Irish Times - Proposal to bring train journey times between cities below two hours

antoobrien

invinciblePRSTV wrote: »

I assume IE will rollout wifi in the rest of the inter city routes in time.

They haven't yet, and the buses started this service quite a while back.

invinciblePRSTV wrote: »

Do the maths for me then, 10m + rail journies will need to be replaced, how many new buses will it need?

You didn't state it, so I'm assuming you're talking yearly figures.

The absolute capacity of the Galway-Dublin line using the current timetables and the assumption that all trains are 8 passenger carriages (they're not) is 1.4m passengers. That takes 4 trains (minimum) to run. By my earlier calculations to provide this level of service would require 40 buses. To go to 14m (30%-40% extra capacity on your original 10m+ estimate) would require 400 buses. Using these twice a day (350 days use) would give > 14m capacity in a year.

The replacing of the IE services (not that I'm saying that it's a good or even desirable idea) is hardly impractical, Bus Eireann announced a reduction in its fleet of 150 as part of cost cutting in 2009 (according to the same article the Dublin bus fleet is over 1,000).

Just so you know it's not theoretical, 1 bus route in Galway city (#9, the newest one co-incidentally) carries 1m+ passengers in a year, so you'd be surprised how few it might be (there aren't a massive amount of BE buses in Galway).

Sponge Bob

antoobrien wrote: »

Just so you know it's not theoretical, 1 bus route in Galway city (#9, the newest one co-incidentally) carries 1m+ passengers in a year, so you'd be surprised how few it might be (there aren't a massive amount of BE buses in Galway).

CIE National InterCity Train capacity = 14 Suburban Bus Routes in Galway City. But we must save it no matter what. Galway City Buses get no subvention that I know of either.

dubhthach

Cool Mo D wrote: »

The only reason the train is slower is because the massive amount of cash pumped into the road system - which is not justified by usage, along with the incompetence of Irish Rail.

You criticise the amount spent subsidising Irish Rail, but it is a pittance in the context of the money spent on road transport, even taking usage into account, and it is a drop in the ocean of how much the Government spends each year.

The capital budget for Roads is €720 million for 2011 (going on last the last budget). CIÉ was given €288.2m in subsidy last year. Their actual revenue when you ignore this is: €711.3 m (Total of : €999.5m

In comparison their expenses are:
€563.2m for payroll
€470.0m for Operating Costs
€20.6m for "financial costs"

If they were to reduce their payroll+operating costs by 3.5% they would have enough money to finance this scheme. (€35m a year)

I know the 2011 capital budget for Public transport is down as €394 million, what that breaks down as I don't know. I'm assuming a big chunk of it is for IÉ

antoobrien

bk wrote: »

Lets say 1000 of us here on this forum as an experiment go and try to book a ticket on the same train 4 weeks from now, do you think we will all get the same €20 ticket?

Just for giggles I checked the online prices of trains for Friday 23rd & Sunday 25th September return Dublin to Galway. The price €42 - unless I take the day off, in which case its €32.

Cool Mo D

bk wrote: »

That isn't true. That isn't the way it works.

Lets say 1000 of us here on this forum as an experiment go and try to book a ticket on the same train 4 weeks from now, do you think we will all get the same €20 ticket?

The answer is no, only the fist x% of us will get the ticket at that price. Once x% of those tickets are sold, the rest get to pay the full price.

That is how these systems work.

For all we know only 1% of tickets could be €20 and 99% €74. They could be using this as nothing but a trick to advertise cheaper tickets. No one really knows, but it certainly seems to have gotten much harder to get cheaper tickets over the past year according to reports here on boards.

Actually it would make for an interesting Freedom of Information request. Pity FOI's have become so expensive :mad:

As a practical matter, yes it is true. If you know you want to travel at a particular time, you will nearly always get a cheap fare three weeks in advance.

It has not gotten harder to get cheap fares. What used to happen is that unpopular trains would always be cheap, even the day before, and normally busy trains would never be discounted. Now, all trains start cheaper, and the price goes up as they fill.

Irish Rail lets you book 28 days before the train. So if you know you want to travel in one month, you can book it as soon as it's released, and get a cheap ticket every time.

invinciblePRSTV

antoobrien wrote: »

They haven't yet, and the buses started this service quite a while back..

It'll arrive in time i'm sure.

antoobrien wrote: »

You didn't state it, so I'm assuming you're talking yearly figures.

The absolute capacity of the Galway-Dublin line using the current timetables and the assumption that all trains are 8 passenger carriages (they're not) is 1.4m passengers. That takes 4 trains (minimum) to run. By my earlier calculations to provide this level of service would require 40 buses. To go to 14m (30%-40% extra capacity on your original 10m+ estimate) would require 400 buses. Using these twice a day (350 days use) would give > 14m capacity in a year.

The replacing of the IE services (not that I'm saying that it's a good or even desirable idea) is hardly impractical, Bus Eireann announced a reduction in its fleet of 150 as part of cost cutting in 2009 (according to the same article the Dublin bus fleet is over 1,000).

Just so you know it's not theoretical, 1 bus route in Galway city (#9, the newest one co-incidentally) carries 1m+ passengers in a year, so you'd be surprised how few it might be (there aren't a massive amount of BE buses in Galway).

So you've come to a figure of 400 new buses then let's roll with it. Now let's factor in the life span of these buses which is what, 10-15 years maximum? And let's consider that not everyone will use these buses so you'll need to factor in increased car sales and plane usage into coming up with a cost for replacing IC railway.

Now consider against that we have a brand new IC fleet with a far longer life span. It doesn't make much sense to scrap a new IC fleet 5 minutes after they are bought whilst either spending capital on a new fleet of buses and/or offering inducements to bus operators whilst scrapping the IE subsidy.

Nope i think a modest upgrade of the IC lines as proposed should go a long way to impoving journey times and attracting people back to the railways.

Again i mention this 175 million is but one bypass of small town x or rural motorway y.

antoobrien

Cool Mo D wrote: »

As a practical matter, yes it is true. If you know you want to travel at a particular time, you will nearly always get a cheap fare three weeks in advance.

This is not (always) true - I refer you to my earlier post. I know I want to travel on Friday 23rd and Sunday 25th, but I don't get any significant discount unless I inconvenience myself by taking a holiday day, which can be put to better use than saving €10 (serious case of false economy that).

antoobrien

invinciblePRSTV wrote: »

Now consider against that we have a brand new IC fleet with a far longer life span. It doesn't make much sense to scrap a new IC fleet

I never said we should, but consider the replacement costs of that fleet. How many million per carriage? Consider also if you will the maintenance costs of hiring very specialist mechanics.

invinciblePRSTV wrote: »

Again i mention this 175 million is but one bypass of small town x or rural motorway y.

60KM of motorway and assorted link roads costs approx €300m (Gort to Tuam, and will probably come in under tender like the majority of the new roads), how much does a train line cost? The last estimate I heard of estimate for making Galway to Athenry (about 20km) dual track was €90m (no land costs they have plenty). WRC cost how much, 200m+ to provide new tracks on an existing (if disused) route?

Indeed given the chronic mismanagement of WRC, it's an argument against putting any new money into rail in this country.

Cool Mo D

antoobrien wrote: »

This is not (always) true - I refer you to my earlier post. I know I want to travel on Friday 23rd and Sunday 25th, but I don't get any significant discount unless I inconvenience myself by taking a holiday day, which can be put to better use than saving €10 (serious case of false economy that).

You are travelling at the busiest time of the week, and still get a discount for booking in advance. If you wait and travel first thing Saturday morning, you get a bigger one.

invinciblePRSTV

antoobrien wrote: »

I never said we should, but consider the replacement costs of that fleet. How many million per carriage? Consider also if you will the maintenance costs of hiring very specialist mechanics.

Swings and roundabouts really. Either buying a new fleet of buses to replace IC rail versus maintaining the existing IC fleet? the latter makes far more sense in these straigtened times.

antoobrien wrote: »

60KM of motorway and assorted link roads costs approx €300m (Gort to Tuam, and will probably come in under tender like the majority of the new roads), how much does a train line cost? The last estimate I heard of estimate for making Galway to Athenry (about 20km) dual track was €90m (no land costs they have plenty). WRC cost how much, 200m+ to provide new tracks on an existing (if disused) route?

175m IE are estimating for delivering improved journey times across pretty much all it's IC journies bar Belfast & Rosslare. That's not bad when you consider how much has been splurged on the roads over the past decades whilst the IC railways were barely touched.

antoobrien wrote: »

Indeed given the chronic mismanagement of WRC, it's an argument against putting any new money into rail in this country.

The WRC wasn't mismanaged by IE, they built it to budget and delivered exactly what was asked for by central government.

It's not IE's fault the WRC should never have been re-opened in the first place.

dubhthach

invinciblePRSTV wrote: »

Again i mention this 175 million is but one bypass of small town x or rural motorway y.

If you dig into IÉ report from 2010 you see that their Revenue (as oppose to that of wider CIÉ group) was €190m, their deficit excluding state subsidy is €200m. In otherwords they are spending €390m on revenue of only €190m.

This is a crazy situation tbh of their total spending circa €257m is going on payroll! (65.8% of total costs). The average salary in there works out about €53k (€20k higher then industrial average).

http://www.irishrail.ie/about_us/pdf/IE%20Annual%20Report%202010.pdf

Judgement Day

bk wrote: »

Brilliant, from the above doc:



From Irish Rails mouth.

Clearly even Irish Rail don't think rail is the best way to service PSO routes.

LOL, even more from IR:

For God's sake why quote Irish Rail opinions on the railways when the dogs on the street (but obviously not you) know that there's a anti-rail mindset in CIE/IE. It has pervaded the senior levels of CIE for as long as I'm following their shenanigans (1976) and has now filtered through to the humblest employee. :rolleyes:

Frank Black

invinciblePRSTV wrote: »

Swings and roundabouts really. Either buying a new fleet of buses to replace IC rail versus maintaining the existing IC fleet? the latter makes far more sense in these straigtened times

Ah, but you're forgetting the really big advantage of getting rid of rail. You wouldn't have to purchase a new fleet of busses. The private sector would fill in most of the capacity. Something they can't currently do with rail obviously.

invinciblePRSTV

dubhthach wrote: »

If you dig into IÉ report from 2010 you see that their Revenue (as oppose to that of wider CIÉ group) was €190m, their deficit excluding state subsidy is €200m. In otherwords they are spending €390m on revenue of only €190m.

This is a crazy situation tbh of their total spending circa €257m is going on payroll! (65.8% of total costs). The average salary in there works out about €53k (€20k higher then industrial average).

http://www.irishrail.ie/about_us/pdf/IE%20Annual%20Report%202010.pdf

I'm in general agreement with what you say but I'm here to talk about this projects merits, not to discuss IRs sweetheart wage scales.

black francis wrote: »

Ah, but you're forgetting the really big advantage of getting rid of rail. You wouldn't have to purchase a new fleet of busses. The private sector would fill in most of the capacity. Something they can't currently do with rail obviously.

Of course the private sector will benefit, between increased car sales and increased use of regional air routes then plenty of private actors will benefit at the demise of IC rail.

So it doesn't matter who pays for them, scrapping a brand new railway fleet and replacing with a new bus fleet, more cars and increased usage of regional air routes is both economically and environmentally unsound.

Seems to me you just have an ideological disdain for publicly funded railways. Nothing wrong with that but I don't think we can take what you have to say about proposals such as this at face value.

Frank Black

invinciblePRSTV wrote: »

Seems to me you just have an ideological disdain for publicly funded railways. Nothing wrong with that but I don't think we can take what you have to say about proposals such as this at face value.

Yes, it's called having an opinion. I really don't know what you mean by 'face value'. I think I've been pretty clear in my views on this subject.

I would guess most of the pro-rail arguments on here are made by those who are either working for IE or have some sort of ideological disdain for bus transport.

Only in a country like Ireland would we spend billions on trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

Problem: What's the best way to move goods and people around our small island?
Answer: Road transport.

Haven't seen one post in the whole thread which can dispute this and yet we continue the folly of trying to run an expensive and unproductive rail system.

dubhthach

invinciblePRSTV wrote: »

I'm in general agreement with what you say but I'm here to talk about this projects merits, not to discuss IRs sweetheart wage scales.

Yes but the point is why should the state have to pony up an extra €35m a year when it's already ponying up €167m to try and balance the "Current budget" of IÉ? -- Which doesn't succeed as it still has a operating deficit of €36m.

the state is running a deficit of €17 billion. If the state is to increase it's spend on IÉ by €35m a year over the next 6 years then that money has to come from cutting €35m from other budgets eg. Departments of Health, Social Welfare, Education etc. or from raising an additional €35m in taxes (either indirect/direct).

I'd have no problem with the capital budget been so increased if IÉ can guarantee to provide at least some savings on it's current budget that would go part of way of offsetting the cost to the exchequer. Instead I can imagine that the usual situation will prevail and any such savings in time on journeys (which have been promised for over 10years) won't occur.

Aside from that other then a vague promise on improved times does anyone actually know what is proposed as part of this project. Eg. Track improvement/Signalling/new trains etc.

Cool Mo D

If road transport is so great why does it require massive subsidies from the exchequer, along with subsidies for nearly all bus routes? If road had to compete on a free market basis, with no new building or maintenance from government, how well would that work?

Why are you ok with subsidising roads, and not rail? There are almost as many people using the Cork - Dublin train as traveling intercity on the Cork - Dublin motorway, yet if the same amount was spent on the railway as on the motorway, you could run the trains for decades.

And also, you seem to want to hand over all intercity profit to private operators, while leaving the public companies with the loss making routes. So, in the end the taxpayers would have any profitable passengers taken away, and subsidies to Bus Eireann going up. Coupled with the cost of building massive city centre bus stations to handle the old rail traffic, where exactly is the saving to come from?

What Irish Rail need is reform, and focus on deliviering the most passenger km for the least cost.

Sponge Bob

Cool Mo D wrote: »

Why are you ok with subsidising roads, and not rail? There are almost as many people using the Cork - Dublin train as traveling intercity on the Cork - Dublin motorway, yet if the same amount was spent on the railway as on the motorway, you could run the trains for decades.

Well as IE refuse to carry freight on their shiny trains (bar Tara Mines traffic) that 'solution' of yours will result in all of us starving to death. So No!

What Irish Rail need is reform, and focus on deliviering the most passenger km for the least cost.

Impossible, de members and the managaement will never allow that.

dowlingm

Irish Rail's problem is that they have promised journey reduction times before and not delivered. That is the heart of the matter. IE's chairman must be able to demonstrate why this plan will succeed where past ones failed.

I note the comments above about other companies coming in and taking over from CIE management. This has only limited appeal to me - it might work for Enterprise because of its odd joint nature but any other transfers will have issues of staff transfer etc. (see TEAM Aer Lingus etc.) LUAS cannot be compared to IE because its industrial relations came from a clean sheet of paper, with a "new" union (SIPTU) which had an incentive to differentiate itself from the climate in CIE.

The only service I can see improved in the short term by a transfer to new management would be Enterprise, if doing so simplified the process of adding new service which is currently shackled by the need for both NI and ROI to agree/fund.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Well as IE refuse to carry freight on their shiny trains (bar Tara Mines traffic)

IE is carrying so much freight through Ballina (timber to Waterford (Belview?), containers to Belview and North Wall) that they've had to reopen Westport as a timber loading area. It's not reinstatement of Silvermines shale or cement etc. but it may be that the low point has already been reached.

dubhthach

Cool Mo D wrote: »

If road transport is so great why does it require massive subsidies from the exchequer, along with subsidies for nearly all bus routes? If road had to compete on a free market basis, with no new building or maintenance from government, how well would that work?

Why are you ok with subsidising roads, and not rail? There are almost as many people using the Cork - Dublin train as traveling intercity on the Cork - Dublin motorway, yet if the same amount was spent on the railway as on the motorway, you could run the trains for decades.

And also, you seem to want to hand over all intercity profit to private operators, while leaving the public companies with the loss making routes. So, in the end the taxpayers would have any profitable passengers taken away, and subsidies to Bus Eireann going up. Coupled with the cost of building massive city centre bus stations to handle the old rail traffic, where exactly is the saving to come from?

What Irish Rail need is reform, and focus on deliviering the most passenger km for the least cost.

The Motorway network was built while we actually had money to invest in capital expenditure. It's no good looking at what was spent during the boom years and then demanding equivalent spending on Rail during recession.

According to CIÉ report for 2010 they spent €4.1billion over the previous 10 years on infrastructure. This is across all three companies.

The actual current budget for road maintenance is €147.5 million a year. Of the Capital budget a further €270 million is for maintenance and improvement of regional and local roads -- which total 90,000 KM of road in this country.

Bus Éireann shouldn't be getting a subsidy either, what subsidy does GoBus, Citylink and numerous other private bus comapanies get from the state?

Cool Mo D

dubhthach wrote: »

The Motorway network was built while we actually had money to invest in capital expenditure. It's no good looking at what was spent during the boom years and then demanding equivalent spending on Rail during recession.

According to CIÉ report for 2010 they spent €4.1billion over the previous 10 years on infrastructure. This is across all three companies.

The actual current budget for road maintenance is €147.5 million a year. Of the Capital budget a further €270 million is for maintenance and improvement of regional and local roads -- which total 90,000 KM of road in this country.

Bus Éireann shouldn't be getting a subsidy either, what subsidy does GoBus, Citylink and numerous other private bus comapanies get from the state?

But we're not demanding equivalent expenditure. We're demanding a tiny expenditure, that will have a real impact on 10 million journeys per year. ANd there clearly is money to spend, or €97 million wouldn't be spent on a Tralee bypass just this year.

Last year €23 million was spent subsidising regional airports for instance. All of that money would be better spent speeding up rail journeys.
And €35 million of the €400 million road maintenance budget would be far better spent on the railways.
To put it in perspective, IE are asking for less money than the government will have to pay in penalties to toll operators next year.

LXFlyer

Bus Eireann's expressway network is not funded by PSO subsidies.

bk

Cool Mo D wrote: »

If road transport is so great why does it require massive subsidies from the exchequer, along with subsidies for nearly all bus routes?

Not intercity routes, even Bus Eireann intercity routes are run unsubsidised.

Cool Mo D wrote: »

If road had to compete on a free market basis, with no new building or maintenance from government, how well would that work?

Because you know perfectly well that even if we didn't have bus coaches, you would still need to build and maintain road networks, for the use of private cars and freight (99% carried via road).

So the question we have to ask is, given that we have already spent the money on motorways, do we maximise the use of them and do we also need an intercity rail network and continue to pour money into it.

Cool Mo D wrote: »

Why are you ok with subsidising roads, and not rail? There are almost as many people using the Cork - Dublin train as traveling intercity on the Cork - Dublin motorway, yet if the same amount was spent on the railway as on the motorway, you could run the trains for decades.

I'm really not sure about the numbers of 10million that were offered for intercity rail earlier. I looked at the recent IR annual reports and they have no break down in passenger figures (however interestingly total passengers dropped from 43 million in 2007 to 38m in 2009, of course some lose due to the recession but I think the motorways have had a bigger effect).

Given how many people use DART and Commuter services, I'd be surprised as many as 10m are intercity.

Cool Mo D wrote: »

And also, you seem to want to hand over all intercity profit to private operators, while leaving the public companies with the loss making routes. So, in the end the taxpayers would have any profitable passengers taken away, and subsidies to Bus Eireann going up. Coupled with the cost of building massive city centre bus stations to handle the old rail traffic, where exactly is the saving to come from?

Nope, so many silly assumptions.

I propose privatising Bus Eireann. All bus routes would then be licensed out to private bus operators. If no private operator is willing to take a particular route as they don't think they can make a profit and the NTA considers it of public importance then they can offer a private operator a subsidy to operate the route.

I'm convinced that most routes, even in rural areas can be operated profitably. Even if subsidies are needed, the subsidy would likely be much less then Irish Rail subsidies.

As for needing massive new bus stations, while it would be nice, you can certainly do without, buses can operate off the street as they currently do.

However I think the NTA should be given control of all Irish Rail and Bus Eireann stations and they could develop those stations in time as multi operator stations. But that would be a long term goal, in the short term just operate them from bus eireann stations or off the street.

Note in Galway the private bus companies built their own bus station that they all pay to use and is run at a profit.

dubhthach

Cool Mo D wrote: »

But we're not demanding equivalent expenditure. We're demanding a tiny expenditure, that will have a real impact on 10 million journeys per year. ANd there clearly is money to spend, or €97 million wouldn't be spent on a Tralee bypass just this year.

Last year €23 million was spent subsidising regional airports for instance. All of that money would be better spent speeding up rail journeys.
And €35 million of the €400 million road maintenance budget would be far better spent on the railways.
To put it in perspective, IE are asking for less money than the government will have to pay in penalties to toll operators next year.

A political decision made by the outgoing governenment so as to secure a certain South Kerry independents vote. tbh in my opinion it shouldn't have gone ahead either. If you were going to spend €97m in that neck of the woods it would have been better spent on the M20, failing that Newlands Cross/N11 gap.

Regarding the airports Leo informed Galway, Waterford and Sligo back in May that they weren't been subsidised anymore so it's a non-issue anymore.

Cool Mo D

bk wrote: »

Not intercity routes, even Bus Eireann intercity routes are run unsubsidised.

Yes they are subsidised - they have their infrastructure built for them!

bk wrote: »

Because you know perfectly well that even if we didn't have bus coaches, you would still need to build and maintain road networks, for the use of private cars and freight (99% carried via road).

So the question we have to ask is, given that we have already spent the money on motorways, do we maximise the use of them and do we also need an intercity rail network and continue to pour money into it.

We need a road network, but why should the government pay for it? Why can't road users pay for the roads they want privately, just like you want rail users to do? Why can't you see that government paying for the building and maintenance of the roads represents a subsidy massively higher than anyone wants for the railway?

We have an intercity rail network and a road network. The money is spent now, and it is not coming back, so there is no point favouring one over the other. Why should maximising the road networks usage be a priority, when it is clear that the cost of road transport is about to skyrocket?
We are not pouring money into the rail network - it is a rounding error in the context of the overall budget.

bk wrote: »

I'm really not sure about the numbers of 10million that were offered for intercity rail earlier. I looked at the recent IR annual reports and they have no break down in passenger figures (however interestingly total passengers dropped from 43 million in 2007 to 38m in 2009, of course some lose due to the recession but I think the motorways have had a bigger effect).

An argument from incredulity. The facts don't fit your bias, so you want to discard them.

And I would like to point out that passenger numbers on Irish Rail actually rose last year: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/rise-in-numbers-using-the-luas-as-buses-losing-ground-2476513.html despite the motorways.

omah

I hope they do manage to bring the journey times down even further - I love travelling by train!!

dowlingm

lxflyer wrote: »

Bus Eireann's expressway network is not funded by PSO subsidies.

It gives them guaranteed income which makes "commercial" expansions less risky in an overall sense. PSO routes don't run from special depots, use special buses or drivers and get filled from separate fuel tanks, all of which therefore benefit from economies of scale.

Frank Black

Cool Mo D wrote: »

We need a road network, but why should the government pay for it? Why can't road users pay for the roads they want privately, just like you want rail users to do?
.

What like car tax, tax on petrol, VRT, tolls - stuff like that?

Don't have the figures to hand but I'm pretty sure that all these add up to more than is invested in roads - the rest goes into general expenditure to pay for stuff like the large salaries of IE workers.

Sponge Bob

Motor Tax and VRT alone pull in the equivalent of the entire roads budget for 2011 PLUS the CIE subvention. That's before we get into VAT/Fuel Excise and 8c a litre Green taxes on top.

VRT during the peak road building period mid noughties ran as high as €200m a month early in the year.

Motor Tax and driver licencing pulls in €1bn a year even now. .

DWCommuter

I may put this here now considering I placed in C & T. The sentiment is still very much the same.

All going well, there's not much of a problem. However, like me, many others find it appalling that so much money was available to the railway over the last 15 years and it failed to account for the threat of a motorway network. I personally flagged the issue here 6 years ago and it went more or less unnoticed despite being obvious. Just look at our neighbours in the UK and examine how British Rail had to compete with a growing motorway network in the 60s. But the reality that now pertains is finally getting through to that inept bunch in Connolly. Unfortunately they took their eye off the ball when they were spending all that money, because an integral part of that investment should have undoubtedly been spent on what they are now proposing. Its very poor management and further evidence that the CIE group think like subsidy dependent planks rather than innovative business people.

DWCommuter

dubhthach wrote: »

This is a crazy situation tbh of their total spending circa €257m is going on payroll! (65.8% of total costs). The average salary in there works out about €53k (€20k higher then industrial average).

http://www.irishrail.ie/about_us/pdf/IE%20Annual%20Report%202010.pdf

Herein lies the problem with our railway being a semi state. Historically, it evolved against a background of poor pay and conditions. Once unionisation got a grip on it, the whole thing got carried away on a race to the bottom. Pay and conditions went higher, along with the subsidy. The concept of the railway being a business that can pay for itself, went out the ****ing window. As society and the railways place in that society evolved, work practices stayed the same and the whole goddamn mess eventually manifested itself into the culture we have today.

Its a culture that is wrong and woefully inappropriate for a railway in 21st century Ireland. As a nation our railways are unique and we need some serious innovation if we are to make them run in any semblance of efficiency.

The alternative is complete closure of anything outside of a commuter service.

Put simply, our rail network can no longer afford to maintain the pay structure and conditions that evolved out of many years of operator abuse and then subsequent negotiations that resulted in a system that is based more on the employee, while the service is operated and trimmed, based on a huge payroll. The last lad to try and really control CIE was the despised, but reasonably sensible Todd Andrews. However all he really succeeded in doing was annihilating the network, trimming some jobs, adding a few train hostesses, but ultimately failing to address the real issue - THE RAIL NETWORK CANNOT BE RUN SUCCESSFULLY ON A PAYROLL THAT EATS TURNOVER. He tried and then gave up. His "managers" only presented line closures as a solution to saving money. Redeployment and Minimal redundancies. Nothing has changed.

corktina

DWCommuter wrote: »

I may put this here now considering I placed in C & T. The sentiment is still very much the same.

the BR analogy vs motorways is a good one. The intercity125 project in the UK was a direct result of motorway competition.35 years later its still holding its own, thats what I call good investment, not mk4s with a freight loco which give a service much the same with a worse ride.

The premise of this project was that you need 125mph running to beat the car on an end to end journey. Never mind sub 2 hour schedules, what would the journey time cork to dublin be with 125 schedules?

antoobrien

Cool Mo D wrote: »

Yes they are subsidised - they have their infrastructure built for them!

Just how blinkered are you? The rail infrastructure is private infrastructure for IE (and Veola in the case of Luas) - they don't have to share space like roadway with private competitors (bus, car & truck). If you believe that the road infrastructure is subsiding bus transport (while conveniently forgetting that it can't exist without it), then you'll agree that rail is a monopoly. Monopolies are bad for consumers because they don't have competition.

The simple fact of the matter is that more people use the intercity trains as commuter services than intercity. While I can't find figures that show how many people buy tickets to where I can tell you of my experiences of a couple of years getting the 6pm (ish, now 5.45) train from Heuston to Galway. It was always packed (with the exception of good Friday strangely), very hard to get a seat unless you were there 30-40 minutes early (or willing to pay the extortionate seat booking fee, which you'd have to argue over to get your seat anyways). By Newbridge there were always a choice of seats as a large number of people had always gotten of at the 2/3 stops to this point.

Cool Mo D wrote: »

You are travelling at the busiest time of the week, and still get a discount for booking in advance. If you wait and travel first thing Saturday morning, you get a bigger one.

In this case I have to be in Galway by 9pm on Friday night, but I still have to work a full day on said Friday. What bloody good is a cheap ticket on Saturday morning to me? Or If I have to be in Galway for 8 am Saturday morning (as will be the case if I decide to travel for the event two weeks earlier)?

Besides your statement was:

If you know you want to travel at a particular time, you will nearly always get a cheap fare three weeks in advance.

This is blatantly untrue - I know I want to travel between 4 pm & 6 pm on Friday in 3 weeks time - €42 is not cheap (I don't care if I've picked the most expensive time, if you wanted to make that exception you should have said so). I checked the other times, the only cheap times are 7.30 & 9.30 am on Friday - which will cost me a day in holidays, so the true cost of this ticket (to my paypacket) is over €100.

There are several reasons I stopped getting the train:
The total journey time is shorter by car - usually 3.5h door to door before the finishing of the M6, it's now 2.25h, the time for getting the train is still over 4.5h if it runs on time (it takes up to 45 minutes to get across Dublin on a Friday from my office, and about 30 minutes to get a local bus out of Galway - throw in some waiting time for dart, luas & bus)

A tank of petrol will get me from Galway to Dublin for less than the price of a train ticket & associated public transport to get to and from the station (even now at 148.9c/l the cost of a door to door trip is €47.9 - 440km @ 13.7km/l recorded fuel consumption for 1 year) - train €42 (at its cheapest, more likely 46) two luas tickets c. €3, two bus/dart tickets €3.50+ - c. €48.5

I don't think €12 in tolls is too big a price to pay for the 4 hours of my weekend I save (also noting that for most of the time i've had a car the fuel price has been closer to 1.30/l than 1.50/l, the train would be more expensive than both the petrol & tolls)

I can eat a proper dinner not having to grab rolls or fast food on the way (it does get tired very quickly), relax for a few minutes before setting off and still be home by 10.30 pm (and a lot earlier if I have to, with the flexibility inherent in the road system).

I can carry large/bulky objects e.g. bike, golf clubs, computer & electronic equipment etc without extra costs

the time it takes to cross Dublin to get the train requires me to leave work early - costing me pay on the day and/or inconvenience earlier in the week (both of which are a pain)

Reasons why I won't be getting a train anytime soon:
the express buses to Galway are faster, cheaper and have wifi.
to get to Galway at a reasonable hour on a Friday I can leave work at my customary finishing time
If I book a ticket on GoBus (I haven't used citylink, so I don't know their policy) I don't have to pay extra to reserve a seat, which I had to do the last time I booked a train ticket

HivemindXX

I guess next time people wonder how we could have been so insanely short sighted as to rip up lots of our rail infrastructure in the past I can point them at this thread.

Frank Black

HivemindXX wrote: »

I guess next time people wonder how we could have been so insanely short sighted as to rip up lots of our rail infrastructure in the past I can point them at this thread.

Like most pro-rail posters on this thread your post is both overly melodramatic and lacking in any argument or fact to back up your opinion.

monument

black francis wrote: »

Like most pre-rail posters on this thread your post is both overly melodramatic and lacking in any argument or fact to back up your opinion.

Says somebody who attacks the poster rather than their points.

Frank Black

monument wrote: »

Says somebody who attacks the poster rather than their points.

Already have provided 2 links to back up points I have made in this thread - neither of which were disputed I note.

The same standard of having to 'prove' your points doesn't seem to apply to people in favour of continuing the madness of investing in an unneeded intercity rail service - perhaps because no such proof is available I'd imagine?

wiseguy

2 hours? Pftt Dublin Airport to Galway city in 1hr15 the other night :P courtesy of new motorway...

Sponge Bob

If they cannot compete with Express Buses I personally think they should look at mothballing the thing instead of ripping it up and abandoning it.

The commuter proposition near Dublin ( and maybe Cork) is a separate matter of course. Admitting you never saw the competitive threat coming is simply not good enough, I am heartily sick of their constant excuses and manana manana tripe.

monument

black francis wrote: »

Already have provided 2 links to back up points I have made in this thread - neither of which were disputed I note.

The same standard of having to 'prove' your points doesn't seem to apply to people in favour of continuing the madness of investing in an unneeded intercity rail service - perhaps because no such proof is available I'd imagine?

I was not replying to any posts where you have links, I was replying to a post where you were attacking a poster rather then their point.

Their point may be hugely valid or not, but you didn't attack their point, you attacked them.

Frank Black

monument wrote: »

I was not replying to any posts where you have links, I was replying to a post where you were attacking a poster rather then their point.

Their point may be hugely valid or not, but you didn't attack their point, you attacked them.

Yeah, and I got a warning?

So what?

Do you actually have a point?

ei.sdraob

Judgement Day wrote: »

One reason - in case you haven't noticed, things are slowing down - Concorde is gone and even the fast ferries are running at reduced speeds to save on their fuel consumption. We are approaching a major crisis in fuel supply in the years ahead as consumption in Third World countries such as China/India and Russia increases (not to mention South America and Africa) - increasing prices, dwindling supplies - it's not rocket science as to where it's going to lead.

Ah more of this peak oil doomsday nonsense, when is this "Judgement day" of yours (ha!) will come exactly?

dubhthach

Folks keep the thread on topic and not slagging matches, otherwise I'll lock.

jc84

This might be a stupid question but why not switch to electric powered rail

Sponge Bob

On commuter routes, in time, they will switch to electric units. Intercity is diesel and always will be as long as I live.

antoobrien

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Intercity is diesel and always will be as long as I live.

I was going to say unless we go nuclear, but you're right that's not going to happen while we're alive either.

spacetweek

Sponge Bob wrote: »

On commuter routes, in time, they will switch to electric units. Intercity is diesel and always will be as long as I live.

For a small country with quite low rail demands, switching to all-electric trains would not save a significant amount of fuel. Not really worth pursuing - pushing electric cars would save far more.

Godge

The money would be better spent on commuter rail in the main cities. Improve the Maynooth line by getting rid of the level-crossings.

If the DART interconnector is not to be built, build an interchange station north of Connolly to allow passengers to transfer from DART to Maynooth/Docklands.

As for the end of oil doom merchants, if the worst comes to the worst and the oil runs out, we have all the lovely motorways to run electric buses on. We could even reserve their own lane while the few remaining cars use the other lanes.

L1011

Sponge Bob wrote: »

On commuter routes, in time, they will switch to electric units. Intercity is diesel and always will be as long as I live.

Victor on C&T said that Irish Rail were sniffing around 25kV AC trains. Seeing as the DART is 1.5kV DC they're not for that!

ei.sdraob

I do not have time to fully develop this point but there have been several media reports in recent times on the adverse impact of Ireland’s improved road network on the demand for inter-city air travel and train travel within Ireland. These reports focus on the negative impact on the suppliers of air and train travel and the requests for increased public funding to upgrade air and train networks to compete. However, the more direct public-interest interpretation is that part of the payoff to the major investment in the road network is that fewer resources need to be absorbed by providing air and train links where the road network now dominates. (If it turns out that environmentally-optimal road pricing would call for more trains and planes, that is a valid argument. But to justify extra investment just on the basis of losing market share to the road network is not a strong argument in itself.)

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