Packed 4-coach 22k this morning
 

The 4 coach 22k has made an appearance on the 0545 from Sligo this morning. All seats gone in the rear coach at Enfield and seriously packed in from Maynooth. I guess this is the future but it makes for a significantly less comfortable journey in return for a 10% fare increase.

Hard to justify 2 vehicles all the way from Sligo just for Maynooth passengers.

The thing is I'm not just talking about Maynooth. There were people standing from Enfield which is almost an hour from Connolly on this train. If you have to do this 5 times a week, it gets old pretty quickly.

There is also the comfort factor for those of us coming from further out. I spend 3.5 hours per day on the train and have been doing so for 9 years with little prospect of any change in the near future given the dire state of the economy in the midlands. The only thing that makes it bearable is the comfort of having an empty seat beside you for a good chunk of the journey so that you can spread out a bit to make it easier to get a bit of work done. Yes, it's a bit of a first-world problem to be complaining about the lack of space but losing the space at the same time as a massive fare hike sticks in the craw just a bit.

It is perfectly justifiable to run 2 extra cars from Sligo give that this train fills a 2-hour hole in the Longford commuter timetable and so is the the train that several hundred people in Longford, Edgeworthstown, Mullingar, Enfield and Kilcock depend on for the ability to earn a livelihood. If Irish Rail can't afford the diesel they could consider stabling 2 or 3 extra cars in Longford overnight and hitching it up there.

As I said elsewhere, there is going to be an element of trial and error on this while the set reformation process is under way.

While you may get away with a 4 piece set on the next two departures, I'd suspect that this one will have to remain 2 x 3 piece.

There is a lot of equipment tied up on the Sligo line - six car sets appear to be an overkill in many instance, while three car sets are inadequate. Having said that, standing for an hour is unacceptable. Perhaps the 0545 from Sligo should run non-stop from Mullingar with a following service from Enfield.

Running a following stopping service doesn't really work as it would have to be at least 20 minutes behind and the 0545 gets you to town on time for 9AM. Adding another three cars in either Mullingar or Longford would work but the problem is that the two Longford-based drivers have left for the day running two earlier services and I guess you would have to have a driver in each set.

There is a lot of equipment tied up on the Sligo line primarily because there is a lot of traffic between Longford and Dublin but it is very strongly biased towards Dublin in the morning and away from Dublin in the afternoon.

But even services like the 15:05 to Sligo will run something like 70 - 80% full to Mullingar with a 6 car ICR. Cutting the capacity on the Sligo line is just stupid - all they are doing is driving business away. They will very quickly find themselves running 4 cars in place of 6 at the same occupancy level and while they will save something like 5-10% on running costs, they will find themselves losing 25-30% on income.

If they want to save money on the Sligo line, the way to go about it is to find ways of delivering more capacity to Longford without having it going to Sligo.

As I said above, there's probably scope for the 05:45 to remain 6-car along with the 17:05 return, but I'd imagine that all the other Sligo services will become 4-car or remain 3-car.

Fridays may require reconfigurating beyond that to match with the increased demand.

It's a lot quieter this week but it normally is quiet the week after a bank holiday. It will be interesting to see if traffic stabilises at a lower level.

On a related note, wasn't there an issue with a lack of sanding equipment that was preventing reformation of 22Ks into 4-car units? How did they ever get around that or did they just ignore it. The leaf-slip season seems to be a lot worse this year than it was last year but I guess it could just be something to do with the weather.

The centre car on a 3 car has no sanding equipment, some 4 car should have 1 B1 car and so should be better in poor conditions, but not all

Its unknown if mods were made to create more B1 cars

DART appears to be the main issue - severely impacting other services particularly on the northern line. Problem is greatly exacerbated by the half hourly Greystones service which means that delays in one direction are transferred to the other direction.

Do the RSC not require all services have B1 car?

No, 3 car set don't have them

Outer cars always have sanding equipment

0900 ex Sligo is a four car 22k set this morning

Very busy no room from Carrick / Longford onwards

I'd say they are tinkering, well hopefully as the config are not right at the moment.

I am going to refrain from giving out as I get shot down by other folk here on this forum.

So much for getting an earlier train for a little confort to avoid the 29k later on

No ticket inspection for the whole journey, normally they are rampant on the Sligo line at least once but almost every time checked twice.

So the future is 4 car sets on the Sligo line?
Just mothball it sure....

I love it when it is claimed that there is a fantasy the numbers just arent there on the Sligo line.... Sarcasm.

I'd also love to know the numbers using for example, m3 parkway clonsilla to warrant a 3 car 22k set most commonly or a 4 car 29k set. If they can put two car dart on off peak why cant they get a two car sets from the west or cork - Middleton line for m3 parkway clonsilla

I'd imagine that the future for most routes is 4 piece trains with occasional longer trains at peak times.

Personally, I think that there are going to be too few 3 piece sets available going forward to get train sizes right.

As for moving sets from Cork or Limerick - where are you magically going to find these? Virtually all of those sets are already in daily use (except for necessary maintenance cover)?

The M3 situation arises due to a combination of set availability and maintenance schedules. Bear in mind that sets have to be maintained during the day as well as at night.

When you say "no room" - what exactly do you mean?

No sitting room all seats taken, standing room only.

Plenty standing from Longford onwards to Dublin.

Im not giving out merely expressing a view. Thankfully I'd a seat as I started my journey in Sligo, but wouldnt have fancied paying an already extortianated fare to stand for an hour n three quarters

I don't necessarily disagree - but I do wonder how this is going to be sorted out, given that there will only be 18 3 piece sets to go around.

It's 100% fact there will be to many 4 and not enough 3 piece sets. If Sligo can't manage it then other routes won't be able to at all.

I think they are going to have to come up with a 50/50 split in train sizes only realistic options to reduce costs (from current levels) but maintain a service.

Oh for goodness sake - just go and sit on someone's knee :eek:

Midlands 103 10am: 17:05 last week was an absolute train crash
 

Childern & OAPs sitting on the floor in toilets.

I use the train for business & am back in the car this week - no seats from mullingar.

Midlands 103 are running a feature at 10am on it this morning.

Call in & voice your concerns.

Twitter hashtag #shorttrain

What kind of numptys are Irish Rail? This train is usually packed to the rafters as a 6-car. As a daily commuter I avoid it as a matter of course between October and Christmas. But 4 cars for the 17:05 is taking the piss.

7 cars for the 0545 this morning is lovely and comfy now that they have managed to drive away enough customers. 6 was right for this train on a Monday, 4 is too short but 7 is definitely too long now.

From the outset I felt this cost cutting project would come back to haunt them, in terms of capacity.

Cost cutting is fine provided service delivery is not impacted. But when customers start to leave out of sheer frustration then "Houston we have a problem".

There are two diagrams in Connolly that simply cannot get away with anything short of a six piece set - the 0545 from Sligo and the 1705 return, and the commuter diagram on the Northern Line.

But as we've seen even the 09:00 from Sligo suffered from long distance standing last week. I don't think that any reasonable person would consider standing from Longford acceptable.

They need to monitor this very carefully as otherwise people are just going to walk away.

The number of three car sets available is fairly limited - so I'd not be giving out about it being a 7 piece - better to have too much room than too little!!

Well, after using I.E.'s 'services' for over ten years the current moves have finally pushed me out. It is now quicker for me to drive as to get the train (probably to be expected but when I take into account journey times to and from stations it works out about 50% longer to take the train). It's now a lot more comfortable to drive (might sound like another 'to be expected' but I.E. themselves market train travel's comfort and now that they're putting woefully inadequate trains on at peak times any comfort is GONE). It's now as cheap for me the drive as get the train and that represents an EPIC fail in public transport policy. It would seem that IE are dependant on extortionate parking charges in the city to keep people on trains. Ah well, at least it won't be my problem much longer.

I am not surprised that people are turning away from the train service given the massive increase in cost and the reduction in service quality. So much for Irish Rails supposed new-found customer focus.

I am hoping that the present situation is temporarily especially bad just because there are a number of sets out of service due to being reconfigured. However, Irish Rail have dealt with this situation in a typical cack-handed way. I really think they should have held onto a few 6-car units - the Sligo line could definitely do with one for running the 0545 up train and the 1705 down train although it may be difficult to find gainful employment for the set during the day. It is obvious that there are going to be far too few 3-car sets.

The 1705 on a Friday should always be a 7-car formation but this is going to be difficult given how sparse the 3-car units are. The 1705 is busy enough on most days to warrant 6 cars. From what I understand, 8-car formations are not possible on the Sligo line, yet given that Irish Rail have so many 4-car sets, this is the only easy way to provide extra capacity on a Friday.

Appears 17.05 is back to a 6 piece, while the 16.00 has dropped to 4.

But that can only be a temporary solution given that 6-pieces are supposed to be going. This is utter madness. The 0545 is packed again this morning - a few standing from Mullingar, nobody from Enfield onwards with seats.

A friend was on the 1505 down train last Thursday after managing to get out from work early. It was a 3 car train and he stood all the way to Edgeworthstown.

These are people who get the train every day and who use the commute time to get some work done or to relax a bit on the the way to work. How can this possibly be positive Irish Rail's finances? With the fare increase, it is now getting marginal as to the difference in running cost for a cheap car if you have free parking in the city centre.

Would it be madness to suggest that this is deliberate in order to drive down the viability of the railway and so when the calls come to start shutting stuff down, people won't mind so much?

As a mullingar commuter I have no intention of paying nearly 1600 Euro a year net for my annual ticket to stand for 1.5 hours in both directions. Irish rail obviously don't have any mensa members! Cutting Capacity on peak services that were already busy is ridiculus

It should be perfectly possible to retain either 6pce or 7pce operation on the 05:45 from Sligo and 17:05 return with the stock available - while the sets are being reformed there may be an issue.

What was the 05:45 formed of this morning?

The 15:05 has always been a 3-car train, except on Fridays when it was extended to a 6 piece. So nothing has changed about that.

According to boards.ie the 5.40 Longford pearse is leaving people on the maynooth line behind due to being unable to board. That is a 4 coach 22k set.

Worrying to say the least!

IMO IE management should do the following with the fleet.

37 3 piece
15 4 piece
10 6 piece

All the high capacity 6 piece sets dropped into sets of 4. This way they would get savings, not quiet as much but savings all the same. There is no other way IE will reduce costs and keep customers at the same time.

I would imagine that a four-car 22k formed 0540 is more than adequate for traffic between Longford and at least Maynooth. Would it not be better to run this train non-stop from Maynooth (or Clonsilla) to Connolly and recast other services accordingly to accommodate intermediate traffic ?

That would be an excellent solution for both of the early Longford services - just run a stopping train immediately behind them. It is crazy running stopping commuter trains from as far Longford especially when one of them is an ICR which makes getting on and off extremely difficult. However, I would think that you would find that these services would end up very popular with Maynooth commuters as they would be about 15 minutes quicker than the other train on the line and so would end up jammed anyway.

Something is going to have to give with this on the Sligo line. The main issue is that probably 75% of the daily up traffic is on the first two trains and they really can't get away with running these as 4 cars without causing serious passenger discomfort.

They may have given up on 4 cars for the 0540 from Longford - the 1805 was 7 cars yesterday. So in effect, they have basically added an extra car to a train that was already fairly generously provisioned with 6 cars. This train was 4 cars on Monday and while crowded to Maynooth, wasn't that bad for most of the journey.

This whole thing has a whiff of new management coming in from England where crazy levels of peak-time overcrowding due to lack of capacity is completely the norm. In one week they have managed to turn the Sligo line into UK mode by putting the fares up 10% and cutting capacity so that everyone is crammed in like sardines.

But from what people on boards.is were saying, people were unable to board the train at ashtown yesterday.

The 5.40 indeed was a 7-coach this morning.

Just to point out the 5.40 originally started in maynooth. If they had expected these problems maybe they shouldn't have extended it to Longford.

But seriously the 05.40 is a commuter service, maybe the 8-coach 29k needs a return!

Part of the original justification for the massive 22k order was that no train journeys longer than one hour should be on commuter rolling stock. While Longford is technically a commuter run, it is a very long journey (2 hours 10 minutes to Pearse) to be making every day on noisy drafty commuter rolling stock where the tables are too small for more than one person in 4 to use a laptop. It is also an unacceptably long journey time for a run of around 75 miles.

If Irish Rail want to make efficiency savings on these runs, it would make a lot of sense to properly segregate Intercity, Regional and Local services on the Sligo line. The services have different rolling stock needs and it degrades the attractiveness of the Longford service to have the journey time extended in order to make something like 12 stops between Maynooth and the city. They could probably make massive fuel savings by cutting both early Longford trains to 4 cars and avoiding stops between Maynooth and the city.

Personally, I would switch back to an earlier train if it were a 22k and they could get the running time from Edgeworthstown down to 1'40 by making it express from Maynooth

A 4-car was introduced on the Mallow - Tralee line this morning, operating the 06:45 Cork to Tralee service.

4 car 29k this evening - the 6:05.pm to Longford. Packed to Kilkock