Manulla Jctn to Ballina

foggy_lad

This shuttle train runs 6 times a day in each direction starting in Ballina and stopping in Foxford and terminates in Manulla Junction before returning to Ballina via Foxford. It is of course used to ferry passengers to and from the Westport intercity trains but I notice there are only 4 Westport intercity trains a day yet this shuttle service runs to/from Manulla 6 times.

http://www.irishrail.ie/media/11_DublinWestport1.pdf

There is always the argument that the train serves Foxford on the two extra services and I would agree that an early morning and mid morning service between Ballina and Foxford is a good use of the service but can't imagine why the train after going to Foxford which takes 12 minutes continues on to Manulla junction taking a further 16 minutes?

Manulla Junction is a transfer point only so no tickets should be issued to or from this stop, it is also not open to the public except for those arriving by train, would it not be a better idea to have this train run to Foxford and then back to Ballina saving time and a lot of money and man-hours for Irish Rail? Is there some union or railway regulation that insists on it being this way?

dowlingm

Opening Manulla as a public halt might be a better idea. Access is tricky given the layout but I'd say it's doable. A small car park in the land between the lines to the west of the platform and a TVM?

Ballina-Manulla
0705 connects to 0715 Westport-Heuston
1000 connects to 0730 Heuston-Westport
1305 connects to 1315 Westport-Heuston
1505 connects to 1205 Heuston-Westport
1735 connects to 1530 Heuston-Westport and 1745 Westport-Heuston
2050 connects to 1830 Heuston-Westport

I don't see any extra services foggy lad - in fact Ballina people miss out on connecting to 0515 Westport-Heuston. That's the sort of thing IE should charter a bus for though.

corktina

possibly signal difficulties but maybe it would be a better idea for it to work to Claremorris or Westport.

dowlingm

Manulla hasn't much of a catchment but if it was open to passenger pickup/setdown IE would only have to bus Ballina/Foxford people 36km rather than another 15km to Claremorris and v.v. during maintenance on the branch.

LXFlyer

It connects into/out of a train every time - either to/from Dublin or to/from Westport.

What could possibly be the issue with that?

Oh dear, fancy that - imagine IE facilitating passenger connections.

No doubt FL will add that to his ever increasing list of things to constantly complain about every day.

munchkin_utd

dowlingm wrote: »

<snip>
I don't see any extra services foggy lad - in fact Ballina people miss out on connecting to 0515 Westport-Heuston. That's the sort of thing IE should charter a bus for though.

In general Irish Rail and "bus services" should be more complementary.

On one hand busses could be provided to supplement rail services, say early morning in the case above.
Or for the Limerick Junction->Waterford line which is closed on a Sunday (due to rostering issues on level crossings if I understand rightly) you could put in a Sunday evening bus connection to Limerick Junction (or Waterford or Kilkenny or where ever made sense) to at least make a weekend return journey possible from Dublin.

Or at the very least (turning it around to actions implementable by Bus Eireann) places like Ballina should have the train arrival/ departure times on the regional bus timetables to help planning of long distance journies easier.
Heres an example of a bus route in Bavaria that has the (taxpayer subsidised) train arrival times clearly stated
http://www.rvo-bus.de/site/rvo__bus/de/fahrplan__information/fahrplaene/suche/fpl/9608.pdf
noting that not every bus meets a train nor is there a uniform length of time to wait, but at least you KNOW at a glance!
Also noting that in the past 20 years the Bavaria authoritys are forcing the transport operators into such co-operation and transparancy because they want the public transport, that they are shovelling so much cash into, to be used as much as possible and thus justifying the PUBLIC money spent.

With CIE's constant efforts to make sure bus and train are seen to compete with each other, its been completely lost that both bus eireann and irish rail are heavily subsidised and the more they cooperate with each other then the LESS subsidy is needed as theres less overlap of services and more revenue gathered with more useful services.

Losty Dublin

Munchkin, it's not that there is rostering issues on the Limerick Junction-Waterford line. The staff aren't rostered by the company to work on Sunday's as no trains run on Sunday's. Big difference, ya see

lil5

lxflyer wrote: »

No doubt FL will add that to his ever increasing list of things to constantly complain about every day.

If the CIE companies would work more in the interest of their passengers, FL would have less to complain.

And I'd rather have more public transport users complaining like FL than accept the shortcomings of DB, IE, BE.

LXFlyer

There is a difference between valid complaints and wildly incorrect speculation which is what many of that poster's posts consist of, and which the opening post in this thread is yet another example of.

foggy_lad

dowlingm wrote: »

Opening Manulla as a public halt might be a better idea. Access is tricky given the layout but I'd say it's doable. A small car park in the land between the lines to the west of the platform and a TVM?

Ballina-Manulla
0705 connects to 0715 Westport-Heuston
1000 connects to 0730 Heuston-Westport
1305 connects to 1315 Westport-Heuston
1505 connects to 1205 Heuston-Westport
1735 connects to 1530 Heuston-Westport and 1745 Westport-Heuston
2050 connects to 1830 Heuston-Westport

I don't see any extra services foggy lad - in fact Ballina people miss out on connecting to 0515 Westport-Heuston. That's the sort of thing IE should charter a bus for though.

on closer inspection I realise this and that the timetable layout is very confusing in that it shows a shuttle service which connects with trains going in the opposite direction to the timetabled trains.
ie; it shows Ballina-Manulla-Ballina times on the Dublin-Westport timetable and also on Westport-Dublin, would be better for passengers if they just showed the trains that were connecting on each timetable page.

On the first page of the timetable the 07.05 from Ballina goes to Manulla and back to Ballina without connecting with any listed train on that page. The same happens with the 13.05 Ballina-Manulla-Ballina and on the third page the 10.00, 15.05 and 20.50 Ballina-Manulla-Ballina have no connections.

Very confusing for the average passenger!

dowlingm

munchkin_utd wrote: »

In general Irish Rail and "bus services" should be more complementary.

Indeed. But the Sister Company is also IE's biggest competitor.

dowlingm

foggy_lad wrote: »

the 07.05 from Ballina goes to Manulla and back to Ballina without connecting with any listed train on that page.

Grasping at straws foggy - sad. Basically you accused IE of wasting money and were caught out. Do you think they're going to dispatch an 0430 or something train from Dublin to Westport so it might connect to that train and make the timetable neat and tidy? What was it going to connect with on the ex Dublin page?

I've been raking IE over the coals about Nenagh but there's such a thing as unfair criticism.

markpb

dowlingm wrote: »

Indeed. But the Sister Company is also acting as IE's biggest competitor.

FYP.

dowlingm

markpb care to expand?

markpb

dowlingm wrote: »

markpb care to expand?

I don't think BE and IR should necessarily be competitors, they're acting that way because of FF-PD policy which never really went away. I disagree with that policy and think things would be much better off if they worked together instead of competing.

I understand that there is a normal operating reason for IR and BE to compete on certain corridors but I think it goes beyond that - there is very little integration between the two: not at a timetable level and not at a ticketing level.

dowlingm

markpb I entirely agree - I inferred from your change that you actually DIDN'T think they were competing. Look at when IE came off the South Wexford line. It should have been no question that the replacement service to Waterford called at the train station on the way in, and instead it went straight for the bus station at the Quay. Look at the 51X which is calculated to destroy what little economic justification there is for Limerick-Galway rail, and so on.

It might seem unfair to say "IE must be given access to bus connections" but the asset value of the railways is literally billions of euro if you had to build it over again and it's more egregious for a single corporate board to have subsidiaries doing their best to off each other.

LXFlyer

dowlingm wrote: »

markpb I entirely agree - I inferred from your change that you actually DIDN'T think they were competing. Look at when IE came off the South Wexford line. It should have been no question that the replacement service to Waterford called at the train station on the way in, and instead it went straight for the bus station at the Quay. Look at the 51X which is calculated to destroy what little economic justification there is for Limerick-Galway rail, and so on.

It might seem unfair to say "IE must be given access to bus connections" but the asset value of the railways is literally billions of euro if you had to build it over again and it's more egregious for a single corporate board to have subsidiaries doing their best to off each other.

While the principle of your argument about connectivity is right, I have to say dowlingm that you are using some very flawed examples.

The replacement bus in South Wexford arrives into Waterford at about 0830. There was and is no train leaving Waterford railway station from that time until 1100! Why should a bus call at the rail station when there are no trains to connect into?

The reality is that the NTA did extensive research of existing and potential customers in planning the revised bus network. The vast majority were WIT students, with the rest being commuters. By all means if an 0900 train were to start operating, then maybe you would have a case, but I'm afraid that there is no point to your argument.

As for the X51, you can be damn sure that if BE had not spotted that opportunity, that either Gobus or Citylink would have done so. Given the large volumes that BE has carried on this route historically, often putting on second coaches throughout the day, this frankly was formalising a practice that had prevailed for many years, except that now BE could avail of the new road.

I don't think the X51 had anything to do with the reopening of the WRC. It had more to with the company spotting a commercial opportunity and getting in before the other two private operators did. Remember that this is a commercial service not funded by PSO grants.

Frankly the failure so far of the WRC to attract decent patronage has far more to do with with poor scheduling, far too many TSRs, loops being in the wrong places, lack of online ticketing, and far more signicantly the PSRs and TSRs on the Dublin/Cork line north of Limerick Junction that mean that northbound and southbound Dublin/Cork trains do not call within minutes of one another. This means long waits for anyone going from Galway or Limerick to Cork or Waterford and therefore make the train less attractive. Until people grasp this concept, such services will never reach their potential.

Cookie_Monster

at least the railcars have done away with the need for an empty train to continue from Manulla on the main to where ever it was run the loco around the carraiges.

Victor

The timetable is laid out as it is to facilitate all movements between the three arms at Manulla Junction. The existing service makes it just about practical to work office hours in Ballina and commute from Westport or Castlebar. You would be utterly dependent on the one departure though.

The only real changes that I would make would be to (a) try to get a 'zero dark hundred' departure from Ballina (b) use the railcar to provide a better Ballina-Castlebar service where possible - the timetable is too tight to extend it to Westport.

Given that it is near the end of the line, it would be useful to have some way of boosting income.

dowlingm

If IE had a connection to the 0515 Westport it would bring the first Ballina-Dublin service arrival from 1040 back to 0838 which would be two hours ahead of the equivalent (via Longford) BE service. The question is what the trigger number would be to justify getting the driver on duty two hours earlier and how many would have just driven to Claremorris or Castlebar to meet the train anyway.

I just sketched out a back of the envelope run from Ballina to Westport and back after the run which arrives back in Ballina 0805 (which would get commuters from Ballina to Castlebar by about 0845) but
a) it would be tight if doable at all - a run to/from Castlebar only probably best
b) might not leave enough time for crew rest before next run Ballina-Manulla
c) might conflict with either a timber out of Castlebar or a freight of some sort out of or into Ballina.

c) might be the real showstopper of the bunch.

Carawaystick

dowlingm wrote: »

Look at the 51X which is calculated to destroy what little economic justification there is for Limerick-Galway rail, and so on.

'tis hardly "calculation" to figure out you scan offer a faster, better and cheaper service than the train offering.
I mean loads of posters on here have shown the train offering is basically crap and a waste of money.
The act the last govt decided to waste the germans money on the wrc, shouldn't force us to waste more of their money on the wrc.

Hungerford

foggy_lad wrote: »

would it not be a better idea to have this train run to Foxford and then back to Ballina saving time and a lot of money and man-hours for Irish Rail? Is there some union or railway regulation that insists on it being this way?

I think there's something in the signalling regulations generally preventing a train proceeding into the middle of a single-track section and then reversing back out of it. If this is the case, the train may have to proceed to Manulla for reversal. Quite why the movement is in the public timetable is beyond me though.

LXFlyer

Because every train connects into/out of another train be it from Dublin or Westport.