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Mass Rail Closing in the Next Decade?

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    #92
    foggy_lad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,373 ✭✭✭✭foggy_lad


    OurLadyofKnock wrote: »
    Does this guy still have his job?
    Centre to Centre times of 2hours 25minutes which Barry Kenny quoted on Dublin to Cork DID NOT include a 25minute luas ride and a 10minute(at least) bus ride in Cork.


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    #93
    foggy_lad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,373 ✭✭✭✭foggy_lad


    corktina wrote: »
    A business hours service plus weekend student specials would cater for the bulk of the paying customers. All the freebies fill the rest of the available trains at a huge cost to the Government.
    Do you think the Government will continue to subsidise Irish Rail if they get rid of free travel?

    The business hours service and student services cant actually be run at a profit by IE as it exists today.


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    #94
    corktina
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,733 ✭✭✭✭corktina


    twould be a brave politician who would scrap free travel/Maybe EU might insist on major changes though


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    #95
    foggy_lad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,373 ✭✭✭✭foggy_lad


    corktina wrote: »
    twould be a brave politician who would scrap free travel/Maybe EU might insist on major changes though
    true but i cant help thinking that if the services are cut there will be radical cuts in subsidy to go alog with that.

    Although I can see an overall reduction of €10-€20 for those on long term social welfare payments happening before any reduction in free travel or household benefits like the free esb.


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    #96
    corktina
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,733 ✭✭✭✭corktina


    business hours trains and studentservices are well filled and must pay thier way surely. Its the middle of the day services that are quietest I would have thought and most used by free pass holders.


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    #97
    runway16
    Registered Users Posts: 304 ✭✭runway16


    Folks,

    One factor not considered in the debate about off peak services is the fact that if you remove some of them, you make the overall schedule less attractive to business people, who may then not patronise the peak time services.

    The reason is that the overall schedule may simply not be attractive to them anymore. Take the case of a businessman travelling to Cork for a meeting. His meeting concludes at 2:30, and he may not be willing to wait around until 5pm for the next service. He may simply opt to drive or use a bus service instead.

    Airlines have learned this lesson the hard way when trying to remove unprofitable middle of the day services - once they did, the business traveller started deserting them because the service did not offer the flexibility they required, so they switched to a competitor with a more extensive schedule.


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    #98
    corktina
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,733 ✭✭✭✭corktina


    he's likely to switch to his car anyway as it would be much quicker unless his meeting was virtually IN Connolly or Heuston


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    #99
    foggy_lad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,373 ✭✭✭✭foggy_lad


    corktina wrote: »
    business hours trains and studentservices are well filled and must pay thier way surely. Its the middle of the day services that are quietest I would have thought and most used by free pass holders.
    but you cant have business services and student services going one way without having empty trains going in the opposite direction unless you sent a train to cork in the morning and dont send it back until the evening. the well filled trains are usually only well filled one way so the empty trains are already paid for which drives up the overall cost beyond what the customers are prepared to pay for a train service. how many will pay €80 return for a trip to Cork(including luas and taxi/bus transfers)


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    #100
    DWCommuter
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,032 ✭✭✭DWCommuter


    Its all very simple really. The IE business model needs to be overhauled. In terms of just the service side of things, costs need to be cut drastically, speeds need increasing and only then will it have a chance of being in a position to maintain regular schedules and have busy services and routes subsidising the lessor ones, but still maintaining them. However as a person who runs a business that is still reasonably successful I am horrified by how IE is run, considering it eats up 100s of millions annually in state subsidy. Both Government and IE/CIE management are responsible for a diabolical rail company who's only period of success was when billions were being fired at it and we were at near full levels of employment in the country.


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    #101
    Niles
    Registered Users Posts: 1,186 ✭✭✭Niles


    corktina wrote: »
    business hours trains and studentservices are well filled and must pay thier way surely. Its the middle of the day services that are quietest I would have thought and most used by free pass holders.

    Not sure about this... there is a growing trend among the bus companies (including BÉ) to offer hourly/two hourly services... if IÉ doesn't run services outside the start and close of businesses it's just another reason to use the bus. Granted it takes less to fill a bus than a train, but I've often used middle of the day bus services on the Dublin-Rosslare route, and they're often quite full from the middle of the day on. The mid-morning ones not so much but these usually have to operate anyway to get the driver/bus back to the starting point or they would be out of hours.

    There's also the fact that students don't always have 9-5 hours, depending on the course. I commuted to and from college and would have had one or two days a week when I finished at 2, had there been one company offering an hourly service and another only running at close of business hours you can guess which operator I'd go with.


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    #102
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    DWCommuter wrote: »
    Absolutely not.

    The advice seems to be to stick to my car. I guess I'd better do that, so.

    Of course, it begs a question. If sticking to the car is the better option for me - living in Dublin, and travelling to Cork - what chance does anyone have of persuading anyone who currently drives to switch to public transport?

    I know the answer, and I think you do as well, so I'm not aiming the question at you. But anyone else? Any of our onboard fans of the railway want to have a go?


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    #103
    foggy_lad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,373 ✭✭✭✭foggy_lad


    All anyone has to do is compare the two forms of transport along two classic routes, Waterford to Limerick and Limerick to Galway to see that some lines are not logical or feasible and should be closed and lifted and the trackbed ploughed back into the surrounding farmland.

    Waterford to Limerick by train runs three times a day each way except Sundays but carries probably less than a coachload in all six trains. now think how much this line costs to upkeep and maintain and how much does it cost to have stations staffed and open for empty trains?

    On the other side there are several busses each way every day including Sundays and the bus manages to call at more stops along the route while still being faster than the train and a lot cheaper.

    The same situation exists with the Galway-Limerick train and the several faster and cheaper busses which run stopping services as well as express services between the two cities, yet good money is ploughed into lines which have been losing money hand over fist for as many years as they have been operational!

    If there is not Mass railway closures there should be a revolution instead and cleans the country of such wastefulness!


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    #104
    Cookie_Monster
    Registered Users Posts: 24,480 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    OurLadyofKnock wrote: »
    Believe it or not I am actually fairly famous outside of Ireland. So your "small thinking" is not relevant here.

    Dana?


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    #105
    Lapin
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18,184 ✭✭✭✭Lapin


    OurLadyofKnock wrote: »
    Ireland will never, ever have Nuclear Power because our newspapers journalists are ignorant, hysteria-inducing gob****es who like to play God. Look at the carry on of Myers.........

    Just for clarification. Kevin Myers favours nuclear energy.

    http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-the-cheapest-and-cleanest-form-of-fuel-by-far-nuclear-is-one-all-our-political-parties-oppose-2523003.html


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    #106
    CIE
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,463 ✭✭✭CIE


    OurLadyofKnock wrote: »
    Dude, Sweden is a very flat country with long, straight stretches of rail line (good for high speed) with a lot of heavy industry, mining and forestry. The nature of their climate makes rail better for long distance transport in winter - which is why their main freight line runs to Narvik inside Norway above the artic circle. They also have direct rail connections into Euro now via Denmark - to supplement the ones into Norway and Finland they already had. Swedish cities are big and well spread apart from one another
    Are you feeling okay? Sweden is quite mountainous rather, and Ireland is way flatter. Sweden's railways are very curved with a lot of grades; this is why their fast trains are tilt trains. The X2000 service isn't confined to the southern flatlands.
    On this island we only have one major city - Dublin and small regional city Belfast, and the rest are just big towns.

    Sweden is nothing like Ireland. One major factor is they have LOTS of Nuclear Power and they can electrify their lines. Ireland will never, ever have Nuclear Power because our newspapers journalists are ignorant, hysteria-inducing gob****es who like to play God. Look at the carry on of Myers and McDonald regarding a small bit of temp. landscaping in Stephen's Green for the DART/Metro interchange. The headbagers calling Joe Duffy actually having political clout in this country - while in any other country they would be ignored as hysterical cranks looking for attention. Here in Ireland all our major political parties formulate policy based on Joe Duffy callers, pathologically-insane newspaper editorials and parish priests in Mayo.

    Are you honestly going to continue with comparing Ireland to modern and intelligent societies like Germany and Sweden? These countries also exist for reasons greater than indulging Civil Servants and Semi-State unions. They have a vision - Ireland has none, except to keep the public sector from throwing their toys out of the pram constantly.

    Our motorways are some of the best and most modern in the world now. Motorways don't get potholes! They are not boreens which have been widened.

    That's ironically is what our rail system is by the way.

    For all the faults and slagging the NRA get - if there is one organisation which can look back on the Tiger years and point to real results - it is most certainly the NRA. Our road network is pretty spectacular now - even by any international standards.

    One would have to go to the Third World to find a comparison to CIE.

    I am not small thinking - I am seeing our nation with a clarity and for the most part - it just ain't pretty.
    One wonders where you find time to come up with that much a**e-talk. It's not even funny, if that's what you were shooting for...congratulations for finding more invalid ways to justify the status quo.

    If the NRA got "results", didn't they get the funding first? Uh-oh. Bias detection in government. Small thinkers act like they can do nothing about it, again, and make excuses for the politicians they claim to hate so much. Status quo remains.

    Electrification is not necessary for 200-km/h service. It's not like the HST never existed (and Ireland already had BREL-built Mark 3s, which they threw away for no reason). For DMU-lovers, there is still the Virgin Voyager, which has a tilting version (and that train would get you from Limerick to Galway way less than two hours)...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKvHvb6Q1NI


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    #107
    CIE
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,463 ✭✭✭CIE


    Lapin wrote: »
    Just for clarification. Kevin Myers favours nuclear energy.

    http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-the-cheapest-and-cleanest-form-of-fuel-by-far-nuclear-is-one-all-our-political-parties-oppose-2523003.html
    Hmm. Looks like someone might be pwned...pyrrhic though :rolleyes:


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    #108
    corktina
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,733 ✭✭✭✭corktina


    foggy_lad wrote: »
    but you cant have business services and student services going one way without having empty trains going in the opposite direction unless you sent a train to cork in the morning and dont send it back until the evening. the well filled trains are usually only well filled one way so the empty trains are already paid for which drives up the overall cost beyond what the customers are prepared to pay for a train service. how many will pay €80 return for a trip to Cork(including luas and taxi/bus transfers)

    Business people do want to travel from dublin as well as to it you know. Student travel is at a peak friday evening and sunday evening surely? For the rest of the day, instead of expresses , they could run semi-fasts so that everywhere on route gets some level of service even if only every two or three hours.


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    #109
    corktina
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,733 ✭✭✭✭corktina


    CIE wrote: »
    Are you feeling okay? Sweden is quite mountainous rather, and Ireland is way flatter. r]

    I wondered about that, but don't know squat about Sweden


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    #110
    OurLadyofKnock
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 558 ✭✭✭OurLadyofKnock


    CIE - I suspect some of the of West on Track venterns will be collecting their tax-payer funded first class ticket though the Pearly Gates in the coming years.

    May I suggest you send in your CV now - to carry the delusion into the future.

    I can't think of anyone more qualified to take up the cause. You're a natural.

    Either that or take over Barry Kenny's current position.


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    #111
    foggy_lad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,373 ✭✭✭✭foggy_lad


    CIE wrote: »
    Are you feeling okay? Sweden is quite mountainous rather, and Ireland is way flatter. Sweden's railways are very curved with a lot of grades; this is why their fast trains are tilt trains.
    They dont have as many of these super tilting trains as you might like to believe, and introducing such tilting trains or other such follys into Irish Railways is not something the company or country will ever be able to afford!
    The X2000 service isn't confined to the southern flatlands.One wonders where you find time to come up with that much a**e-talk. It's not even funny, if that's what you were shooting for...congratulations for finding more invalid ways to justify the status quo.
    http://www.sj.se/content/1/c6/12/64/53/0807-SJ-WorkshopA4_webb.pdf
    SJ has a monopoly to operate passenger trains where they can be run profitably from a commercial point of view. This is mostly the case for X2000 trains and some regional trains around Stockholm. Most other railways are not profitable. Average speed is an important factor regarding profitability (more distance per hour means more income per hour). For regional trains (within one county or up to about 100 km distance) the counties buy traffic by signing a contract with an operator. The operator is often SJ, but sometimes another operator, either Swedish or from one of the other EU countries, provides the service. For these regional trains the county transport authority sells tickets. For long-distance trains (i.e., longer than the regional trains) that are not profitable, a national authority "Rikstrafiken" signs a contract with an operator to move traffic on each line (Public Service Obligation). In this case each operator markets and sell tickets. The operator for unprofitable services usually rents trains from the county transport authority or a special state organisation. This is because trains are expensive, take from two to three years to buy (from tender to delivery), and are hard to sell if the operator loses the contract. However, for the SJ monopoly traffic, SJ usually own the trains.
    If the NRA got "results", didn't they get the funding first? Uh-oh. Bias detection in government. Small thinkers act like they can do nothing about it, again, and make excuses for the politicians they claim to hate so much. Status quo remains.

    Electrification is not necessary for 200-km/h service. It's not like the HST never existed (and Ireland already had BREL-built Mark 3s, which they threw away for no reason). For DMU-lovers, there is still the Virgin Voyager, which has a tilting version (and that train would get you from Limerick to Galway way less than two hours)...
    Not on Irish rails current dodgey tracks!


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    #112
    -Chris-
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,035 ✭✭✭✭-Chris-


    CIE and OurLadyofKnock, drop the handbags.


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    #113
    steamengine
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,372 ✭✭✭steamengine


    foggy_lad wrote: »
    They dont have as many of these super tilting trains as you might like to believe, and introducing such tilting trains or other such follys into Irish Railways is not something the company or country will ever be able to afford.

    Portugal a country which we are level pegged with financially and not too far off population-wise either, operate 230km/hr tilting InterCity expresses. It could be done here, but perhaps as a country their transport history seems to show less mistakes. They held on to their antiquated tram systems in Lisbon and Porto, while we discarded a similar tram system in Dublin. Its not a question that we were not able to afford it at some point - if they can do it, we should be able to do it also.


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    #114
    foggy_lad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,373 ✭✭✭✭foggy_lad


    steamengine wrote: »
    Portugal a country which we are level pegged with financially and not too far off population-wise either, operate 230km/hr tilting InterCity expresses. It could be done here, but perhaps as a country their transport history seems to show less mistakes. They held on to their antiquated tram systems in Lisbon and Porto, while we discarded a similar tram system in Dublin. Its not a question that we were not able to afford it at some point - if they can do it, we should be able to do it also.
    Their trains are travelling over much greater distances than our Dublin-Cork which would be nothing more than a commuter line in most countries and would have a travel time less than two hours due to high quality infrastructure which Ireland will never have.

    They also only have a few daily intercity trains between places like lisbon and porto taking several hours and operating only twice a day http://www.cp.pt/StaticFiles/CP/Imagens/PDF/Passageiros/horarios/regional/lisboa_porto.pdf


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    #115
    steamengine
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,372 ✭✭✭steamengine


    foggy_lad wrote: »
    Their trains are travelling over much greater distances than our Dublin-Cork which would be nothing more than a commuter line in most countries and would have a travel time less than two hours due to high quality infrastructure which Ireland will never have.

    Lisbon-Porto at 200 miles compares favourably with Dublin - Cork. This distance thing is forever been trotted out and is nothing but a red herring.
    They also only have a few daily intercity trains between places like lisbon and porto taking several hours and operating only twice a day http://www.cp.pt/StaticFiles/CP/Imagens/PDF/Passageiros/horarios/regional/lisboa_porto.pdf

    2.5 to 3 hours, is the journey time for the tilting expresses, Alfa Pendulars, and 10 of those per day, the regional trains are in addition to that. Look up the timetable, you were quoting the regional timetable. My point is that if Portugal which is regarded as being not exactly a well off country can do it, then so should we able to do it.

    All in all though it looks like our InterCities stand up quite well by comparison considering !!!

    InterCity inc Alfa Pendular Timetable http://www.cp.pt/StaticFiles/CP/Imagens/PDF/Passageiros/horarios/longo_curso/ap_ic.pdf


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    #116
    foggy_lad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,373 ✭✭✭✭foggy_lad


    steamengine wrote: »
    Lisbon-Porto at 200 miles compares favourably with Dublin - Cork. This distance thing is forever been trotted out and is nothing but a red herring.



    2.5 to 3 hours, is the journey time for the tilting expresses, Alfa Pendulars, and 10 of those per day, the regional trains are in addition to that. Look up the timetable, you were quoting the regional timetable. My point is that if Portugal which is regarded as being not exactly a well off country can do it, then so should we able to do it.

    All in all though it looks like our InterCities stand up quite well by comparison considering !!!

    InterCity inc Alfa Pendular Timetable http://www.cp.pt/StaticFiles/CP/Imagens/PDF/Passageiros/horarios/longo_curso/ap_ic.pdf
    Seriously though can you ever see Irish rail having enough passengers on the western rail corridor or any other intercity route to justify spending money on track upgrades to facilitate tilting trains? The train budget is zero/empty/spent for about 40 years! The country is broke and Irish rail are soon to lose a huge chunk of their government subsidy so if anything they will be closing down lines and cutting back on services.

    You mention the tilting trains which run parallel to the regional trains, here in Ireland we don't have enough passengers for regional trains so extra services is nothing more than folly and shameful waste much like the western rail corridor, and is typical of what people who are not in touch with the realities of the railways in Ireland like British train spotters think.


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    #117
    howiya
    Registered Users Posts: 3,244 ✭✭✭howiya


    steamengine wrote: »
    My point is that if Portugal which is regarded as being not exactly a well off country can do it, then so should we able to do it.

    Is it not the case that Portugal have done it in the past when they had money/money was available cheaply and that the problem is paying back the money?


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    #118
    OurLadyofKnock
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 558 ✭✭✭OurLadyofKnock


    steamengine wrote: »
    Portugal a country which we are level pegged with financially and not too far off population-wise either, operate 230km/hr tilting InterCity expresses. It could be done here, but perhaps as a country their transport history seems to show less mistakes. They held on to their antiquated tram systems in Lisbon and Porto, while we discarded a similar tram system in Dublin. Its not a question that we were not able to afford it at some point - if they can do it, we should be able to do it also.

    The issue is that as Portugal started to move up economcally they spent their money on high-speed rail, metros and motorways.

    In ireland we spent our money on Partnership and Motorways.

    They have a world class rail trainsport system - we have wasters making six figure salaries playing Farmville in Government offices up and down the country holding out for the largest pensions in the history of the human race.

    and now we have no money left .


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    #119
    foggy_lad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,373 ✭✭✭✭foggy_lad


    howiya wrote: »
    Is it not the case that Portugal have done it in the past when they had money/money was available cheaply and that the problem is paying back the money?
    It also appears that Portugal only got halfway through their mighty rail plans which were not due to be completed till 2016 so they only have half a high speed tilting train network:D


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    #120
    corktina
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,733 ✭✭✭✭corktina


    it is true that roads were prioritised ahead of rail.

    But then again, do you rememeber the awful state of our road system a decade ago?

    remember Kildare...Monasterevin..Abbeyleix...Mitchelstown....Fermoy and thats just the N8!


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    #121
    steamengine
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,372 ✭✭✭steamengine


    howiya wrote: »
    Is it not the case that Portugal have done it in the past when they had money/money was available cheaply and that the problem is paying back the money?

    At least with the Alfa Pendulars they have more to show for their debt than we have, including also their new Motorway and Metro systems as Our Lady of Knock has correctly pointed up. ;)


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