Bray Air Show - DART Doors forced open following delays and discomfort.

trellheim

People forcing doors open and marching down to the station. https://twitter.com/Pipalicious/status/1551212928338214913

I.E. on stop . Whoa

Jamie2k9

Another Sunday event and another chaotic day on the DART with people having to take matters into there own hand. It was Malahide a fwe weeks ago.

https://twitter.com/IrishRail/status/1551207292028293120

https://twitter.com/nolzkelly/status/1551218569014394881

While peple shouldn't exit the train there, IE failed to plan with insufficent capacity yet again. A day for a 10 minute schedule when its actually needed but not provided...

The railway regulator needs to step in becasue IE will not sort out the issues.

cheese sandwich

Disgraceful from Irish Rail, this happens every time the air show is on but they never learn.

I wouldn’t go near Bray on either the train or the roads on this day, it’s always a disaster

pjcb

and all Irish rail do in response is spin and slander its customers, they are escapees from heat traps not trespassers

namloc1980

What the hell is going on there??

trellheim

service south of Dalkey on stop by the look of it - due to resume at 1700 according to IE twitter https://twitter.com/IrishRail/status/1551207292028293120

devnull

Looks like passengers on some trains were close to passing out and having panic attacks from what is being reported so forced the doors open out of sheer panic. Seems that information was a bit sketchy from what I have read about as well.

Never good to be on the railway line but people are rarely rational when they are having a panic attack or cramped with no fresh air in warm weather. Reports on twitter suggest people were held for 30+ minutes outside Bray station with increasing temperature with no air-conditioning working and no windows to open.

Irish Rail said this afternoon it had no reports of any issues with air conditioning.

Iarnród Éireann said its trains have air conditioning or openable windows and it has had no reports of any issues with either.

Irish Rail, earlier tweeted the following, stating that control had alerted drivers of the issues.

https://twitter.com/IrishRail/status/1551208774953738246

mikeybhoy

What was causing the delay in the first place? Going to the Bray airshow sounds like my idea of hell don't know why you'd be bothered going to that with all the crowds and traffic noticed the m50 southbound was bumper to bumper too.

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119381184#Comment_119381184

From what I've heard there was congestion at Bray station which resulted in one train being at the platform for a fair bit longer than it should have been, which caused knock on delays for other trains having to wait for a platform to become available.

Princess Calla

There's another active thread on this topic it has a Twitter link stating 45mins delay and shows a lot of families with very young children walking along the tracks and that the children needed to pee.

devnull

Threads Merged

Moderator

PokeHerKing

Saw videos of people breaking windows on trains in Belgium during the week for similar reasons.

Not excusing Irish rail but its not uniquely Irish either.

Atlantic Dawn

Do drivers have monitoring systems in the cabs to tell them what temperature it is in each carriage? They shouldn't be running carriages with no functioning AC where windows do not open, this is a relatively common occurance and I've experienced it before, very unpleasant in rush hour.

Police break windows of cars with dogs locked in them on hot days, I'd support someone smashing a window or forcibly opening the door on the DART if there's no opening windows with the weather that was there today.

horsebox1977

I was on DART heading into town and the heat in the carriage was unbearable, this was back in May, I jumped off and went into the next carriage and the AC was on and much more comfortable. I could only imagine how bad it was heading out to Bray in this heat.

tnegun

It was the same after the hurling final back to Maynooth packed carriages with no working A/c the only saving was the windows opened and the train wasn't delayed/held much. Even with that several people were in distress and left the train at Clonsilla to get some air.

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119381291#Comment_119381291

Unfortunately on the hottest days of the summer if I see a 8600 with no windows coming in to the station that is packed like sardines I try and give it a miss if I can because I have been in that position before in some not so nice conditions. At least on an 8100 you can crack open a few windows which is not an option on the newer stock.

Barry Kenny meanwhile has now said that passengers forced the doors open after 5 and a half minutes.

“Unfortunately, the train was waiting for 5 and a half minutes when a small group forced open the doors and went on to the track. This meant that trains couldn’t move in either direction, obviously, because they were on the track,

pjcb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119381322#Comment_119381322

how long were they on the train previous to that?

Charles Babbage

It is fine to talk of "no problems" with airconditioning, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Public transport should have both temperature and CO2 monitors and a strict requirement to keep these within limits, especially in a pandemic. "we thought it was OK" is not acceptable.

I very much doubt if the passengers were blocking the track. Trains from Bray could have proceeded past this point at 5kph and allowed this train proceed.

cheese sandwich

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119381322#Comment_119381322

The newer carriages without windows are very unpleasant on a hot day. The air con either seems to be too cold or completely broken

Jizique

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058255866/bray-air-show-dart-doors-forced-open-following-delays-and-discomfort

Airshow when we are planning to cull 30% of our cattle? I really think our priorities are wrong.

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119381344#Comment_119381344

Irish Rail's own twitter account established at 3.12pm that there were reports of issues with air-conditioning that had been passed from central control to the drivers of the trains involved.

It's frustrating to see the media just parrot the Irish Rail PR line of there being no reports of air-conditioning issues when the companies own official twitter account acknowledged there were reports almost 3 hours ago.

Jamie2k9

If Bray was congested the service should have been held in Shankill until the line was clear in Bray (would not have delayed trains behind) There was no valid reason leaving the service proceed and its something IE have implemented for disruption on Intercity services over recent years.

Frequancy was poor with 15-20 minute gaps (mostly 20). Non Stopping ex Connolly (if meeting connecting Maynooth / Dundalk) or extend the Diseals to Bray non stop.

While passengers were irational, planning was non existent for this event.

Don't they say you will never get hold of managment on a Sunday...

mikeybhoy

Heard there were problems with buses not operating too. 145 is only every 20 mins on a Sunday so maybe would've been better off having this event on a Saturday and DART frequency is better too. Saw a picture of a Go-Ahead abandoned in a Cul de Sac in Palermo wonder what that was all about.

I've heard reports that the DART was only stopped for about 5 mins before people forced the doors open which seems poor. I'd understand if was stopped for 15-20 mins but after 5 mins is poor. I've been on a few Darts that were held in Bray for 5-10 mins before the station.

Northernlily

It'l was absolutely lethal heat in a sardine packed carraige with no air con or windows on the service before which I was on. People were on the verge of passing out. Wasn't one but surprised to hear this happened.

stephenjmcd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119381504#Comment_119381504

Buses are running, no issues with them it's just to / from the dart station but only a normal Sunday service, no extras on.

Pretty sure there's never been extra buses on for the Airshow, it's usually darts that are focused on & they just completely fell apart today

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119381504#Comment_119381504

Irish Rail have indeed said that the DART was only stopped for just over five minutes, but there are many more accounts from passengers on social media suggesting that they were waiting much longer than that.

So in reality one of three things must have happened

• Scores of passengers on social media are hugely exaggerating
• Irish Rail have made an error with their statement.
• There was more than one train where the doors were forced open

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119381601#Comment_119381601

The latest Irish Rail statement as featured on TheJournal.ie, continues to maintain that there were no problems with air-conditioning, despite Irish Rail themselves acknowledging the reports via twitter.

Our DARTS either have aircon or openable windows, and we have no reports of issues with either. A very busy train stopped on the line on a warm day can feel warm regardless, but again, forcing open doors only means that if any customer was experiencing issues, it delayed any assistance, as there are extensive ambulance and medical personnel in the Bray Station area as part of arrangements for the Air Show.

Unfortunately Ireland has always been blighted by poor quality journalism in the print, broadcast and online media. The reporting from most outlets in general shows very little in terms of quality fact-checking and research and mostly consists of publications just repeating what they have been told.

Northernlily

There was no air conditioning and windows wouldn't open on some carraiges. IR are lying through their teeth and have the PR machine depoyed.

trellheim

looks as if lots of people were wandering across the level crossing as well so it took time to get it closed the LC at Bray

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119381686#Comment_119381686

Stupid opening the LC at all on a day like today. Far easier and safer to leave it closed for the entire day.

recode the site

It appears that Bray station does not have the physical capacity for the rate of turnarounds that needed to occur, so trains forced to wait long periods in a queue to get in. I didn’t attend air show today as I guessed it would be a sh1t show as in previous years the show was more or less split up into the two weekend days. Bray was relatively quiet yesterday as not much was happening apart from helicopter rides, which I availed of.

In previous years I attended on either Saturday or Sunday crowds were not quite as big as today, there was good marshalling at Bray station and trains were not delayed more than 10 or 15 minutes between Shankill and Bray.

Maybe if trains were told at stations instead of between them it might have allowed people to decide to get off safely if they felt train was getting really too crowded. They could then take a later train or maybe view air show from a different vantage point like Shankill, Killiney or Dalkey.

There comes a point where capacity on any line cannot be exceeded, and if there is such a focussed demand for too many people to want to get to the one place by the one means at the one time, then something gives way. I think the show needed to be spread over the two days to cope with demand, and post lockdown there is huge demand to travel & attend events of all kinds.