Any Ideas what happened yesterday (Rail)?

Genghis

I arrived at Heuston last evening at about 6:45 to find that all trains after 17:50 had not yet departed. Some trains were sitting on the platform, some had been evacuated and some were waiting on earlier trains to clear platforms to pick up queuing passengers.

My train departed 50 minutes late as a knock-on result of these delays and arrived over 2 hours late. Once underway my train crawled along (taking almost an hour to pass Clondalkin and 75 mins to reach Sallins), and much of the journey was on the 'Northbound' track. I noticed trains out of commission at Hazelhatch, Kildare and Portarlington.

Any ideas what caused the delay? Iarnrod Eireann simply blamed it on 'the failure of a train ahead of ours'.

civdef

I arrived in Portlaoise 2 hours late, the 1835 didn't depart till after 7, stopped for around 25 minutes between Clondalkin and Hazelhatch, then crawled most of the rest of the way.What really contributed to the experience was the lack of any sort of feedback as to what the story was, or any apology for that matter from the driver.

At Heuston beforehand the announcement staff excelled themselves as usual. One lady seemed to be making a determined effort to eat the microphone she was speaking into, with the result that her messages were indecipherable. A long queue had built up at platform 5 where the 1835 to Ballybrophy usually departs from. A helpful announcer came on at 1835 to say that the train would board immediately, though this didn't happen. It turned out the train sitting on the platform was an earlier one to Westport, and the Ballybrophy train didnt arrive till the earlier one had departed (around 7 o'clock). Coordination seems to be somewhat lacking in the Heuston customer service department.

gogo

I emailed irish rail regarding this this morning, the delays yesterday were unacceptacle, I understand that delays do happen buto to get no information, My train to portlaoise leaves at 6' o clock, yet it was half six before anybosy bothered to make an annocement.
Staff told us it would be an hour at this stage before any trains moved, so everbody went off to get some food, with there result that twenty minutes later irish rail anounced that everbody had to return to there trains immediatley, and low and behold the 17.55 pulled off with half its passangers running up the platform.
i have had it with Irish Rail, I wrote to them this morning, requesting a refund of my ticket as no train I have got on this week has left on time - No Train, not one, as a commuter I find it hard enough to do two hours travel every morning without the being delayed.

Can someone tell me why oh why the 07.15 train from portlaoise always pulls up outside the station - making me late every morning, it may only be five, ten minutes, but thats an awful lot to me, i have to get into to town and then another ten minutes walk to work all before nine, those ten minutes make all the difference.
Do irish rail not be expecting the 07.15 and get a fright every morning it shows up?

Either way, i got the standarised response from them, Thanks you and **** you.

Rant, rant rant rave rave- hate commuting. :mad:

enterprise

I understand that the 1710 Heuston - Limerick - Ennis service failed at Sallins last night. The 1715 Heuston - Athlone and 1718 Heuston - Newbridge services were held at Hazelhatch. The 1715 service was cancelled at Hazelhatch and the locomotive was used to rescue the 1710 service. The 1715's customers were transferred to the 1755 - whenever that arrived at the Hatch god knows!

This failure at the start of the main evening peak period had serious knock-on afects for the rest of the evening.

AndrewMc

I was on the 18:25 Waterford train, and arrived home 90 minutes late. However, in contrast to some other postings I'd like to take this opportunity to say that, at least, the crew on that train were quite good in terms of keeping us up to date. They couldn't really predict what way the delays would pan out, but they told us what they knew as the journey went on, apologising each time.

Genghis

My driver announced about every 30 mins his apology, but was not able to offer a proper explanation as to what happened. In general I can't complain about IE, they are miles better than Dublin Bus (though they can't be blamed for Dublin traffic congestion), and this is the most serious delay I have encountered in nearly 2 years commuting. In addition, they are usually very good with customer announcements, yesterday excepted.

Genghis

Just as a follow up. Yesterday evening IE had A1-sized full colour posters at the entrances to all platforms effected by the train delays of the day before. The notice explained what happened (the failure of the 17:10 Limerick train), explained further that this had a "severe" knock-on effect on later trains, apologised sincerely for the incident. It also said that IE recognised that they had 'lessons to learn' from the incident and that a full management review was already scheduled.

I have seen this sort of immediate, honest and frank hands-up notice from IE before, and I think they deserve a bit of recognition for it. Too many companies couldn't care less these days.

daymobrew

More comments about this, and the lack of onboard communication, on the Platform 11 message board
http://platform11.hyperboards2.com/index.cgi?action=display&cat=welcome&board=VandalismandOtherAntiSocialAttacksonTrainsandStations&thread=1105010071

nlgbbbblth

gogo wrote:

I emailed irish rail regarding this this morning, the delays yesterday were unacceptacle, I understand that delays do happen buto to get no information, My train to portlaoise leaves at 6' o clock, yet it was half six before anybosy bothered to make an annocement.
Staff told us it would be an hour at this stage before any trains moved, so everbody went off to get some food, with there result that twenty minutes later irish rail anounced that everbody had to return to there trains immediatley, and low and behold the 17.55 pulled off with half its passangers running up the platform.
i have had it with Irish Rail, I wrote to them this morning, requesting a refund of my ticket as no train I have got on this week has left on time - No Train, not one, as a commuter I find it hard enough to do two hours travel every morning without the being delayed.

Can someone tell me why oh why the 07.15 train from portlaoise always pulls up outside the station - making me late every morning, it may only be five, ten minutes, but thats an awful lot to me, i have to get into to town and then another ten minutes walk to work all before nine, those ten minutes make all the difference.
Do irish rail not be expecting the 07.15 and get a fright every morning it shows up?

Either way, i got the standarised response from them, Thanks you and **** you.

Rant, rant rant rave rave- hate commuting. :mad:

I used to feel your pain
bought a house in Newbridge in summer 2003 and was commuting from there to Blackrock every day for 12 months. Train, bus and DART. Around 90 mins each way (assuming no delays - and there were plenty).
Having to get into work for 9am and having to rush out the door at 5pm so that I could reach Heuston for the 6pm/6.05pm trains - otherwise it was a 40 minute wait.

thankfully got a transfer to Naas so its now a 15 min bus journey on Bus Eireann.

long commutes like that are soul-destroying. change jobs if you have to, it'll be worth it in the end.