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Goods trains in rush hour

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  • 11-11-2011 7:22pm
    #1
    Carawaystick
    Registered Users Posts: 8,779 ✭✭✭


    Why are goods trains scheduled to go north on the northern line at 6pm?
    Hardly the most efficient use of scarce resources (slots)


Comments

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    #2
    BrianD
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,221 ✭✭✭BrianD


    Perhaps to meet a deadline in Belfast? Not sure if trains can still get to Larne.

    Also they aren't stopping so would they cause much disruption?


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    #3
    Heisenberg1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,511 ✭✭✭Heisenberg1


    Carawaystick wrote: »
    Why are goods trains scheduled to go north on the northern line at 6pm?
    Hardly the most efficient use of scarce resources (slots)

    They are empty Tara mines trains going to platin to collect ore.
    The evening tara usually doesn't leave until after the 19.00 Connolly
    Belfast might of been the afternoon tara that was delayed.


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    #4
    LXFlyer
    Registered Users Posts: 17,542 ✭✭✭✭LXFlyer


    The only freight on the Northern line is Tara Mines to/from Navan.

    There is none scheduled at that time, but if the evening service is ready to go the controller may slip it into a gap between passenger services on the line (given there are 30 and 20 minute gaps between northern line services that shouldn't be too difficult).


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    #5
    eejoynt
    Registered Users Posts: 264 ✭✭eejoynt


    freight trains run one percent of train miles and account for ten percent of the revenue


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    #6
    corktina
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,733 ✭✭✭✭corktina


    eejoynt wrote: »
    freight trains run one percent of train miles and account for ten percent of the revenue

    but the other 90% doesnt incude the huge number of people on free tickets I assume so the contribution by freight is much smaller than it seems.

    No freight to Belfast (or anywhere else in the North and definately not Larne.


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    #7
    dowlingm
    Registered Users Posts: 5,309 ✭✭✭dowlingm


    corktina wrote: »
    but the other 90% doesnt incude the huge number of people on free tickets I assume so the contribution by freight is much smaller than it seems.

    No freight to Belfast (or anywhere else in the North and definately not Larne.
    The PSO payment pays (some) of the cost of the freebies but freight gets no direct subsidy. Obviously it does benefit from track improvements etc. where shared with passenger. Now that Navan-Dunboyne is off the table maybe it's time to take another look at how much Navan-Drogheda passenger service would cost to make happen - if only the platform layout at Drogheda wasn't against it...


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    #8
    n97 mini
    Registered Users Posts: 8,295 ✭✭✭n97 mini


    How profitable is freight? Is it even profitable considering pretty much the whole IE operation requires a subsidy from tax payers?


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    #9
    CIE
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,463 ✭✭✭CIE


    n97 mini wrote: »
    How profitable is freight? Is it even profitable considering pretty much the whole IE operation requires a subsidy from tax payers?
    The more you run, the more profitable it would be. Dirty little secret is that freight operations could be privately run without subsidy and could compete handily against lorries, that is if the laws permitted such operations. (And yes, that includes private upkeep of the infrastructure.)


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    #10
    Niles
    Registered Users Posts: 1,186 ✭✭✭Niles


    n97 mini wrote: »
    How profitable is freight? Is it even profitable considering pretty much the whole IE operation requires a subsidy from tax payers?

    I think it is profitable these days, that is to say what freight they do run is profitable. IÉ got rid of the loss making ones back in the 2000s. My understanding of it is that they now only hire complete trains to customers, rather than individual wagons. So the onus is on the likes of IWT to insure that all wagons have containers, if the train runs with empty wagons then the loss is on IWT, not IÉ (who have already been paid for 18 wagons, or whatever the amount is). Considering that IÉ get no subsidy for freight it makes sense from a business point of view.

    dowlingm wrote: »
    Now that Navan-Dunboyne is off the table maybe it's time to take another look at how much Navan-Drogheda passenger service would cost to make happen - if only the platform layout at Drogheda wasn't against it...

    Would there be capacity on the Belfast line for extra services? At the end of the day though it would cost far less than rebuilding the old alignment from Pace though.


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    #11
    corktina
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,733 ✭✭✭✭corktina


    CIE wrote: »
    The more you run, the more profitable it would be. Dirty little secret is that freight operations could be privately run without subsidy and could compete handily against lorries, that is if the laws permitted such operations. (And yes, that includes private upkeep of the infrastructure.)

    Never mind how profitable it would be, we could all go photograph 071s wiorking hard up ballygobackwards bank...having arrived in our cars of course.


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