1235 ex Belfast failed at Newry today due to a door fault, eventually departed 80 minutes late which is the last translink reported on it. There is presumably a 29K on the 1520 which is allegedly on time

Again? Not the same unit?

Was the 06.50 on Friday morning operated by NIR stock?

Getting really pathetic at this stage, any idea it it was in motion issues or not closing when stooped?

1235 ex Belfast experienced a door fault at Newry (wouldn't close). Passengers transferred to the ICR off the 1320 from Dublin which terminated at Newry. Arrival in Dublin further delayed due to slow moving traffic ahead.

Passengers off the 1320 from Dublin continued on "failed" de-dietrich and arrived in Belfast at 1611. The set departed as the 1605 to Dublin at 1624 and following further delays at Lisburn and between Malahide and Connolly arrived at 1847.

1520 to Belfast and 1805 from Belfast were worked by 8 x 29k.

0650/0935 on Friday was a single CAF unit which was then replaced by a DD set for the 1235

They really need to sort those doors out, the number of issues they had with them is crazy.

The Friday substitution was pre-planned and as such necessarily an issue with the set.

So a pre planned alteration and reduced capacity. I am going to suggest the reduced capacity is because NIR are down a set after the recent accident. Did IE operate an additional as well from south or border?

The refurb is so far proving less reliable than before, constant entering and removing from service needs to be sorted. Have we even got a week with two units operating full services?

The second set is not much more than a week in service. The 0755 from Dundalk is still running which means the 0650 from Belfast has some spare seats when operated by a De-Dietrich set.

The relief train has still been running ahead of the morning Enterprise. I know at least some days last week a DD set was following it. I'm hoping the relief train will continue.

James

It is unclear how long this will remain, reliability is poor even the MK4 sets were better out of the box. Realistically there should be 1000 miles on the clock before going into service, the second set had about 100 from what I can see.

Long standing 29k passengers will have noticed the floor is starting to collapse on most units so there will be a need for a major engineering job to replace the floor structure and that means fewer units available

In the proposed timetable the 07.55 was to continue like now however that was with the Belfast departing at 07.30.

The 0755 was to continue in the new timetable, stopping at Drogheda only, but taking evening longer than the current 69 minutes for a journey which should take at most 55 minutes.

DD set must have failed (again) in depot C3K on 0650/0935

Loco issue perhaps as 228 heading north out of Connolly at 0910.

York Road is meant to have a spare

And despite what some may say you DONT need the MMI hooked up to operate

Knowing York Road they probably broke the spare as well (They had 207 spare when I was last in Belfast on Friday)

What is the main purpose of the MMI if not critical to operation?

Kind of handy to show the driver which door has opened when the train is moving, also shows parking brakes, which toilet is out of order etc.

The Mk4 basically has the same system from the same supplier.

Had a day trip to Belfast on Friday, heading up on an Irish Rail set on the 7.35am and a refurbished Enterprise on the way back down at 1805.

Have to say, enjoyed the trip, much nicer than driving, even though it did feel like it took longer than it ought to.

For all the talk of slow longer distance trains on the Dart line in Dublin, there was no obvious delay around the Dublin commuter area. The Belfast commuter area was relatively slow from Porterdown to Belfast (apparently there were speed restrictions in place).

Really enjoyed the Enterprise, seems so spacious, and really nicely upholstered, and plenty of room for bags. The only thing missing was the reserved seating which wasn't put up. It was a fairly busy train and we were lucky our seats hadn't already been occupied. A more frequent traveller than me commented to the staff that it hadn't been up for the last 3 weeks. Not sure if it was the fact that we were late running and the software hadn't been downloaded, or it was something else.

Another great feature is that you can use your train ticket to go to the Titanic station and Great Victoria Street, which avoided having to buy any additional local tickets.

The failure series has resumed and not just the DD. Yesterday the 0735 ex Dublin failed and was replaced by a 29? The 1405 ex Belfast failed at Lisburn and was replaced by a C3K there is also one on 0650/0935 this morning

yes it is disappointing. I was due to take the 1650 yesterday but fortunately managed to take a very busy 1520 DD set. I noticed the 3 car NIR set leaving Dundalk so breathed a sigh of relief that I had caught the earlier service. The consistent problem with the Enterprise is the lack of resilience. When there is a problem it all goes pear shaped very quickly. its hard to understand why Translink and IE have never sorted this!

With only three train sets in daily use, a failure tends to stick out far more on the Enterprise than on other services.

Failures at Heuston tend not to stick out as much as they're likely to result in ICR sets being "stepped up", in other words moved up from other services until a replacement set arrives from the depot or the issue resolved.

They don't tend to have that luxury with the Enterprise.

Berney arms: I take your point about Heuston being better able to redeploy units when there is a failure. What would be interesting would be to compare the failure rates of Mk4 versus DD sets, say failures per 100 scheduled departures. They are after all performing much the same function, even though the journey performed by a Mk4 is about 50% longer than that of a DD.

Mark4 would defiantly outperform DD in failure rates. There has not really been that many failures lately however of the ones I have observed it has been loco issues which is not the problem on Belfast route.

Another difference is issues with Mark4 can often be fixed without removing it form service something which the DD cannot. Now the extra sets of course help in such events.

With the third set been delayed not back (due in Feb) it would be about time that it spend 4-6 weeks running empty up and down to Dublin and all the current issues addressed before it comes back. After all fleets entering service down here had to run around 10,000 km/h before a single passenger could board and be fault free.

To be fair you could probably count on a single hand how many times the 22's have not been available because of faults to carry out the scheduled to Belfast since they took over.

Jamie2k9: I would expect very little difference in loco-failure rates as between DD and Mark4 sets, at least since the DD locos are not having to use HEP, so they are all from the same stable as it were. Differences should really be down to the coaching stock, including the DVTs.

Yes neither would I but I am saying all the current issues with the DD have had little if no issues with the locomotives. If you were to compare both sets the bulk of the recent Mark4 issues have been locomotive faults and if a comparison was carried out the DD would fail miserably in comparison.

Is the fault board still giving all the trouble and/or one set over the other?

Furniture Rattling \ Vibrations
 

Does anyone know why the overhead furniture is all rattling now? In the front end of some carriages even the windows are vibrating. I'm not an engineer but the 4 50 from Connelly feels like the suspension is about to fail.

Can you do a complaint?

On the refurbished Enterprise for the first time and there seems to be some accessibility and language act issues.

The accessibility issues concern the toilets. Firstly, none of the door buttons are illuminated in any manner. You would think there was no electrical power available by the look of them.

Secondly, there is no internal feedback mechanism to indicate that the doors are locked or to warn a user that the lock hasn't been activated. This includes any audible signal.

The new passenger display system only appears to operate in English. There is no Irish content whatsoever. Meanwhile, the digital clock display has been replaced by a clock face which is pretty difficult to see at distance.

The signage in general is very hit and miss - certain doors have English evacuation instructions while others have Irish ones. Some buttons have English text above Irish and others vice-versa.

Who do I inform? It isn't strictly a complaint about the journey but about my concerns that certain legal requirements aren't being met.

I noticed this on my journey today. It seemed to be coming from the overhead luggage shelf.

Well I suspect that as a jointly operated international service, the Enterprise is exempt from the provisions of the Official Languages Act.

How is this an issue, what do other units have in IE stating the same thing.

Do the buttons not have lights.

Not traveled yet but take a look next time and if the rest of IE's fleet is anything to go by it will be one door English, one door opposite Irish and alternative through the train.

All legal requirements are been meet, most of what you mention is "choice"

Even numbered coaches are owned by translink and odd by IR. Are the notices with Irish first all odd numbered coaches?

The problem is that the buttons don't have any form of lighting and there is no audible warning that the toilet door has been left unlocked. You don't have any signal as to whether you have locked the toilet door or not.

Here we go again single C3K on 0800/1100

1100 25 minutes late today due to train fault.

A DD set went to Dublin this morning so that IR crews can be trained for April 10

It will be late every day from April 10th due to a timetable fault.

So it might finally happen!

IE or NIR fault?

Timetable already considers the issue with the Dundalk train, its overtaken using the loop at Clongriffin