DART privatisation and comparison with UK situation rant

bashir300

Surprised there is no thread on this already? Oh I forgot, we’re not allowed to criticise the unions on Boards.ie. DARTs were dangerously over-crowded this morning as the trains were running with only 4 carriages rather than the usual 6 or 8. This was due to stubborn drivers refusing to perform safety checks to ensure that multiple DART carriages are safely connected together.

For those who don’t know what these checks entail: All the driver have to do is affirm that a green light has come on the dashboard. They don’t have to get their hands dirty or break in to a sweat, god forbid.

There have been reports of passengers missing their stops because they couldn’t get off as the over-crowding was so severe. Others fainted with the lack of air and stifling heat.

Irish Rail functions more like a closed-off jobs club for the boys rather than a national transport company. There is no incentive to change or improve services as the public sector workers know that they will receive their cheque at the end of the month regardless. Time for privatisation.

n97 mini

Starts at post 189 on this thread.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057035740&page=13

end of the road

bashir300 wrote: »

Irish Rail functions more like a closed-off jobs club for the boys rather than a national transport company. There is no incentive to change or improve services as the public sector workers know that they will receive their cheque at the end of the month regardless.

this nonsense again, tiring at this stage, believe me i'm the first to criticize irish rail but frankly if one can't get a job with them its because simply they just don't make the grade.

bashir300 wrote: »

Time for privatisation.

is this the same privatisation that costs the uk and other tax payers double or more in subsidies? yeah bring it on, higher fairs, cuts in services or severe cuts in either carrige numbers or train size, and the rest, private companies aren't going to settle for the subsidy irish rail gets, and they will want to make a proffit so expect 2 carrige trains on all services, privatisation in an irish context will fail, the NTA or nobody can be trusted to deliver the idealistic version of privatisation, which lets face it theirs a massive difference between the idealistic privatisation that some here seem to champion and the real version of privatisation which operates in the commercial world.

jahalpin

end of the road wrote: »

this nonsense again, tiring at this stage, believe me i'm the first to criticize irish rail but frankly if one can't get a job with them its because simply they just don't make the grade.

is this the same privatisation that costs the uk and other tax payers double or more in subsidies? yeah bring it on, higher fairs, cuts in services or severe cuts in either carrige numbers or train size, and the rest, private companies aren't going to settle for the subsidy irish rail gets, and they will want to make a proffit so expect 2 carrige trains on all services, privatisation in an irish context will fail, the NTA or nobody can be trusted to deliver the idealistic version of privatisation, which lets face it theirs a massive difference between the idealistic privatisation that some here seem to champion and the real version of privatisation which operates in the commercial world.

A lot of the franchises in the UK actually pay huge fees for their franchises now.

Privatisation probably wouldn't work in Ireland due to the very low population density (outside Dublin) and high level of services that are run for public service reasons.

The fares in the Dublin commuter zone are far lower than the costs in London, for example a zone 1-6 travelcard would cost £2224 (c.€2600) as opposed to an Annual Short Hop Taxsaver ticket which costs c.€700net.

coylemj

Leaving aside the broader transport policy issues, this looks like a classic demarcation dispute. The SIPTU official or shop steward decided that the safety checks being carried out by the drivers was a 'maintenance' issue and not the work of drivers so basically the union told the drivers to stop doing what they seem to have had no problem doing previously.

hfallada

I think unions need to realise that although an industrial dispute may benefit that workers. The unions and workers are not going to get any sympathy from the public. They are not like some public service over worked and underpaid( there is some). But pissing off customers over trivial things like this, will only results in more demands for less union power

end of the road

hfallada wrote: »

I think unions need to realise that although an industrial dispute may benefit that workers. The unions and workers are not going to get any sympathy from the public.

the unions don't really care about "sympathy from the public" their there to serve their members and thats it, public sympathy is nice but for the unions its not important

hfallada wrote: »

pissing off customers over trivial things like this, will only results in more demands for less union power

from who? the public? the same public who are having their working conditions and pay brought down yet whine about others standing up and trying to protect what they have? not worth acting upon or taking into acount in relation to the unions and their little bit of power TBH.

coylemj

hfallada wrote: »

I think unions need to realise that although an industrial dispute may benefit that workers. The unions and workers are not going to get any sympathy from the public. They are not like some public service over worked and underpaid( there is some). But pissing off customers over trivial things like this, will only results in more demands for less union power

Since when do the CIE trades unions rely on or care about public 'sympathy'? It's not like the contract for driving Dart trains comes up for tender every now and then so why should they give a sh1t?

the_syco

bashir300 wrote: »

Time for privatisation.

Does this mean skipping Broombridge?

corktina

end of the road wrote: »

this nonsense again, tiring at this stage, believe me i'm the first to criticize irish rail but frankly if one can't get a job with them its because simply they just don't make the grade.

is this the same privatisation that costs the uk and other tax payers double or more in subsidies? yeah bring it on, higher fairs, cuts in services or severe cuts in either carrige numbers or train size, and the rest, private companies aren't going to settle for the subsidy irish rail gets, and they will want to make a proffit so expect 2 carrige trains on all services, privatisation in an irish context will fail, the NTA or nobody can be trusted to deliver the idealistic version of privatisation, which lets face it theirs a massive difference between the idealistic privatisation that some here seem to champion and the real version of privatisation which operates in the commercial world.

Cuts in services in the UK? have you been on a UK train lately? there's more running now than ever before and they are packed geneerally.. Privatisation is a big sucess from the point of view of having a train when you want it!

the_syco

corktina wrote: »

have you been on a UK train lately?

Are there still train jams, from multiple operators on the same line? This would be going back a few years.

Michael D Not Higgins

the_syco wrote: »

Are there still train jams, from multiple operators on the same line? This would be going back a few years.

I do a lot of train travel over long distances in the UK. The biggest problem would be when there's a delay for whatever reason and you get stuck behind a local service which slows you down. Generally they make some of that time up later on in the trip.

devnull

the biggest problem in the UK is also the control that the government have over orders for rolling stock.

In several of the places that suffer from overcrowding now operators wanted to ordered more trains or carriages but were told they were not required and had their order altered by the department, now the same department continues to blame them for overcrowding despite the fact they helped cause the situation.

You also have these big government controlled projects like Thameslink, Crossrail, and Intercity Express Programme which are running many years late rolling stock that was planned to be in service right now that has only just gone into production, due to long term delays of several years.

The operators are then left to pick up the can for this, despite the fact that government delays in rolling stock procurement has played a big part. Don't get me wrong there are some operators out there such as the often mentioned Connex and National Express East Coast who have been a disaster, but it's not all like that.

The whole way rolling stock is divided up in the UK is ridicolous and it helps and serves nobody, it's the one big reform I'd like to see in the UK.

devnull

the_syco wrote: »

Are there still train jams, from multiple operators on the same line? This would be going back a few years.

I wouldnt' call them jams, but there are bottlenecks yes, some parts of the infrastructure are dealing with a large amount more services than the infrastructure can cope with, Reading is a good example, which is now getting rebuilt, since the infrastructure was simply not good enough to cope with ever rising demand.

Michael D Not Higgins

devnull wrote: »

Don't get me wrong there are some operators out there such as the often mentioned Connex and National Express East Coast who have been a disaster, but it's not all like that.

And yet the DfT East Coast is running well (although I think in that case it was more a problem with National Express's franchise bid being too high).

devnull

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

And yet the DfT East Coast is running well (although I think in that case it was more a problem with National Express's franchise bid being too high).

Indeed, it's doing a much better job that went before it, however the hardest franchises to run are those that have a mixture of intercity, commuter and rural services, since commuters are a very fussy bunch, a commuter late by 5-10 minutes will complain to the rafters whereas a leisure passenger on a long distance intercity service won't be so bothered by a 10 minute delay and of course there is a large set of challenges with rural routes as well

The National Express bid was ludicrious, the issue with that bid is the previous operator, GNER went out of business after promising to pay far more premiums than they could afford, and National Express bid even more, which was always doomed to fail from an early stage, they really overstreched themselves, and to this day who knows what they were thinking. They were the very worst of the private system, then they also walked away when they thought the payments were beyond their rach rather than continue paying them.

It's not like National Express had any large works on their line which hit revenue, or any projects which were running years behind schedule that impacted on the money they could bring in like has happened on some other lines or some unusual events they could not forsee, they didn't get dealt a bad hand overall where they were let down by anyone, they just paid far far too much and were deeply unpopular with passengers.

corktina

recent experience showed trains in all directions and not one spotted late in two hours observation (at Reading, incidently in the midst of the re-building.)

There are penalties for late running, so generally it is the exception not the rule.

Hilly Bill

bashir300 wrote: »

Surprised there is no thread on this already? Oh I forgot, we’re not allowed to criticise the unions on Boards.ie.

Who told you that?

Grolschevik

Hilly Bill wrote: »

bashir300 wrote: »

Surprised there is no thread on this already? Oh I forgot, we’re not allowed to criticise the unions on Boards.ie.

Who told you that?

Indeed. Has Bashir visited After Hours at all?

Hilly Bill

Grolschevik wrote: »

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Indeed. Has Bashir visited After Hours at all?

Maybe not with that username

Victor

Thread title changed.

Moderator

Copyerselveson

corktina wrote: »

Cuts in services in the UK? have you been on a UK train lately? there's more running now than ever before and they are packed geneerally.. Privatisation is a big sucess from the point of view of having a train when you want it!

As long as you can afford the fare. GB train fares are among the highest in Europe. Irish train fares are actually pretty cheap in comparison.

SandyfordGuy

Indeed but that is for walk up peak tickets' you can get some great deals on advance purchase fares which are much cheaper than they were twenty years ago

walk up tickets are more expensive sure but advance tickets are hugely cheaper.

frequency is also hugely up on most rotuns and passenger numbers are booming so they must be doing something right

you can say the price of walk up fares being so high means that the prices are highest I can argue lowest were both using the type of fare that suits our point more and therefore both using spin

n97 mini

Copyerselveson wrote: »

As long as you can afford the fare. GB train fares are among the highest in Europe. Irish train fares are actually pretty cheap in comparison.

UK fares if bought in advance are very often dirt cheap, cheaper than anything you'll get here. Victoria to Horsham, a journey I do now and again, is £19 today, or £5 if bought a month in advance. Heuston to Portlaoise, a similar distance, is €23 today or €14.99 is bought a month in advance.

Frank Lee Midere

n97 mini wrote: »

UK fares if bought in advance are very often dirt cheap, cheaper than anything you'll get here. Victoria to Horsham, a journey I do now and again, is £19 today, or £5 if bought a month in advance. Heuston to Portlaoise, a similar distance, is €23 today or €14.99 is bought a month in advance.

That seems like a cheap line.

It's great if you are not a worker who needs to get to work at rush hour ( and back) where it would cost you about 5K a year from London-Reading. The UK is very expensive, and very crowded.

The Darts are normally much more comfortable than most UK trains.

Frank Lee Midere

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

you can say the price of walk up fares being so high means that the prices are highest I can argue lowest were both using the type of fare that suits our point more and therefore both using spin

If most people have to use the service at rush hour, rush hour costs are what count. The average cost would be to multiply all the users by the actual fares they pay, and divide by the number of users. Since 80-90% of passenger journeys are rush hour, the average cost is closer to the rush hour cost.

end of the road

Copyerselveson wrote: »

As long as you can afford the fare. GB train fares are among the highest in Europe. Irish train fares are actually pretty cheap in comparison.

and they go up substantially not down, many of the trains aren't as good as they could be either (all though BR are partly to blame here and now the DFT) i also can't imagine their would be as much services if the large subsidisation wasn't there, mind you if the rolling stock hadn't been sold off to private banks and pension funds maybe it would give the operators more cash meaning a little less subsidy but who knows

LXFlyer

n97 mini wrote: »

UK fares if bought in advance are very often dirt cheap, cheaper than anything you'll get here. Victoria to Horsham, a journey I do now and again, is £19 today, or £5 if bought a month in advance. Heuston to Portlaoise, a similar distance, is €23 today or €14.99 is bought a month in advance.

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

That seems like a cheap line.

It's great if you are not a worker who needs to get to work at rush hour ( and back) where it would cost you about 5K a year from London-Reading. The UK is very expensive, and very crowded.

The Darts are normally much more comfortable than most UK trains.

Ah but things are not always as simple as you think. Season tickets are much cheaper here, especially when the taxsaver effect is taken into account.

Just to add to the comparisons:

Dublin/Portlaoise:
Single - €23
Day Return - €29.70
Open Return - €32.70
Off-peak Single (after 09:30) - €16.50
Off-peak Return (after 09:30) - €17.50
Weekly Season - €80
Monthly Season - €290
Annual Season - €2,900

Horsham/London
Advance Single - £5-£10 depending on time of day - only off-peak
Ordinary Single - £14.10-£20.50 depending on time of day
Weekly Season - £90.20
Monthly Season - £346.40
Annual Season - £3,608

Frank Lee Midere

lxflyer wrote: »

Ah but things are not always as simple as you think. Season tickets are much cheaper here, especially when the taxsaver effect is taken into account.

Just to add to the comparisons:

Dublin/Portlaoise:
Single - €23
Day Return - €29.70
Open Return - €32.70
Off-peak Single (after 09:30) - €16.50
Off-peak Return (after 09:30) - €17.50
Weekly Season - €80
Monthly Season - €290
Annual Season - €2,900

Horsham/London
Advance Single - £5-£10 depending on time of day - only off-peak
Ordinary Single - £14.10-£20.50 depending on time of day
Weekly Season - £90.20
Monthly Season - £346.40
Annual Season - £3,608

Is Horsham the only place where people go? I said that was a cheap line - try reading etc. clearly the seasonal tickets are worse though - and I don't know if uk users get tax breaks.

LXFlyer

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

Is Horsham the only place where people go? I said that was a cheap line - try reading etc. clearly the seasonal tickets are worse though - and I don't know if uk users get tax breaks.

I was really commenting at the first poster rather than yourself.

Making the point that it isn't always as simple as people make out!!!

An off-peak return for Victoria/Horsham can be as cheap as £10-£20 if purchased in advance.

An off-peak return for Heuston/Portlaoise is €17.50.

jasonbourne.cs

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

The Darts are normally much more comfortable than most UK trains.

I was in London during the summer , the weekend of the Wimbledon final to be more accurate and was commuting on the same line used by the tennis crowds at peak times in 30+ degree heat and it was better/more comfortable than most of my rush hour commutes here .

when the trains were running 1 or 2 minutes late they were on the overheads announcing to passengers what the delay was , how long it was delayed and saying sorry and actually providing legitimate reasons for delays as oppose to the generic catch all terms Irish rail use ....

In Ireland I've lost track of how many times a train will just stop between stations for up to 5 minutes at a time with no announcement from the driver :mad:

LXFlyer

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

Is Horsham the only place where people go? I said that was a cheap line - try reading etc. clearly the seasonal tickets are worse though - and I don't know if uk users get tax breaks.

You're absolutely right - it very much depends on the trip and the operator.

Reading/Paddington is roughly the same as Monasterevin/Heuston

Those fares compare as follows:

Dublin/Monasterevin:
Single - €18
Day Return - €25.60
Open Return - €27.80
Off-peak Single (after 09:30) - €15.50
Off-peak Return (after 09:30) - €17.00
Weekly Season - €77
Monthly Season - €280
Annual Season - €2,800

Reading/London Paddington
Advance Single - Not Available
Off-peak Single - £17.10
Anytime Single - £21.50
Off-peak Day Return - £17.20
Off-peak Return - £25.30
Anytime Return - £41.20
Weekly Season - £99.40
Monthly Season - £380.20
Annual Season - £3,960

As you point out Paddington/Reading costs substantially more.

n97 mini

lxflyer wrote: »

I was really commenting at the first poster rather than yourself.

Making the point that it isn't always as simple as people make out!!!

An off-peak return for Victoria/Horsham can be as cheap as £10-£20 if purchased in advance.

An off-peak return for Heuston/Portlaoise is €17.50.

And I was just making the point that fares in the UK can be very cheap, and the statement "GB fares are among the highest in Europe" is too broad to be accurate.