New investment in Irish Rail - great news?

Art(h)ur

http://www.transport.ie/pressRelease.aspx?Id=407

On the face of it - hooray, finally something will be done etc. but when reading the details (attached to the PR), couldn't help feeling disappointed. It may sound like the usual rant but are there really no bigger problems with Irish Rail at the moment? Especially when resources are limited, it seems critical to address the priorities first and some of them do not require that much investment (forget about building any new tracks for the moment). To me the absolute priorities would be:
- improving quality of service: regular delays of the same train every day, poor track quality causing new trains to be unable to use their speed, dwelling times at junctions caused by poor signalling or timetabling etc
- improving quality of passenger information: non-existent on platforms on many stations, internal displays out of order in 1 out of 3 trains.

This passenger angle does not seem to be taken into consideration at all. If the (new) Minister of State for Public & Commuter Transport fails to identify the problems of commuter transport then the prospects look bleak indeed. One may wonder what he would decide to buy if more money was available (at the expense of the above).

Some of these issues cost next to nothing to improve - just making sure things work (potentially hiring an extra person to look after them) - simply to maximise the use of existing facilities (if you cannot afford any new ones). And I'm sure with 6m to spend all this tiny annoying stuff would be gone forever. This would be the way to improve travelling experience by far more than by a new shiny ticket office!

Victor

I'm guessing thats less than a week's spend for Irish Rail and the minister just wants to keep himself in the emdia.

Trevor451

the only thing that will drastically improve the Irish rail infrastructure is if we:

• Let the government retain complete control over the rail lines
• Sell off CIE/ Irish rail and let private operators run services

:rolleyes:

DWCommuter

Trevor451 wrote: »

the only thing that will drastically improve the Irish rail infrastructure is if we:

• Let the government retain complete control over the rail lines
• Sell off CIE/ Irish rail and let private operators run services

:rolleyes:

I'd go with that and all the madness it would initially create.

Nothing ventured.....

foggy_lad

There is a sign up in Newbridge station about works being done over the next year including building two new footbridges with ramps and steps and ONLY ONE lift shaft! So are they expecting the disabled to jump off one side of the footbridge?

All this money is wasted on companies like Irish Rail when they can screw up the most basic jobs. They went all out in the last 10 years becoming wheelchair accessible but got nowhere really and in the process made things worse for a lot more who are not wheelchair bound but have mobility impairments who may not be ably to use stairs or very long ramps up to the nearest road bridge then back down another ramp on the far side(Irish rails cheap fix to avoid putting in lifts) etc.

Cookie_Monster

foggy_lad wrote: »

There is a sign up in Newbridge station about works being done over the next year including building two new footbridges with ramps and steps and ONLY ONE lift shaft! So are they expecting the disabled to jump off one side of the footbridge?

how many disabled people do you think will use every single train and generate such demand? there's no need for anything more than one, amazing how we went so many decades with none at all really isn't it, how did the railway ever survive without the custom of those millions of imagined disabled commuters everyday??

Victor

I presume its a lift on one side and a ramp on the other.