules". They took advantage of the fact that the ICR could split in the middle and used that to get you all to your destination. Or would you have prefered a nice loco hauled MkIII set to have failed you and required a bus transfer or a long wait in the middle of nowhere for a backup loco to arrive?

Judgement Day

Stonewolf wrote: »

They're Korean actually.

Train failures happen. At least IE didn't leave you all stuck in the middle of nowhere going "Oooh, nothing we can do now, union rules". They took advantage of the fact that the ICR could split in the middle and used that to get you all to your destination. Or would you have prefered a nice loco hauled MkIII set to have failed you and required a bus transfer or a long wait in the middle of nowhere for a backup loco to arrive?

Where the 22000s were manufactured is irrelevant, the fact is that they are proving increasingly unreliable and were trumpeted as being the solution to all Irish Rail's problems. As Foggy Lad says those responsible need to carry the can.

DWCommuter

And this is the second time foggy lad has experienced a train failure on the same route inside a month.

schemingbohemia

Judgement Day wrote: »

Where the 22000s were manufactured is irrelevant, the fact is that they are proving increasingly unreliable and were trumpeted as being the solution to all Irish Rail's problems. As Foggy Lad says those responsible need to carry the can.

where do you get that from? from what i've heard there are significantly fewer train failures with the new ICRs than with the MK3s.

foggy_lad

DWCommuter wrote: »

And this is the second time foggy lad has experienced a train failure on the same route inside a month.

the second time i have experienced a failure but have there been other failures in the last month on the waterford line? also while waiting for the train to depart i could hear someone maybe the driver talking on a radio saying what a disgrace the new trains were and "an embarrassment".

i agreed fully only they are not just embarrassing for irish rail but for the whole country. and coming into the summer as breakdowns tend to increase we are also going to have many tourists thinking the same as they are delayed or stranded by irish rail.

penexpers

schemingbohemia wrote: »

where do you get that from? from what i've heard there are significantly fewer train failures with the new ICRs than with the MK3s.

I don't have any hard figures, but from my observations more 22000s (and even MK4s) are failing now than ever before. You only need to look at Irish Rails twitter feed.

Delays to services to / from Heuston Station due to mechanical fault on train between Kildare and Newbridge - more details shortly
about 6 hours ago via TweetDeck

07:15 Westport Heuston has failed, customers between Westport and Athlone will be taken on a bus. Train from Athlone to Heuston
about 15 hours ago via UberTwitter

17:35 Heuston Waterford has failed at Inchicore. Set is returning to Heuston to be replaced. Expect disruption to other Heuston services
6:05 PM May 17th via UberTwitter

10:35 Belfast Connolly has failed at Portadown, update to follow
11:31 AM May 14th via UberTwitter

07:54 Clonsilla Docklands cancelled, passengers per alternative Connolly service
7:46 AM May 14th via UberTwitter

Major disruption to inbound Heuston services due to the failure of 06:30hrs Cork - Heuston http://digg.com/u1X0j9
9:29 AM May 13th via Seesmic

18:40hrs Heuston Thurles cancelled. Passengers per alternative services
6:56 PM May 12th via UberTwitter

07:40 Waterford Heuston failed at Athy. Expect 60minutes delay service
9:51 AM May 12th via UberTwitter

DWCommuter

penexpers wrote: »

I don't have any hard figures, but from my observations more 22000s (and even MK4s) are failing now than ever before. You only need to look at Irish Rails twitter feed.

A litany of failure by a company bred on failure and always destined to be a failure.

foggy_lad

i hope they can get all the issues with the new trains sorted out before too long as i feel if they dont then the only thing to do rather than pumping more good money after bad is to shut up shop and hand everything over to NAMA for liquidation. sell off everything including rail sleepers land etc, and then put the money into bus transport instead after all those responsible for the failures of irish rail have been jailed.

then maybe people interested in ireland succeding can try to move on to better things and not live in a past built on failure