Mass Rail Closing in the Next Decade?

corktina

my daughter came down to Mallow on the 9.00am ex Heuston this morning. 3 piece 22xxx, not even crowded.

writing on the wall.

mickydoomsux

corktina wrote: »

my daughter came down to Mallow on the 9.00am ex Heuston this morning. 3 piece 22xxx, not even crowded.

writing on the wall.

One non-full off-peak service going the wrong direction from Dublin?

Time to dig up the tracks :rolleyes:

Heisenberg1

corktina wrote: »

my daughter came down to Mallow on the 9.00am ex Heuston this morning. 3 piece 22xxx, not even crowded.

writing on the wall.

My bro was on the 11.30 from Cork this morning couldn't get a seat at mallow the writhing is definitely on wall keep them doggies rolling Irish rail:)

corktina

mickydoomsux wrote: »

One non-full off-peak service going the wrong direction from Dublin?

Time to dig up the tracks :rolleyes:

no, time to cut the loss making services. Is an hourly service really necessary? or would less frequent trains with more carriages so everyone gets a seat be both cheaper and more user friendly.?

robd

corktina wrote: »

no, time to cut the loss making services. Is an hourly service really necessary? or would less frequent trains with more carriages so everyone gets a seat be both cheaper and more user friendly.?

The have the tracks, they have the trains, stations are manned regardless of number of trains, they're paying the staff annual salaries. Only extra cost is fuel, assuming drivers aren't getting overtime. That's quite minimal in the context of other costs.

I doubt they'd save that much at this stage.

Further roll out of demand management led ticketing sales would likely smooth usage out better, ala Ryanair.

mickydoomsux

robd wrote:

....they're paying the staff annual salaries.

Only higher management grades are salaried, everyone else (the vast majority of staff) is on an hourly wage,

robd

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Only higher management grades are salaried, everyone else (the vast majority of staff) is on an hourly wage,

Yes, but I would have thought they're employed for a contracted number of hours which would be a minimum. Train stations (around Dublin) anyway seem to be vacated outside of contracted hours these days so no overtime.

corktina

its quite obvious that you could employ fewer staff if you ran fewer trains and that there would need be less office and mangerial staff to over see them. You would also need less rolling stock and thus less maintenance.

"Stations are manned" yes, extravagently in many cases. In these days of online booking and ticket machines, not necessary...many of these jobs are only retained to placate the Unions.

It's only what a REAL business would be doing in a recession. Cut costs, maximise Customer satisfaction,

Judgement Day

As opposed to cutting back staff, innovative ideas such as reintroducing Fastrack should be tried - with staff on commission to drum up business. Would the unions be interested - I think not, as their mindset for years has been to look for the best severance packages for their members. IE is finished but nobody has told them. :rolleyes:

robd

corktina wrote: »

its quite obvious that you could employ fewer staff if you ran fewer trains and that there would need be less office and mangerial staff to over see them. You would also need less rolling stock and thus less maintenance.

It's not obvious. Last I checked an Irish Rail job is a job for life so canceling main line services doesn't necessarily mean less staff just more idle staff.

Also rolling stock is fixed, unless you want to take a cutting torch to all those shiny brand new trains Irish Rail just purchased.

Info I read today indicated that Dublin-Cork route operates at a slight profit too. Dublin-Galway costs the state €25 per passenger.

Basic finance would indicate you go after the routes that have the biggest losses not the best route.

As I previously stated, a further move to demand management led fares rather than fixed fares and restricting free fares on busier trains could do this.

corktina

thats just the point. We can't afford "jobs for life" If IE employees want job security they should make every effort to make it a better, more efficent ,less expensive network. They don't do this at present because they have "jobs for life"

Rolling stock is not fixed. You could add a couple of coaches to Mk4 rakes by disbanding one set and the 22xxx sets have lots of permutations that could be used.

OurLadyofKnock

robd wrote: »

It's not obvious. Last I checked an Irish Rail job is a job for life...

Now please just sit down and think carefully about the full implications of what you posted in the context of this thread. Just consider your statement and how profound it is.

It really is something very important. Seriously.

robd

OurLadyofKnock wrote: »

Now please just sit down and think carefully about the full implications of what you posted in the context of this thread. Just consider your statement and how profound it is.

It really is something very important. Seriously.

Why? I didn't say it should be, just that it is.

My point of view is that I see nothing in our current government that shows they have the balls to tackle this problem.

dowlingm

Any time a transport company claims that route A "makes money" and route B "loses money" I want to see the maths. Does it "make money" solely on a per-train basis or factoring in track costs and overheads like Inchicore Works and keeping the Information Minister in sandwiches? If the latter, how are costs allocated between one service and another on shared track?

JD re Fastrack - NO. Tender out the service like the catering. As little IE staff involved as possible.

antoinolachtnai

There is no way that any service on Irish Rail 'makes money'. Some of them might make a surplus, i.e., the fares - the day-to-day cost of providing the service is greater than zero, but that doesn't mean it 'makes money'. To find out if it makes money, you have to take into account the depreciation and the cost of the capital (i.e, borrowing the money). Irish Rail doesn't depreciate its railways and fixed assets, and it doesn't account for the cost of its capital (which it gets 'free' off the government as grants). So it is impossible to really say how big a loss Irish Rail is making, although it is a pretty safe thing to say it is making a financial loss, and every single rail activity it is engaged in is making a financial loss.

If you want to make the thing positive, you have to increase the activity, not decrease it. The reason is that the fixed and sunk costs are so big.

The way to do this is really to develop the railway, mainly by making it relevant to urban life and making it serve more of the city.

To do this needs new skills and investment. The most likely way to do this that I can see is to bring in a foreign rail partner.

Jehuty42

Is there any example anywhere in the world of a "monolithic" train operator(i.e. in the IE format of being infrastructure manager, rolling stock owner and train service operator all in one) that makes any money?

Further, do open access operators(I guess Virgin trains, Arriva, and so on, but obviously only their train arms) elsewhere make money?

DWCommuter

Jehuty42 wrote: »

Is there any example anywhere in the world of a "monolithic" train operator(i.e. in the IE format of being infrastructure manager, rolling stock owner and train service operator all in one) that makes any money?

Further, do open access operators(I guess Virgin trains, Arriva, and so on, but obviously only their train arms) elsewhere make money?

What does it matter? Since the development of road transport it has been universally accepted and proven that it was difficult to make a profit from a railway as constituted in your description above. The issue with IE is not about it making a profit or money as you put it. Its about it being less of a drain on state finances and run better for its customers. How do we do this? I've already given my opinion on it.

Jehuty42

DWCommuter wrote: »

What does it matter? Since the development of road transport it has been universally accepted and proven that it was difficult to make a profit from a railway as constituted in your description above. The issue with IE is not about it making a profit or money as you put it. Its about it being less of a drain on state finances and run better for its customers. How do we do this? I've already given my opinion on it.

Fair enough. I guess there are two schools of thought here? One would be a complete reform such that a train operator turns a profit. I think that's what the current British model goes for, by giving the profitable parts to private industry and the loss-making parts to the public sector(Network Rail).

The other would be the less radical reform that just minimises the loss made by the operator and cuts the subvention it needs to operate.

Of course, the third, and most likely to happen, option, is that the status quo is maintained indefinitely. Which I don't think most commentators here want.

DWCommuter

corktina wrote: »

its quite obvious that you could employ fewer staff if you ran fewer trains and that there would need be less office and mangerial staff to over see them. You would also need less rolling stock and thus less maintenance.

"Stations are manned" yes, extravagently in many cases. In these days of online booking and ticket machines, not necessary...many of these jobs are only retained to placate the Unions.

It's only what a REAL business would be doing in a recession. Cut costs, maximise Customer satisfaction,

This is the very essence of what is needed. Unfortunately its more difficult for people outside of the business world to fully appreciate how a business needs to be run. IE is not a train set. Its a business. It actually needs business people to run it. Not some washed up chap from our neighbours washed up state railway. I've heard for many years about the importance of having "railway people" running our railway. Baloney. The "railway people" have to date run it like their own little personal oo guage layout.

IE (CIE in general, but I'll just stick to IE) needs massive reform from the top right down to the very bottom. I'm talking wage cuts, staff cuts, management cuts. Huge changes in work practices that deliver real savings and basically telling the unions to feck off if they don't accept change. There is absolutely no doubt that Unions are a huge barrier to achieving savings.

corktina

yes a huge barrier and the ultimate result is that lines will close as the only way that the costs can be cut, their members are ultimatley the losers.

DWCommuter

Jehuty42 wrote: »

Fair enough. I guess there are two schools of thought here? One would be a complete reform such that a train operator turns a profit. I think that's what the current British model goes for, by giving the profitable parts to private industry and the loss-making parts to the public sector(Network Rail).

The other would be the less radical reform that just minimises the loss made by the operator and cuts the subvention it needs to operate.

Of course, the third, and most likely to happen, option, is that the status quo is maintained indefinitely. Which I don't think most commentators here want.

I don't see the two schools of thought. I never mentioned profit and I really don't believe that we can compare our network to that of the UK. There's two schools of thought. Leave it as it is or change it to make it more transparent and better performing.

The separation of infrastructure (EU Directive 91/440) is supposedly on the way by 2013, unless the frozen in the headlight hedgehogs in Amiens Street lead the march to Government buildings to beg for a further derogation based on more implausible excuses.

If a separation happens, then we would have two separate sets of accounts. On for the operator and one for the infrastructure manager. These figures would finally reveal if the current crop are actually capable of running train services at a cost and standard acceptable to Irish people.

OurLadyofKnock

DWCommuter wrote: »

The separation of infrastructure (EU Directive 91/440) is supposedly on the way by 2013, unless the frozen in the headlight hedgehogs in Amiens Street lead the march to Government buildings to beg for a further derogation based on more implausible excuses.

If a separation happens, then we would have two separate sets of accounts. On for the operator and one for the infrastructure manager. These figures would finally reveal if the current crop are actually capable of running train services at a cost and standard acceptable to Irish people.

It is a no brainer really. The only reason it has not been done thus far as they are hiding a big dirty secret in there. Perhaps many of them.

DWCommuter

corktina wrote: »

yes a huge barrier and the ultimate result is that lines will close as the only way that the costs can be cut, their members are ultimatley the losers.

Its all they know. Unless they are faced down along with staff and management. Its the Governments call and quite frankly we still aren't poor enough for them to care. Big salaries, poor services, higher fares and dwindling passenger numbers will continue until the motorway network finally delivers the killer blow to the IC division.

Jehuty42

DWCommuter wrote: »

The separation of infrastructure (EU Directive 91/440) is supposedly on the way by 2013

There was an Oireachteas committee discussion on our exemption from that directive last week with Dick and Barry, saw it on TV over the weekend. The impression seemed to be that they will deal with it when it happens, but they are currently not really doing anything to be ready for compliance. There was plenty of talk about the extra money they wanted to get to make improvements that weren't made when there was money to be had.

Also, it was horribly chummy. No pressure put on Dick at all, it was like watching friends chat. Stupid local issues(like a level crossing in Carrick-on-Suir that is closed too long) were brought up and easily dismissed by Dick and Barry, seemingly just brought up so as to have something to talk about. Nothing about what the directive actually means.

DWCommuter

OurLadyofKnock wrote: »

It is a no brainer really. The only reason it has not been done thus far as they are hiding a big dirty secret in there. Perhaps many of them.

I believe the big dirty secret(s) is/are widely known. Work practices. Unions. Ineptitude. State dependency. Ultimately a negative culture for any business.

antoinolachtnai

To answer the questions about profitable train companies:

EBITDA profitable. (i.e, their daily receipts are more than their daily non-capital expenditure but taking no account of capital) - a good few, including the Luas, and also a good few operations in Asia.

EBIT profitable. Main example I know of is MTR in Hong Kong. It is a complex company, however, with lots of aspects. The operations are barely profitable from what I can see, but the property aspects make it much more valuable. I think this is quite a good model.

The Irish Rail accounts are separated to some extent at present. The level of subsidy including capital grants is certainly extraordinary.

I think it is pretty clear that Irish Rail needs to be re-imagined if it is to survive. The current setup can't work. The question is who is going to do this.

I really think the Unions have to become an agent of change and forward thinking going forward. Otherwise they are going to run out of rail worker membership.

dowlingm

In regard to whether hourly service can be cut - service changes always have consequences. No doubt there are some people who don't take the Limerick train any more because they were guaranteed a seat from Limerick to Dublin whether or not there was a skanger sitting in the "reserved seat" when the transfer was made at the Junction.

Similarly, if a person books the same journey every week leaving at say 7am and getting a return service at 7pm and the return service gets chopped and the customer is told that "the 8pm service is the new 7pm", that customer might be lost to BOTH services because the extra hour wait makes an alternative such as bus or driving more palatable given that IE stations are rarely fun places to linger and lack amenities such as lounges for 1st class passengers.

If Limerick-Galway is chopped, about half the Athenry-Galway commuting options vanish so the net loss of passengers (if not passenger-km) will be higher than the number travelling through Athenry from the Ennis direction unless those services are made up by more Galway-Athlone service.

The question in all of the above is are more customers lost than are gained by the ability to keep fare increases lower, especially when IE may have to pay a significant overhead cost on a closed or reduced-service line. But arbitrarily saying "let's chop service X" should be assumed to have an impact on other services until such time as IE starts getting serious about "knowing your customer."

OurLadyofKnock

DWCommuter wrote: »

I believe the big dirty secret(s) is/are widely known. Work practices. Unions. Ineptitude. State dependency. Ultimately a negative culture for any business.

Having the accounts for the services on their own - will demonstrate I believe that they are not the "huge" loss makers the DOT claim them to be. A lot of this thing that "even the DART makes no money" is hidden within capital spending - much of it on needless plant. Creative book keeping works best when you have a big complex monolithic structure.

I suspect that if the DART accounts were just a reflections of the train running costs, staff wages and fares - it would be shown to be as profitable as Luas. Maybe more profitable. This would change everything as it would be literally a mandate for private operators to take over all rail services in Ireland. Keeping the infrastruture in state hands.

Personally, I can see the CIE management and unions forcing Irish taxpayers to pay the EU fines for not following this directive rather than implementing it and finally the entire country waking up to the fact that when viewed from another (non-CIE) perspective we have a potentially very viable and useful rail network.

I truly believe that in there somewhere - once the mud of CIE is cleared, that Ireland can have a fantastic and meaningful rail passenger and freight system on the present network even with the motorways and regardless of the state of the economy. In fact, the ecomonic downturn when viewed from this perspective is a golden opertuinty for the rail system. The issue is that CIE now exists for no other reason that to prevent the mud from being cleared.

I am not just saying that. Among the stinking rubbish tip that is CIE - there is a gem of a public transport system waiting to be discovered.

DWCommuter

Jehuty42 wrote: »

There was an Oireachteas committee discussion on our exemption from that directive last week with Dick and Barry, saw it on TV over the weekend. The impression seemed to be that they will deal with it when it happens, but they are currently not really doing anything to be ready for compliance. There was plenty of talk about the extra money they wanted to get to make improvements that weren't made when there was money to be had.

Also, it was horribly chummy. No pressure put on Dick at all, it was like watching friends chat. Stupid local issues(like a level crossing in Carrick-on-Suir that is closed too long) were brought up and easily dismissed by Dick and Barry, seemingly just brought up so as to have something to talk about. Nothing about what the directive actually means.

That's typical really. I know how it makes me feel, but how it makes you feel is entirely up to you as I understand that some people put all the blame on the Government and are reluctant to be critical of CIE/IE. The derogation is an excuse. There is nothing tangible stopping them. It is indeed a straight forward no brainer.

dowlingm

Is Shane Ross still on Transport or did he get sidelined when he became a TD? Problem with him was though sometimes he got sidetracked by individual issues/scandals rather than seeing the big picture.